states, not comprised within the original boundary of the United States,
to _make the prohibition of slavery_ a condition of their admission into
the Union: Therefore,

Resolved, That our Senators be instructed, and our members of
Congress be requested, to oppose the admission as a state into the
Union, of any territory not comprised as aforesaid, without making
_the prohibition of slavery_ therein an indispensible condition of
admission."
]

The tenor of Mr. Tallmadge's speech on the right of petition, and of Mr.
Webster's on the reception of abolition memorials, may be taken as
universal exponents of the sentiments of northern statesmen as to the
power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia.

An explicit declaration, that an "_overwhelming majority_" of the
_present_ Congress concede the power to abolish slavery in the District
has just been made by Robert Barnwell Rhett, a member of Congress from
South Carolina, in a letter published in the Charleston Mercury of Dec.
27, 1837. The following is an extract:

"The time has arrived when we must have new guaranties under the
constitution, or the Union must be dissolved. _Our views of the
constitution are not those of the majority_. AN OVERWHELMING MAJORITY
_think that by the constitution, Congress may abolish slavery in the
District of Columbia--may abolish the slave trade between the States;
that is, it may prohibit their being carried out of the State in which
they are--and prohibit it in all the territories, Florida among them.
They think_, NOT WITHOUT STRONG REASONS, _that the power of Congress