CHAPTER XI.

AGITATION-Three Eras of Slavery Agitation - Revolutionary EraMissouri Era-Present Era-Mr. Morris takes his Seat as Senator, in the beginning of the Present Era-Slavery and the Slave-Trade in the District of Columbia-Petitions to Congress-John Quincy Adams Threatened with Expulsion-Gag Resolutions of the House-Action in the Senate-Pro-Slavery Senators-Mr. Morris's Firmness-Resolution of the Senate-The Senate a Battle-Ground between Freedom and Slavery-Prediction of Mr. Morris - Senator Seward — Mr. Morris's Speech on the Right of Petition.

AGITATION is the source of light and progress, securing the triumph of truth and freedom, and the downfall of error and despotism. The Providence of God has no clearer confirmation and no nobler vindication, than in the ceaseless agitation to which slavery has been subjected during the last quarter of a century. Freedom, after a season of inaction, roused itself to resist the aggressions of slavery, and to turn once more the action of Government to its original purpose of securing and expanding the blessings of freedom, and to denationalize slavery. All efforts to prevent agitation, but increased its intensity and thoroughness. To silence the voice of freedom, political conventions in their platforms, decreed the doctrine of non-intervention and entire silence; legislatures in free States, interdicted its discussion; great ecclesiastical denominations held it as heresy, to canvass the claims of slavery, or to utter anathemas against it; the press secular and religious, made the subject contraband in its columns; commerce and social influence labored to prevent its examination and expo

sure; and all possible efforts were combined to keep slavery from the searching ordeal of light and discussion. These efforts however, were unsuccessful. Freedom was too powerful for slavery; and in defiance of political, commercial and religious edicts, agitation increased till it became the absorbing subject of discussion and action of the American people and Government.

Three distinct eras mark the agitation of slavery. The First was, when the Constitution of the United States was formed, continuing till about 1808, the year in which the slave-trade ceased by law; the Second, when the State of Missouri sought admission into the Union with a Constitution establishing slavery, which produced a profound excitement throughout the country, and which was quieted by the Act of Compromise, which gave to freedom all the National Territory north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes; the Third began about 1832, and has been ever since, waxing deeper and stronger.

Thomas Morris took his seat in the Senate of the United States at the commencement of the Third Era of the political agitation of slavery, in which he bore a distinguished part till his death.

Petitions to abolish the slave trade in the District of Columbia, were sent to Congress as early as 1814. The traffic in human beings, shamelessly prosecuted in the Capitol of a Free Republic, and in view of the assembled legislators of the nation and the Representatives from Foreign countries, was deemed, even by the inhabitants of the District, a National reproach. Judge Morrill, of the Circuit Court of the United States, in charging the Grand Jury, declared: "That the frequency with which the streets of Washington city had been crowded with manacled captives, sometimes on the Sabbath, could not fail to shock the feelings of all humane persons." In the same year, 1816, John Randolph, made a motion that a Committee in Congress be appointed, which was carried, to report

"what measures were necessary to put a stop to the slave trade in the District."

In 1828, more than one thousand inhabitants of the District, petitioned Congress to abolish the slave trade. In 1829, the Grand Jury of the District sent a report to Congress in which they prayed, "That provisions might be made to prevent slave dealers, from making the cities of the District, Depots for the imprisonment of the slaves they collected. It is believed the whole community would be gratified by the interference of Congress for the suppression and the exclusion of this disgusting traffic from the District."

In 1830, the Washington Spectator, echoing the public sentiment in an article on the Slave Trade in the Capitol, told the American people "That at the very time when the procession, which contained the President (Jackson) of the United States and his Cabinet, were marching in triumph to the Capitol, a procession of colored human beings, handcuffed in pairs, were driven in another direction to a slave ship, where, with others, they were to embark and be conveyed to the South. Where is the O'Connell that will plead for the emancipation of the District of Columbia."

These were the sentiments of the great body of the people in the Free States; and availing themselves of their Constitutional right to petition Congress for a redress of grievances, they sent, during the Senatorial term of Mr. Morris, numerous petitions, praying for the suppression of the Slave traffic, and the abolishment of slavery in the District of Columbia.

When these petitions were presented to the House of Representatives, the slave power was indignant, and Mr. Speight of North Carolina, said: "Nothing but respect for the Speaker, as an officer of the House, and his character, prevented him from rushing to the table and tearing the petition to pieces." "I warn these petitioners

said another, Mr. Hammond, of South Carolina, "ignorant, infatuated barbarians as they are, that if chance shall throw any of them into our hands, they may expect a felon's death."

John Quincy Adams, Ex-President of the United States, and, subsequently for ten years, member of Congress from Massachusetts, presented a petition to abolish slavery in the District. Mr. Thompson of South Carolina, rose, and threatened him with expulsion from the House, and an indictment before the Grand Jury. "He may yet be amenable to the Grand Jury, and we may yet see an incendiary brought to justice." To prevent agitation on the subject of slavery, and to intimidate the freemen of the North from sending their petitions to Congress, the House, on the 26th of May, 1836, passed the following resolution:

"Resolved, That all petitions, memorials, resolutions, and propositions, relating in any way, or to any extent whatever to the subject of slavery, shall, without being read, printed, or referred, be laid on the table, and that no further action whatever shall be had thereon." The preamble declared the object to be, "That all agitation on the subject of slavery should be finally arrested, for the purpose of restoring tranquillity to the public mind."

The same spirit and purpose reigned in the Senate. On the 7th of January, 1836, Mr. Morris presented several petitions from the citizens of Ohio, asking the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. Mr. Calhoun, of South Carolina, rose and said: "It was not within the power of Congress to legislate on the subject; that one half of the Union was deeply slandered in these petitions; that receiving them would continue agitation; that agitation was what the South feared, because it would compel the Southern press to discuss slavery in the very presence of the Slaves, who would be induced to believe that there was a powerful party at the North ready to

assist them; I object to receiving these petitions because they were sundering the ties that bound this Union. together."

Mr. King, of Alabama, afterward Vice President of the United States, said: "He believed those miserable fanatics would yet become enlightened, and the spell of their delusion be dispelled."

Mr. Leigh, of Virginia, said: "The conduct of these petitioners was injurious, offensive, and calculated to produce agitation in our social relations, and to jeopardize the Union. Dr. Channing, of Boston, in 1836, published his views of American slavery; in reference to that Book Mr. Leigh declared, "That he never read any paper that filled him with deeper sorrow. It had done more to weaken the brotherly love of our Northern brethren than the whole exertions of the despicable company of abolitionists put together. It had no sympathy for the whites of his own race."

Mr. Preston, of South Carolina, said "The Government should say to the South, that we can't receive the petitions of hot-headed and cold-hearted fanatics, who are waging a war of extermination against us. We ask, that Congress will distinctly and positively interfere between us and these fanatics. Let an Abolitionist come within the borders of South Carolina; if we can catch him we will try him, and notwithstanding all the interference of all the governments on earth, including the Federal Government, we will hang him."

Mr. Strange, of North Carolina, said "I most confidently believe that the institution of slavery is favorable to the highest development of the freemen who live within its influence; that it promotes the growth of all the nobler and generous qualities of our nature in every bosom, except perhaps, that of the slave himself. The current of fanaticism which has crossed the Atlantic, has swept away in its course, one of our sovereign States, and