The new Abolitionists were naturally of a more moderate type than Garrison, and most of them would listen only to regular legal methods for the accomplishment of their purposes. The quickening of the public opinion in the North, the conviction of the slaveholders themselves of the error, if not the sin, of slavery, and the appeal to the Government to do all within its constitutional powers against slavery, were the only means which many of them were willing to employ. Their petitions to Congress, and the transmission of their literature of Abolition to the Southerners through the United States mails, brought the whole question of their rights and purposes before the Government, and before the nation, for which that Government was bound to act with impartial justice to all its parts.
| The Abolition petitions. |
Petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia had been sent to Congress, generally from Quaker sources, almost from the day that the capital of the country was established there, but they were not numerous and were not pushed by any anti-slavery organization. In the session of 1826-27, a petition from citizens of Baltimore, probably instigated by Benjamin Lundy, was presented, which contained the same prayer; and in the session of 1827-28, one of like tenor from citizens of the District itself was presented. Such petitions were usually read and referred to the committee on the District. They were irritating to the slaveholders from the first, but it was not until after the excitement of the Southampton massacre that they were angrily resented as an interference with the domestic institutions of the slaveholding Commonwealths.
It was in the session of 1831-32, that the first mutterings of the petition storm were heard. On December 12th, 1831, Mr. John Quincy Adams presented, in the House of Representatives, fifteen petitions from sundry inhabitants of Pennsylvania, the chief prayer of all of which was for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. Mr. Adams said that he would give no countenance to that prayer, but that there was a prayer in the petitions for the abolition of the slave-trade in the District, which, he thought, might properly be considered, and he moved the reference of the petitions, for this purpose, to the regular committee of the House for the District.
There was in this little to indicate the terrible earnestness which Mr. Adams later displayed in behalf of the Abolition petitions. He seemed at this time to be annoyed at being asked to present them, and to feel that there were superior moral reasons why a slavery agitation should not be excited within the halls of Congress. But all this was soon to change. Mr. Adams's advance toward radical Abolitionism is as marked a feature of the struggle over the right of petition as Mr. Calhoun's declaration of the righteousness of slavery.
| The earlier method of dealing with the petitions. |
The committee on the District reported, on December 19th, that as the District was composed of cessions of territory from Maryland and Virginia, it would, in the opinion of the members of the committee, be unwise, if not unjust, for Congress to interfere in the question of the relation of slave to master in the District, until Virginia and Maryland should take steps to eradicate the evil from their respective territories. This report seemed to settle the question for the session, and no more petitions appeared in either House.
In the middle of the next session, Mr. Hiester, of Pennsylvania, presented a petition to the House of Representatives from sundry citizens of Pennsylvania praying for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. This was again a Quaker petition, as were the petitions presented by Mr. Adams. Mr. Hiester moved to refer the petition to the committee on the District, and Mr. Mason, of Virginia, rashly called for the yeas and nays, which opened the question to debate. Mr. Adams immediately pointed out this fact to Mr. Mason, and advised him to withdraw his motion, which advice Mr. Mason wisely adopted. The petition went to the Committee, and nothing further was heard of it.