increase the number of slave-holding States, and you destroy the possibility of emancipation, even if every part of the Union should desire it. You extend, indefinitely, the formidable difficulties which already exist. Nor does the mischief stop here. All liberal minds, and all parts of the Union, have with one voice agreed in the necessity of abolishing that detestable traffic in human flesh, the slave trade the foreign slave trade. But reject the amendment on your table, admit Missouri without restriction, and you will inevitably introduce and establish a great inland domestic slave trade, not, it is true, with all the horrors of the middle passage, nor the cold-blooded calculation upon the waste of human life in the seasoning, but still with many of the odious features, and some of the most cruel accompaniments of that hateful traffic. From Washington to St. Louis, may be a distance of one thousand miles. Through this great space, and even a much greater, you must witness the transportation of slaves with the usual appendages of handcuffs and chains. The ties of domestic life will be violently rent asunder, and those, whom nature has bound together, suffer all the pangs of an unnatural and cruel separation. Unfeeling force, stimulated by unfeeling avarice, will tear the parent from the child, and the child from the parent-the husband from the wife, and the wife from the husband. We have lately witnessed something of this sort, during the period of high prices. Gentlemen of the south, particularly those from Virginia, who speak of their slaves as a part of their family, would start at this; they would reject, with scorn and indignation, even a suggestion, that they were to furnish a market for the supply of slaves to the other States. I can well believe, that in families where the relation has long subsisted, there are feelings that would revolt at such a thought -feelings that have considerably modified this severe condition, and grown out of the associations, it has, in a long course of time, produced. But can any one tell, what cupidity may win or necessity extort? No man is superior to the assaults of fortune; and, if he were, the stroke of death will surely come, and break down his paternal government, and then the slave dealer, whom he would have kicked from his enclosure like a poisonous reptile, presents himself to whom? He cannot tell. Thoughts like these have often, I doubt not, produced the liberation of slaves. If gentlemen question our sincerity, let them consider at what period of life it is, that emancipation most frequently takes place. It is at that serious moment, when men sit down to settle their worldly concerns, and, as it were, to take their leave of the world. Then, it is, by the last will, to take effect when their own control is ended, that owners restore their slaves to freedom, and, by what they certainly consider an act of justice, surrender them to themselves, rather than leave them to the disposal of they know not whom. Let gentlemen from the south reflect on this. The public sentiment upon the subject of slavery, is every where im proved, and still improving. It has already destroyed that monstrous inhumanity called the slave trade. I fear that such a measure, as is now proposed by the opponents of the restriction, would not merely check and retard its progress. I seriously fear that it may gradually work an entire change. The effects are not to be contemplated without the deepest anxiety. The political aspect of the subject is not less alarming. The existence of this condition among us, continually endangers the peace and well-being of the Union, by the irritation and animosity it creates between neighboring States. It weakens the nation while it is entire. And if ever a division should happen, can any one reflect, without horror, upon the consequences that may be worked out of an extensively prevailing system of slavery? We are told, indeed, both in the House and out of it, to leave the matter to Providence. Those who tell us so, are nevertheless active and eager in the smallest of their own concerns, omitting nothing to secure success. Sir, we are endowed with faculties that enable us to judge and to choose-to look before and after, however imperfectly. When these have been fairly and conscientiously exerted, we may then humbly submit the consequences, with the hope and belief, that whatever they may be, they will not be imputed to us. The issue of our counsels, however well meant, is not in our hands. But if for own gratification, regardless of all considerations of right or wrong, of good or evil, we hug a vicious indulgence to our bosom, until we find it turning to a venomous serpent, and threatening to sting us to the heart, with what rational or consoling expectation, can we call upon Providence to tear it away and save us from destruction. It is time to come to a conclusion; I fear I have already trespassed too long. In the effort I have made to submit to the committee my views of this question, it has been impossible to escape entirely the influence of the sensation that pervades this House. Yet I have no such apprehensions as have been expressed. The question is indeed an important one; but its importance is derived altogether from its connection with the extension, indefinitely, of negro slavery, over a land which I trust Providence has destined for the labor and the support of freemen. I have no fear that this question, much as it has agitated the country, is to produce any fatal division, or even to generate a new organization of parties. It is not a question upon which we ought to indulge unreasonable apprehensions, or yield to the counsels of fear. It concerns ages to come and millions to be born. It is, as it were, a question of a new political creation, and it is for us, under Heaven, to say, what shall be its condition. If we impose the restriction, it will, I hope, be finally imposed. But, if hereafter