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1 J. J. Crittenden, Speech of Hon. J. J. Crittenden, of Kentucky, on the Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia, Delivered in the House of Representatives, April 11, 1862 1 (1862)

handle is hein.slavery/spjjcritky0001 and id is 1 raw text is: SPEECH OF HON. J, J, CRITTENDEN, OF KENTUCKY, ON THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN T.E DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, APRIL 11, 1862. The House, as in Committee of the Whole, having under consideration the bill for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, Mr. CRITTENDEN said: 11r. CHAIRMAN: There is no affectation in my saying that I rise with reluctance and diffidence to address the House on the ques- tion presented by this bill. I have almost feared, sir, to speak upon any of the great questions which have been presented to this House during the present session-during, indeed, I may say, the present Congress. They have been of a characterso lnomen- tous that I have dreaded even to give my poor counsels upon the subjects under consideration. We require all the wisdom and all the temperance of the country to guide us safely. We are upon no summer sea, sir. We are in the midst of the storm of war, our country convulsed frcm one end to the other, and the issue for a long time doubtfull; no man could tell what was reserved for us in the destiny of nations. It was enough to awe all men, and to put all men upon the deepest sense of their responsibility. I have felt it, sir, to an oppressive degree. The situation was novel to me, novel to the Congress of the United States; without a parallel, perhaps, I might say, in the history of the whole world. Where did rebellion ever assume such gi- gantic proportions as it has assumed here? Where was there ever so much to be destroyed, not merely in the material prosperity of the country, but in institutions such as afforded the greatest and the only promise to mankind of any great amelioration of their condition? There cannot be situations of more responsibility than those we occupy or have occupied. But, sir' I do not propose to expend my time on these gerierali- ties. The immediate question before us is the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. That is the object proposed in the bill under consideration. It has been a question for a long time agitating the country. Pfor the first thirty or forty years of our existence as a nation, the records of Congress bear no evidence of any such motion ever having been made, of any measure hav- ing ever been proposed -for the abolition of slavery here, or to

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