"I hope I may be excused if I add that the subject which engages us, is one in which it is our right to act--as much our right to act, as it is the right of those who differ with us not to act. If we believe in the existence of a great moral and political evil amongst us, and that duty, honor and interest call upon us to prepare the way for its removal, we must act. All that can be asked of us is, that we act discreetly--with a just regard to the rights and feelings of others;--that we make due allowances for those who differ with us; receive their opposition with patience, and overcome it by the fruits that a favoring Providence, to which we look, may enable us to present from our labors." The next passages were from a speech of Mr. Custis, as follows: "Sir, the prosperity and aggrandizement of a State is to be seen in its increase of inhabitants, and consequent progress in industry and wealth. Of the vast tide of emigration, which now rushes like a cataract to the West, not even a trickling rill wends its feeble course to the Ancient Dominion.--Of the multitude of foreigners who daily seek an asylum and a home, in the empire of Liberty, how many turn their steps toward the regions of the slave? None. No not one. There is a malaria in the atmosphere of those regions, which the new comer shuns, as being deleterious to his views and habits. See the wide-spreading ruin which the avarice of our ancestral government has produced in the South, as witnessed in a sparse population of freemen, deserted habitations, fields without culture, and, strange to tell, even the wolf, which, driven back long since by the approach of man, now returns, after the lapse of an hundred years, to howl o'er the desolations of slavery. "Where, I ask, is the good ship Virginia, in the array of the national fleet? Drifting down the line, sir,--third, soon to be fourth. Where next?--following in the wake of those she formerly led in the van: her flag still flying at the main, the flag of her ancient glory; but her timbers are decaying, her rigging wants setting up anew, and her helmsman is old and weatherbeaten. But let her undergo an overhaul, let the parts decayed by slavery be removed, and good sound materials put in their stead, then manned by a gallant crew, my life on it, the old thing will once more brace upon a wind, aye, and show her stern to those who have almost run her hull under.