condition of the African race”--a society which deserves especial mention here, as one of the latest acts of its useful and honorable career, has been to support the defence in the Treason trials, to a history of which this brief essay is intended as a preface. A petition of the same nature, as that of the Yearly Meetings, was presented from this Society and signed by Franklin--this being perhaps the last official act of a strangely varied life, in the whole course of which it would be difficult to point out a single step taken unadvisedly, or a word uttered which the speaker would afterwards have wished to retract. After a long recital, the memorial concluded, by praying “that Congress would promote mercy and justice towards this distressed race; and step to the very verge of the power vested in them, for discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow men.” It would be difficult for any but a congressman, looking at this paper now, to find in it the materials for excited debate, or, at any rate, for violent invectives against the impertinence of its framers. It certainly does not arrogate the privilege of judging or even suggesting the course which it behoved Congress to take. With mingled modesty and confidence, it is left to more deliberate counsels to determine what may be and what ought to be done, the petitioners only imploring, for the sake of humanity, religion, and consistency, that all which could be done, should be done. If such was the spirit that offered it, that which received it was widely different. The debate of the previous day was renewed with additional violence--policy, interest, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, history, antiquity, justice, religion, and the Bible, were as usual confidently invoked to the support of both sides. The house was divided much in the same way as the Convention had been on the same subject. But the debate is entitled to particular notice, as opening for the first time the constitutional question which for many years agitated both houses, as to how far Congress could be considered as true to its duty in refusing to listen to and to commit any memorial whatever, not flatly absurd and extravagant--no matter how certain might be the fate which in committee it was doomed to meet. The negative was earnestly insisted upon by Madison and Paige from Virginia, and the petition was finally committed by a vote of forty-three to eleven. After a month’s deliberation the committee produced an elaborate report, submitting that Congress had no power to abolish the slave trade till 1808, though they might regulate the manner in which it was conducted, and impose the tax of ten dollars if they saw fit; that they had no power to emancipate the slaves already held in the various States, nor to interfere with the domestic legislation by which the several State legislatures might see fit to govern or educate this species of property; but that they had the