In the city which bears the name of the Father of his country, dealers in human flesh receive licenses for the vile traffic, at four hundred dollars each per annum; and the gazettes of the Capital have their columns polluted with the advertisements of these men, offering cash for children and youth, who, torn from their parents and families, are to wear out their existence on the plantations of the south.[A] For the safe keeping of these children and youth, till they are shipped for the Mississippi, private pens and prisons are provided, and the UNITED STATES' JAIL used when required. The laws of the District in relation to slaves and free negroes are of the most abominable and iniquitous character. Any free citizen with a dark skin, may be arrested on pretence of being a fugitive slave, and committed to the UNITED STATES' PRISON, and unless within a certain number of days he proves his freedom, while immured within its walls, he is, under authority of Congress, sold as a slave for life. Do you ask why? Let the blood mantle in your cheeks, while we give you the answer of the LAW--"to pay his jail fees!!" [Footnote A: Twelve hundred negroes are thus advertised for in the National Intelligencer of the 28th of March last. The negroes wanted are generally from the age of ten or twelve years to twenty-five, and of both sexes.] On the 11th of January, 1827, the Committee for the District of Columbia, (themselves slaveholders) introduced a bill providing that the jail fees should hereafter be a county charge. The bill did not pass; and by the late resolution, a statute unparalleled for injustice and atrocity by any mandate of European despotism, is to be like the law of the Medes and Persians, that altereth not, since no proposition for its repeal or modification can be entertained. The Grand Jury of Alexandria presented the slave trade of that place, as "disgraceful to our character as citizens of a free government," and as "a grievance demanding legislative redress;" that is, the interposition of Congress--but one hundred and seventeen men have decided that there shall be "no action whatever" by Congress in relation to slavery. In March, 1816, John Randolph submitted the following resolution to the House of Representatives: "_Resolved_, That a Committee be appointed to inquire into the existence of an _inhuman_ and illegal traffic of slaves, carried on in and through the District of Columbia, and to report whether any, and what measures are necessary for putting a stop to the same." The COMPACT had not then been formed and the resolution _was adopted_. Such a resolution would _now_ "be laid on the table," and treated with silent contempt.