it should be found right to remove it, and the State consent, we can remove it. Admit the State, without the restriction, the power is gone for ever, and with it are for and pretensions with the existence of this condi tion among us, we have our answer ready—it is to you we owe this evil-you planted it here, and it has taken such root in the soil we have not the power to eradicate it. Then, turning to the west, and directing their attention to Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, we can proudly tell them, these are the offspring of our policy and our laws, these are the free productions of the constitution of the United States. But, if, beyond this smiling reupon the face of the new creation-another scene of negro slavery, established by ourselves, and spreading continually towards the further ocean, what shall we say then? No, sir, let us follow up the work our ancestors have begun. Let us give to the world a new pledge of our sincerity. Let the standard of freedom be planted in Missouri, by the hands of the constitution, and let its banner wave over the heads of none but freemen-men retaining the image impressed upon them by their Creator, and dependent upon none but God and the laws. Then, as our republican States extend, republican principles will go hand in hand with republican practice ever gone all the efforts that have been made by the non-slaveholding States, to repress and limit the sphere of slavery, and enlarge and extend the blessings of freedom. With it, perhaps, is gone for ever the power of preventing the traffic in slaves, that inhuman and detestable traffic, so long a disgrace to Christendom. In future, and no very distant times, convenience, and profit, and necessity, may be found as available pleas as they formerly were, and for the luxury of slaves, we shall again involve our-gion, they should descry another dark spot selves in the sin of the trade. We must not presume too much upon the strength of our resolutions. Let every man, who has been accustomed to the indulgence, ask himself if it is not a luxury—a tempting luxury, which solicits him strongly and at every moment. The prompt obedience, the ready attention, the submissive and humble, but eager effort to anticipate command-how flattering to our pride, how soothing to our indolence! To the members from the south I appeal, to know whether they will suffer any temporary inconvenience, or any speculative advantage to expose us to the danger. To those of the north, no appeal can be necessary. To both, I can most sincerely say, that as I know my own views on this subject to be free from any unworthy motive, so will I believe, that they likewise have no object but the common good of our common country; and that nothing would have given me more heartfelt satisfaction, than that the present proposition should have originated in the same quarter to which we are said to be indebted for the ordinance of 1787. Then, indeed, would Virginia have appeared in even more than her wonted splendor, and spreading out the scroll of her services, would have beheld none of them with greater pleasure, than that series which began, by pleading the cause of humanity in remonstrances against the slave trade, while she was yet a colony, and, embracing her own act of abolition, and the ordinance of 1787, terminated in the restriction of Missouri. Consider, what a foundation our predecessors have laid! And behold, with the blessing of Providence, how the work has prospered! What is there, in ancient or in modern times, that can be compared with the growth and prosperity of the States formed out of the North-west Territory? When Europeans reprooch na with our negro slavery, when they contour republican Loast the love of liberty with the sense of justice. Then, sir, the dawn, beaming from the constitntion, which now illuminates Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, will spread with increasing brightness to the further west, till, in its brilliant lustre, the dark spot which now rests upon our country shall be for ever hid from sight. Industry, arts, commerce, knowledge, will flourish with plenty and contentment for ages to come, and the loud chorus of universal freedom, re-echo from the Pacific to the Atlantic, the great truths of the declaration of independence. Then, too, our brethren of the south, if they sincerely wish it, may scatter their emancipated slaves through this boundless region, and our country, at length, be happily freed for ever from the foul stain and curse of slavery. And if (may it be far, very far distant!) intestine commotion-civil dissension-division, should happen-we shall not leave our posterity exposed to the combined horrors of a civil and a servile war. If any man still hesitate, influenced by some temporary motive of convenience, or ease, or profit, charge him to think what our fathers have suffered for us, and then to ask his heart, if he can be faithless to the obligation he owes to ty! WILLIAM GASTON. JUDGE WILLIAM GASTON was descended, on the paternal side, from an influential and distinguish. ed Huguenot ancestry. On the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, they fled from France, and settled at Ballymore in Ireland. There, Doctor Alexander Gaston, the father of the present subject, was born. He studied medicine in the College of Edinburgh, was appointed to a surgeoncy in the English navy, and was present at the capture of Havana. Soon after that event he resigned his situation, sailed for America, and landed at Newbern, North Carolina, where he commenced the practice of medicine. In the spring of 1775, he married Margaret Sharpe, by whom he had three children; two sons and a daughter. William, the second child, was born, at Newbern, on the nineteenth of September, 1778. His brother died during infancy, and, in the summer of 1781, his father was murdered by a band of tories, who had joined the British standard; a short time