Sir, I am a republican; and I desire to see this House observe the principles of that democracy which is ever on the lips of its members, and which, I hope, is in their hearts, as I know and feel it is in mine, and mean it shall be in my conduct.  This Republic was called into being, organized, and is upheld, by a great political doctrine.  That doctrine is, that the People alone are supreme; that they are the fountains of power; that all magistrates are the delegated agents of the People, for the purposes limited and prescribed in their letters of appointment, and the general laws of the land; that the constituents of a member of this House have the right to give instructions to him individually; and that every individual one of the People has a right to be heard by petition on the floor of this House.  These are among the things which I understand to constitute the principles of democracy:  those general principles, which I learned in my boyhood with my catechism, in the bill of rights prefixed to the constitution of my own State; which, on maturer study, I have seen to be avowed more or less distinctly, in all the constitutions of this Republic, and of each of its constituent Republics; which I perceive to be defended and applauded in the writings of the great text authors of political science in modern times; and which after being for the first time practically exemplified in our own institutions, have gone forth over the universe, toppling down thrones, and raising up freemen, through all the nations of Christendom.

And whilst I feel impelled by such convictions to resist the summary rejection of this Petition upon principle, I am irresistibly led to the same conclusion by considerations of policy and expediency.  I deny that such considerations should decide the question; but seeing they have been urged into it, I shall concede to them all due respect.

We have been told that the prayer of the Petition is for a thing which the Constitution does not permit to Congress, and so the petition itself should not be received.  I ask of the House how it appears that we have no right by the Constitution to legislate upon the subject matter of the Petition?  It may be so; and it may not.  One member of the House has earnestly averred that it is; another that it is not.  Which of them is right?  I confess, for myself, that I cannot think it becomes the House to decide either way, upon the mere ipse dixit of individual members.  Besides, the Petition calls in question not only slavery, but also the commerce in slaves.  And will any gentleman affirm that the slave trade of the District is among those holy things which Congress may not constitutionally handle?  Is this District set apart by the Constitution, under whatever changes of opinion or fact the progress of civilization may introduce, to be unchangeably and forever a general slave market for the rest of the Union?  I confess that I, again, am disappointed in that, among all the confident things said in denial