Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/618

 some parts of the Union. Since the retrocession of Alexandria county to Virginia, on the south side of the Potomac, the district now consists only of "Washington county, on the north side of that river; and the returns of the decenary enumeration of the people of the United States show a rapidly pro-gressing decrease in the number of slaves in Washington county. According to the census of 1830, the number was 4,505; and in 1840 it was reduced to 3,320; showing a reduction in ten years of nearly one-third. If it should continue in the same ratio, the number, according to the census now about to be taken, will be only a little upward of two thousand.

"But a majority of the committee think differently in regard to the slave trade within the district. By that trade is meant the introduction of slaves from adjacent states into the district, for sale, or to be placed in depot for the purpose of subsequent sale or transportation to other and distant markets. That trade, a majority of the committee are of opinion, ought to be abolished. Complaints have always existed against it, no less on the part of members of congress from the south than on the part of members from the north. It is a trade sometimes exhibiting revolting spectacles, and one in which the people of the district have no interest, but, on the contrary, are believed to be desi-rous that it should be discontinued. Most, if not all, of the slaveholding states have, either in their constitutions or by penal enactments, prohibited a trade in slaves as merchandise within their respective jurisdictions. Congress, standing in regard to this district, on this subject, in a relation similar to that of the state legislatures to the people of the states, may safely follow the ex-ample of the states. The committee have prepared, and herewith report, a bill for the abolition of that trade (marked D), the passage of which they recommend to the senate. This bill has been framed after the model of what the law of Maryland was when the general government was removed to Wash-ington.

"The views and recommendations contained in this report may be recapitu-lated in a few words:

"1. The admission of any new state or states formed out of Texas to be postponed until they shall hereafter present themselves to be received into the Union, when it will be the duty of congress fairly and faithfully to execute the compact with Texas, by admitting such new state or states.

"2. The admission forthwith of California into the Union, with the bound-aries which she has proposed.

"3. The establishment of territorial governments, without the Wilmot proviso, for New Mexico and Utah, embracing all the territory recently acquired by the United States from Mexico, not contained in the boundaries of California.

"4. The combination of these two last mentioned measures in the same bill.

"5. The establishment of the western and northern boundaries of Texas, and the exclusion from her jurisdiction of all New Mexico, with the grant to Texas of a pecuniary equivalent; and the section for that purpose to be incorporated