The true Democrat., 1856-07-29
EEr. DuChanan's Record.

On the 7th of January, 1886, Mir. Buchanan presented to the Senate memorial from a so- cietv of Friends in Pennsylvania, requesting Congress to abolish slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia. Mr. Buchanan urged the necessity of adopting some mode of dsposing of all such petitions without debate expressing his decided conviction that the pray CT of the petition should not be granted, and stating:
 eff any one principle of constitutional law can at this day be considered as settled, it is that Congress had no right, DO power, over the question of slavery in those States where 1t ex- ists. The property of the master in his slave existed in full force before the federal constltu- ton was adopted. It was a subject that then belonged as it still belongs to the exclusive ju- risdiction of the southern states. These states by the adoption of the constitution never yield: ed to the general government any right to in terfere with the question. It remains where It was previous to the establishment of our con- federacy.
 "The constitution has in the clearest terms recognized the right of property in slaves. It prohibits any state into which a slave may have fled from passing any law to discharge him from slavery, and declares that he shall be de- livered up by the authorities of such state to his master; nay more, it makes the existence of slavery the foundation of political power by oiving to those states within which it exists re- presenlatives in Congress, not only in propor- tion to the whole number of free persons, but also in proportion to three -ffths of the number of slaves"
 After showing that Congress, on the 23d day of March, l79O, had so determined, and that the Union would be dissolved at the moment an effort would be seriously made by the free states in Congress to pass such laws, he states:
 "What then are the circumstances under which these memorials are now presented? A number of fanatics, led on by foreign lncendla- ries, have been scattering arrows, fire brands and death throughout the southern states; the natural tendency of their publications is to pro- duce dissatisfaction and revolt among the slaves, and to incite their wild passions to vengeance. | All history, as well as the present condition of the slaves, proves that there can be no danger of a servile war but in the meantime what dread fiji scenes may be enacted before such an in- surrecton, which would spare neither age nor sex. could be suppressed; what agony of mind must be suffered, especially by the genter sex, in consequence of these publications? Many q mother clasps her infant to her bosom when she retires to rest, under dreadful apprehensions that she may be aroused from her slumbers by the savage wells of the slaves by whom she Is surrounded. These are the works of the abo- itionists. That their motives may be honest do not doubt, but their zeal is without knowl- edge. The history of the human race presents numerous examples of ignorant enthusiasts, the purity of whose intentions can not be doubted, who have spread devastation and bloodshed over the face of the earth.' * *
 "Ths being true statement of the case as ap- nlied to the states where slavery exists, what is now asked by these memorialists? That ill this District of ten miles square, a District carved out of two slaveholding states, and surrounded