As, however, a comparison of the whole bill with the substitute which has
been offered by the Senator from New York is now the legitimate subject of
consideration, I suppose I may be allowed to say a word or two on those
amendments. Certainly, sir, I am opposed to the bill as it now stands upon
your table, if thosf amendments are to be persisted in. I regard the amend-
ment which authorizes the corporations of Georgetown and Washington and
the levy court of Washington county to proscribe, exile, and driv^ out of
their respective jurisdictions a certain class of freemen — for they are called
freemen in the bill itself — as utterly unconstitutional, and as utterly unjusti-
fiable. Why, sir, these amendments are of a nature to change the whole
character of the measure; and this bill, in the form in which it stands on
your table at this moment, is liable to be made the instrument of a policy as
odious and oppressive as the very traffic which it originally proposed to sup-
press. Instead of being a bill to abolish the traffic in slaves, it seems rather
about to be made a bill to create a traffic in freemen, for you allow the two
city governments to do what ? To remove, to exile, to drive out from their
respective jurisdictions any free coloredaf>ersons whom they shall not think
fit to have among them ; and in case any such persons should not exactly
comply with certain laws or regulations which may be prescribed on the sub-
ject of their residence or reinoval, you authorize these authorities to imprison



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them at labor without limit. And all this on the mere ground of their color^^
all this on account of their complexions. Why, th^ very jail, the very depot
which has been rendered so odious by this domestic* traffic in slaves, which
the Senator from Kentucky desires to suppress, may be Ui-ed for imprisoning
these free negroes, and turning them into virtual slaves hy makmg them
work for the public service against their will, and for no fault but that of
their skins. I therefore cordially unite with the Senator from New York in
his opposition to that part of the bill, and shall gladly cooperate with him in
striking it out. fiut his amendment goes further. 