[Footnote A: One dealer, John Armfield, advertises in the National
Intelligencer of the 10th of February last, that he has three vessels in
the trade, and they will leave the port of Alexandria on the first and
fifteenth of each month.]

In the city which bears the name of the Father of his country, dealers
in human flesh receive licenses for the vile traffic, at four hundred
dollars each per annum; and the gazettes of the Capital have their
columns polluted with the advertisements of these men, offering cash for
children and youth, who, torn from their parents and families, are to
wear out their existence on the plantations of the south.[A] For the
safe keeping of these children and youth, till they are shipped for the
Mississippi, private pens and prisons are provided, and the UNITED
STATES' JAIL used when required. The laws of the District in relation to
slaves and free negroes are of the most abominable and iniquitous
character. Any free citizen with a dark skin, may be arrested on
pretence of being a fugitive slave, and committed to the UNITED STATES'
PRISON, and unless within a certain number of days he proves his
freedom, while immured within its walls, he is, under authority of
Congress, sold as a slave for life. Do you ask why? Let the blood mantle
in your cheeks, while we give you the answer of the LAW--"to pay his
jail fees!!"

[Footnote A: Twelve hundred negroes are thus advertised for in the
National Intelligencer of the 28th of March last. The negroes wanted are
generally from the age of ten or twelve years to twenty-five, and of
both sexes.]

On the 11th of January, 1827, the Committee for the District of