of the subject out of doors, by refusing to receive petitions.  On the contrary, you give the petitioners new force and efficiency, by giving them a new cause of complaint and of excitement.  Nor do you attain any thing, so far as this House is concerned; for, by shutting out petitions, you do not shut out debate; any member of the House can bring on debate any day, by moving some general resolution applicable to the subject.  On the other hand, if it be so certain that Congress have no power in this matter, or having power, ought not to exercise it, then let the House establish those points in the usual way, by a deliberate report, elaborated in the closet, by a committee of the ablest men upon this floor, and considerately adopted by the House.  The argument by which this course is withstood, goes upon a false assumption.  It assumes for granted, that the People of the United States are not to be reasoned with; that their opinions can be put down by bold and broad assertions at this or the other end of the Capitol; and that they are not to be trusted with the facts and law of the case.  Here, again, as I conceive, gentlemen forget that this government is a republican one, resting exclusively in the intelligence and virtue of the People.  I, for one, am willing they should look into any of the clauses of the Constitution, and be fully informed of the merits of every question arising under it, never doubting that, in the end, their decision upon it will be just, true, and patriotic.  Or is it that gentlemen are afraid to meet a proper scrutiny of the subject?  Do they shrink from a fair and full examination of its merits or demerits?

Sir, allusion has been made, in an early stage of this debate, to the history of the excitement which once pervaded a considerable part of the country, in reference to the transportation of the mails on the Lord’s day.  It is undoubtedly a pregnant case, directly in point.  But I have another case, yet more cogent and pertinent.

Within less than one year after the adoption of the Constitution, there came to Congress petitions, chiefly from New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, and especially from the Society of Friends, praying Congress to suppress the slave trade, and to interpose, in various ways, within the limits of the several States, in the melioration of the condition of the colored population of the South.  I have examined the journals giving the record of the proceedings in this House; I have looked into the history of the times, to understand the grounds of the disposition then made of those petitions.  In the outset, I will observe, that the debates on the subject present a remarkable parallel with what has taken place under my own eyes in this House.  Messrs. Jackson, Baldwin, Tucker, Smith, and some other gentlemen from the South, insisted, as we now hear it insisted, that the petitions should be summarily rejected, without commitment.  They alleged the same reasons; such as unconstitutional