Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/536

 Slade, of Vt., Clark, Denny and Potts, of Penn. The second resolution was adopted the next day, 132 to 45; the third 117 to 68.

In the senate, the principal discussion on the disposal of abolition petitions was upon one from the society of the "Friends" in the state of Pennsylvania, adopted at the Cain quarterly meeting. It was presented the 11th of January, by Mr. Buchanan, who said he was in favor of giving the memorial a respectful reception; but he wished to put the question at rest. He should therefore move that the memorial be read, and that the prayer of the memorialists be rejected. The question on receiving the petition was, on the 9th of March, decided in the affirmative: ayes, 36; noes, 10; the latter all from southern senators. On the 11th, the whole subject, including the rejection of the petition, was agreed to, 34 to 6. Those who voted in the negative, were Messrs. Davis and Webster, from Mass., Prentiss, of Vt., Knight, of R. L, and Southard, of New Jersey.

But the most important action of the senate was upon a bill to prohibit the circulation of abolition publications by mail. The president had in his annual message called the attention of congress to the subject. He said: "I must also invite your attention to the painful excitement produced in the south, by attempts to circulate, through the mails, inflammatory appeals addressed to the passions of the slaves, in prints, and in various sorts of publications, calculated to stimulate them to insurrection, and to produce all the horrors of a servile war." He said it was "fortunate for the country, that the good sense and generous feeling of the people of the non-slaveholding states "were so strong" against the proceedings of the misguided persons who had engaged in these unconstitutional and wicked attempts, as to authorize the hope that these attempts will no longer be persisted in." But if these expressions or the public will should not effect the desirable result, he did "not doubt that the non-slaveholding states would exercise their authority in suppressing this interference with the constitutional rights of the south." And he would respectfully suggest the passing of a law that would "prohibit, under severe penalties, the circulation in the southern states, through the mail, of incendiary publications, intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection."

This part of the message was, on motion of Mr. Calhoun, referred to a select committee, which, in accordance with his wishes, was composed mainly of senators from the slaveholding states. They were Messrs. Calhoun, King, of Georgia, Mangum, Linn, and Davis; the last alone being from the free states. The report of the committee was made the 4th of February. Notwithstanding four-fifths of its members were southern, only Messers. Calhoun and Mangum were in favor of the entire report. The accompanying bill prohibited postmasters from knowingly putting into the mail any printed or written paper or pictorial representation relating to slavery addressed to any person in a state in which their circulation was forbidden; and it prohibited postmasters in such state from delivering such papers to any person not authorized by the laws of the state to receive them. And the postmasters of the offices where such papers were deposited, were required to give notice of the same from time to