Mr. Marshall, from the joint committee appointed to consider and report what measures ought to be adopted in honor of the memory of General Washington, made another report in part, which was unanimously agreed to by the House, in the words following, to wit:
Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled, That it be recommended to the people of the United States to assemble on the twenty-second day of February next, in such numbers and manner as may be convenient, publicly to testify their grief for the death of General George Washington, by suitable eulogies, orations, and discourses, or by public prayers.
And be it further resolved, That the President of the United States be requested to recommend the same, by a proclamation for that purpose.
Ordered, That the Clerk of this House do carry the said resolutions to the Senate, and desire their concurrence.
Thursday, January 2, 1800.
Richard Dobbs Spaight, from North Carolina, appeared, produced his credentials, was qualified, and took his seat.
Petition of Free Blacks.
Mr. Waln presented a petition of Absalom Jones and others, free men of color, of the city and county of Philadelphia, praying for a revision of the laws of the United States relative to the slave trade; of the act relative to fugitives from justice; and for the adoption of such measures as shall in due course emancipate the whole of their brethren from their present situation; which he moved to have referred to the committee appointed to inquire whether any and what alterations ought to be made in the existing law prohibiting the slave trade from the United States to any foreign place or country.
The petitioners, after mentioning their sense of the bounties of Providence in their freedom, and the happiness they felt under such a form of Government, represent that they cannot but be impressed with the hardships under which numbers of their color labored, who they conceived equal objects of representation and attention with themselves or others under the constitution. That the solemn compact, the constitution, was violated by the trade of kidnapping, carried on by the people of some of the Southern States on the shores of Maryland and Delaware, by which numbers were hurried into holes and cellars, torn from their families and transported to Georgia, and there inhumanly exposed to sale, which was degrading to the dignified nature of man. That by these and other measures injurious to the human species, there were 700,000 blacks now in slavery in these States. They stated their application to Congress to be, not for the immediate emancipation of the whole, knowing that their degraded state and want of education would render that measure improper, but they ask an amelioration of their hard situation. They prayed that the act called the fugitive bill, which was very severe on that race of people, might be considered; also that the African slave trade might be put a stop to.
Mr. Waln moved its reference to the committee appointed to prohibit carrying on the slave trade to any foreign place or country.