the people.

But this resolution is no less barbarous than it is profligate and
impudent. Remember, fellow countrymen! that the decree has gone forth,
that there shall be no legislation by Congress, _in any way_, or to _any
extent whatever_, on the subject of slavery. Now call to mind, that
Congress is the local and only legislature of the District of Columbia,
which is placed by the Constitution under its "exclusive jurisdiction
_in all cases whatsoever_." In this District, there are thousands of
human beings divested of the rights of humanity, and subjected to a
negotiable despotism; and Congress is the only power that can extend the
shield of law to protect them from cruelty and abuse; and that shield,
it is now resolved, shall not be extended in any way, or to any extent!
But this is not all. The District has become the great slave-market of
North America, and the port of Alexandria is the Guinea of our proud
republic, whence "cargoes of despair" are continually departing[A].

[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