" Never again while the present rule of order is in force, can
similar instructions be given to a committee--never again shall even an
inquiry be made into the expediency of abolishing slavery and the
slave-trade in the District. What stronger evidence can we have, of the
growing and spreading corruption caused by slavery, than that one
hundred and seventeen republican legislators professed believers in
Christianity--many of them from the North, aye even from the land of the
Pilgrims, should strive to render such curses PERPETUAL!
The flagitiousness of this resolution is aggravated if possible by the
arbitrary means by which its adoption was secured. No representative of
the People was permitted to lift up his voice against it--to plead the
commands of the Constitution which is violated--his own privileges and
duties which it contemned--the rights of his constituents on which it
trampled--the chains of justice and humanity which it impiously
outraged. Its advocates were afraid and ashamed to discuss it, and
forbidding debate, they perpetrated in silence the most atrocious act
that has ever disgraced an American Legislature[A].
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