previous borne in triumph throughout the southern colonies. The particulars of his tragical death will not be uninteresting in this place, and will verify the eloquent exclamation made by his son during an exciting Congressional debate, that "he was baptized an American in the blood of a murdered father." Mr. Gaston's biographer thus recounts the circumstances of the case:-Doctor Gaston was one of the most decided whigs in North Carolina, and as early as the month of August, 1775, was elected, by the Provincial Congress, a member of the committee of safety, for the district of Newbern. At various periods of the war he served in the army, generally in his professional capacity, and once, in the spring of 1776, as captain of a band of volunteers, marched to the aid of Wilmington, on the approach of the British forces under the command of Sir Henry Clinton. By his zealous and ardent support of the cause of freedom, he acquired the confidence of the patriots, and was distinguished by the bitter hatred of the loyalists, who, though in a minority, were still numerous in the vicinity in which he lived. In the month of August, 1781, Major James H. Craig,* of the British army, whose head-quarters were at Wilmington, marched at the head of a small detachment of regular troops, and a gang of tories, towards Newbern, with a view of investing that place. The tories were several miles in the advance, and rapidly entered the town. The whigs, thus surprised, had but little opportunity to make a regular stand, and after an ineffectual resistance, gave up the contest. Doctor Gaston, however, knew too well the hatred and ferocity of his foes, to surrender himself into their hands, and hurrying off his wife and children, endeavored to escape across the river Trent, and thus retire to his plantation on Bryce's creek. He reached the wharf, accompanied by his family, but before he could embark them in the light scow which he had seized, the tories in a body came galloping down, in their eager and bloody pursuit, and forced him to push off into the stream, leaving his wife and children unprotected on the shore. He was standing erect in the boat, which floated about forty yards from the bank, watching the situation of his wife, and while she, at the feet of his pursuers, with all the agony of anticipated bereavement, was imploring mercy for herself and life for her husband, a musket, levelled over her shoulder, was discharged and the victim fell dead.t * Major Craig was Governor General of Canada in 1807. + National Portrait Gallery. Article William Gaston, LL.D. By this sad occurrence the early training and education of young William devolved entirely on his mother. To this object she devoted herself with untiring and affectionate energy. Pure, high-minded, deeply religious, and noble in her own life, she left an impress of these sterling qualities on her son's character, which rendered him peculiarly eminent. In the autumn of 1791, young Gaston was entered in the college at Georgetown, now of the District of Columbia, where he remained until the spring of 1793. At that time he abandoned his studies on account of severe illness, but a return to his native climate renewed his health, and he was placed under the superintendence of a private tutor, to prepare for college. After a few months' instruction he joined the junior class of Princeton College, from whence he received his degree, with the highest honors of the institution, in 1796. He studied law with Francis Xavier Martin, then a prominent practitioner; and subsequently a judge of the Supreme Court of Louisiana; and at the age of twenty years (1800) commenced practice. The next year, on arriving at his majority, he was elected a member of the senate of his native State. In 1808, he was chosen an elector of President and Vice President of the United States, and the same year became a member of the House of Delegates, from the district in which he resided. Soon after its assembling, he was chosen the presiding officer. In this position he rendered services valuable to his constituency and honorable to himself: among which was the preparation of the act regulating the descent of inheritances. In 1818, he was elected to the lower House of the Congress of the United States, and continued there by re-election, untii 1817, when he voluntarily retired to the less exciting and more agreeable pursuits of his profession and his home. His congressional career was distinguished by a sincere devotion to the interests of the country-a high moral and political rectitude. He was an ardent federalist, and, as the "acknowledged leader of that party," opposed the celebrated loan bill of 1815. In his speech on that question he manifests extensive views of national policy, and bases his arguments on the firm considerations of justice, honesty, and humanity. The next great effort of Mr. Gaston in Congress, was made in 1816, during the exciting and able discussions on the motion of Mr. Stanford of North Carolina, to expunge the previous question from the rules of the House. In this debate Mr. Gaston was opposed by Mr. Clay, in one of his most powerful speeches, and to him, in the main, he directed his reply. A short extract will give the character of the argument he used on that occasion. After a brief and clear exordium, he remarked :-" And, sir, I rejoice equally at the opposition which the motion of my colleague has encountered. If this hideous rule could have been vindicated, we should have received that vindication from the gentleman who has just resumed his seat, Mr. Clay. If his ingenuity and zeal combined, could form for the previous question no other defence than that which we have heard, the previous question cannot be defended. If beneath his shield it finds so slight a shelter, it must fall a victim to the just, though long delayed vengeance of awakened and indignant freedom. If Hector cannot defend his Troy, the doom of Troy is fixed by