“_Resolved_, That so much of the President’s Message as relates to the present agitated and distracted condition of the country, and the grievances between the slaveholding and the non-slaveholding States, be referred to a special committee of thirteen members, and that said committee be instructed to inquire into the present condition of the country and report by bill or otherwise.” In the consideration of this resolution a debate ensued on the state of the Union, and the resolution was adopted December 18th. The committee appointed by the Vice-President, Mr. Breckinridge, was Mr. Powell of Kentucky, the mover, Mr. Hunter of Virginia, Mr. Crittenden of Kentucky, Mr. Seward of New York, Mr. Toombs of Georgia, Mr. Douglas of Illinois, Mr. Collamer of Vermont, Mr. Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, Mr. Wade of Ohio, Mr. Bigler of Pennsylvania, Mr. Rice of Minnesota, Mr. Doolittle of Wisconsin, and Mr. Grimes of Iowa. December 31st, Mr. Powell reported to the Senate “that the Committee have not been able to agree upon any general plan of adjustment.” In the propositions offered in committee by Mr. Douglas we first meet that for the disfranchisement of the colored race, even where already voters, which was part of the Crittenden Compromise in its final form.[129] Immediately after the first reading of Mr. Powell’s resolution for the appointment of a committee Mr. Sumner spoke as follows. MR. PRESIDENT,--I have no desire to make a speech at this time, nor to take any part in the discussion that has commenced. I can bear yet a little longer the misrepresentations in the President’s Message, and I believe the North can bear them yet a little longer. The time will come, perhaps, when I shall deem it my duty to set forth those things in the light of reason and of history; meanwhile I content myself with simply offering to the Senate testimony of direct and most authoritative bearing upon the present state of the Union. If I may adopt the language of the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. JEFFERSON DAVIS], it will help us to make the diagnosis of the present disease in the body politic. I hold in my hand an unpublished autograph letter, written by General Jackson while President of the United States, and addressed to a clergyman in a slaveholding State. Omitting certain sentences which are of a purely private nature, the letter is as follows. “[_Private._] “WASHINGTON, May 1, 1833.