Alfred H. Stone Collection
Volume: 95

1. H. L. Pinckney, Report of the Select Committee upon the Subject of Slavery in the District of Columbia, Made by Hon. H. L. Pinckney, to the House of Representatives, May 18, 1836, to which is appended the Votes in the House of Representatives upon the Several Resolutions with which the Report Concludes (Washington, DC: Blair & Rives, 1836). (16 p.)

Report of a committee charged with deciding whether Congress should agree to receive petitions calling for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. The Committee decided that the federal government does not have the right to interfere with slavery in the District, especially given the problems a free District would cause for the slaveholding counties in Maryland and Virginia. The report concludes with three resolutions related to the debate; 1) that Congress has no right to interfere with slavery in any state (passed 138 to 46), 2) that Congress should not interfere with slavery in the District (passed 132 to 45), and 3) “that all petitions, memorials, resolutions, propositions, or papers, relating in any way or to any extent whatever, to the subject of slavery, without either being printed or referred, be laid upon the table and that no further action whatever shall be had thereon” (passed 117 to 68).