fate. It is indispensable, before we proceed further in the consideration of this subject, that we should perfectly understand what is our previous question. Gentlemen may incautiously suppose that it is the same with what has been called the previous question elsewhere. This would be a most fatal mistake. Our previous question is altogether sui generis, the only one of its kind; and to know it, we must consider not merely what is written of it in our code, but what it has been rendered by exposition and construction. Our previous question 'can only be admitted when demanded by a majority of the members present.' It is a question, 'whether the question under debate should now be put.' On the previous question 'there shall be no debate;' 'until it is decided, it shall preclude all amendment and debate of the main question.' If it be decided negatively, viz., that the main question shall not now be put, the main question is, of course, superseded; but if it be decided affirmatively, that the main question shall now be put, the main question is to be put instantaneously, and no member can be allowed to amend or discuss it. The previous question is entitled to precedence over motions to amend, commit, or postpone the main question, and therefore, when admitted, puts these entirely aside. This, according to the latest improvement, is now our rule of the previous question; and certainly in your patent office there is no model of a machine better fitted to its purposes, than this instrument for the ends of tyranny. It is a power vested in a majority, to forbid at their sovereign will and pleas sure, every member not of that majority, from making known either his own sentiments, or the wishes or complaints of his constituents, in relation to any subject under consideration, or from attempting to amend what is proposed as a law for the government of the whole nation." Mr. Gaston continued in this impassioned and vehement manner to the end, and at once excited the astonishment and admiration of the House. After his retirement from Congress until 1834, he was generally engaged in the duties of his profession; but, during the same time, was for a long period a member of the North Carolina assembly. In that body, it is said, he delivered many of his ablest and most brilliant speeches; two of which are mentioned with peculiar approbation: one, on the currency of the State, delivered in 1828; the other in defence of the constitution of North Carolina. Of the latter, one of his contemporaries says:-"That speech will long be remembered. The Constitution of the State is a venerable instrument. It came down to the present generation, from the sages of the Revolution, and is loved and venerated in North Carolina for its very antiquity. It was a fit subject for the exhibition of his learning, eloquence and patriotism, and these resources of his mind he poured forth with the most brilliant profusion. In 1834, Mr. Gaston was elevated to the bench of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, where he remained until his death. His judicial decisions evince the most profound acquaintance with the science of the law, and are ranked, by competent authority, among the ablest legal arguments of the United States. In the prosecution of his duties as judge he was affable, patient and devoted. On the day of his death, January the twenty-third, 1843, he took his seat as usual, though he had for several days experienced quite severe illness. He remained on the bench until nearly two o'clock in the afternoon, giving attention to a case then under consideration, when he was attacked with faintness, and other violent symptoms. He was then taken to his room, and soon relieved; he became quite cheerful, and conversed freely with his friends. In the course of the evening he related several anecdotes, and gave a description of a party he attended in Washington many years previous. Speaking of one whom he met on that occasion, who declared himself a free-thinker in matters pertaining to religion, he said, "From that day I always looked on that man with distrust. I do not say that a free-thinker may not be an honorable man, or that he may not, from higher motives, scorn to do a mean act; but I dare not trust him. A belief in an All-ruling Divinity, who shapes our ends, whose eye is upon us, and who will reward us according to our deeds, is necessary. We must believe and feel that there is a God; all-wise and almighty." As he was uttering the last sentence, he rose to give it greater emphasis, when he suddenly fell back and expired.* SPEECH ON THE LOAN BILL. This speech, on a bill to authorize a loan of | twenty-five millions of dollars, was delivered by Mr. Gaston, in the House of Representatives of the United States, on the eighteenth and nineteenth days of February, 1814. Mr. CHAIRMAN: I fear I am about to engage .n a very injudicious attempt-I fear that the patience of the committee is exhausted, and that it would be idle to hope for their attention. It was originally my wish to claim their notice at an early stage of the debate; but I found this • National Intelligencer, 1843: American Almanac, 1845: MS. Letter of J. S. Eustace in the possession of the editor. wish was not to be effected but by a competition for the floor, and I thought such a compewhich I had to submit. Under these imprestition not justified by the nature of the remarks sions I had made up my mind to wait until some favorable unoccupied interval should be presented; and I should not now have presumed to anticipate other gentlemen who seem disposed to address you, but for some extraordinary observations which have just been uttered, and which in my opinion demand immediate animadversion. The gentleman from Tennessee, who has this moment resumed his seat, (Mr. Grundy,) seems a little sore that his doctrine of Moral Treason, which he promulgated at the last session, should have been so vehemently oppugned by the per |