The Whig Standard

TWENTY EIGHTH CONGRESS.
FIRST SESSION.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 6, 1844.

SENATE.

The Senate did not sit to-day.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

Mr. HOUSTON, of Ala., made some correction of his remarks yesterday, as reported in the Globe.

Mr. NEWTON, of Va., (while the Speaker left the chair,) presented certain documents in relation to the contested seat of the Speaker.

Mr. WELLER, on leave, introduced a bill "to amend and continue in force the act to incorporate the city of Washington."

Mr. THOMASSON, of Ky., submitted a resolution, that the committee on the District of Columbia be instructed to inquire into the expediency of providing some mode of punishment which should prevent juvenile offenders from being sent to the penitentiary; objected to.

Mr. STEWART, of Pa., submitted a resolution requiring the Committee of Ways and Means so to regulate the appropriations, that they shall not exceed the amount expended in 1843; objected to.

SLAVERY.

The morning hour was occupied by Dr. DUNCAN in defining his position upon the 21st rule. The Doctor abused the rule, and, by way of offset, abused the niggers. In the course of his remarks, he stopped to ask his colleague a question, which he ushered in with great solemnity of manner. He said he had a letter in his possession, though not here, which represented that his colleague (Mr. Giddings,) in some meeting in the northern part of his district, had read a letter from Mr. Clay, in which that gentleman expressed his entire concurrence in all Mr. G.'s abolition sentiments--was this so?

Mr. GIDDINGS rose, and said if his colleague would give way he would reply; and asked the Speaker if he had the floor, because he wanted precisely one hour to make his response?

Mr. DUNCAN refused to yield the floor, however, or anything but a monosyllabic answer!

[Which was precisely all the Doctor desired, in order to revive this stale falsehood.]

Mr. A. V. BROWN succeeded to the floor; but there being only a few minutes remaining of the morning hour, he gave way to Mr. GIDDINGS, who proceeded to answer the category of his colleague, to whom he held himself under obligation for propounding it.

In the latter part of September last, he had addressed the people of Oberlin. They were mostly of that class who are styled the "Liberty party." In the course of his remarks, he endeavored to convince them that a separate political organization, for the sole purpose of maintaining the constitutional rights of the people of the free States in regard to slavery, was unnecessary. It was one of the objections with those whom he addressed, that Southern slaveholders would never be persuaded to support the Constitution in the spirit in which it was adopted. This he, Mr. G., denied, and said that southern men would meet northern men in the maintenance of all the rights of all the States. He then said, that he would read a letter from a southern man, and a slaveholder, in which his own sentiments were set forth in full. He then read the letter, and, on a call for the name of the writer, he answered it to be Mr. Clay; he went on to say that it was C. M. Clay, one of the wealthiest, purest, and most influential men in Kentucky; and he added, that he had no authority to say that Henry Clay would thus support the Constitution, but that from his acknowledged patriotism and devotion to his country, he had no doubt that he would support the constitutional rights of the North as firmly as he would those of the South. Mr. G. said, that he was informed that an editor was present who had a few days previously published a vile falsehood, saying that he (Mr. G.) was expelled from Congress for presenting resolutions to dissolve the Union, and then called public attention to this libel and slander. That editor had seen fit to publish the misrepresentation to which his colleague had referred, which was an unmitigated falsehood.

Mr. DUNCAN asked whether his colleague had stated to the meeting that the letter was from Cassius M. Clay?

Mr. G. answered that he did, and further stated to the meeting that Mr. Henry Clay had never been applied to on these points. Also, that when he saw this falsehood published in the Richmond Enquirer, he immediately addressed a letter to the editor of that paper contradicting it, and stating the fact as it was, which letter was published in that paper, and if his colleague had never seen it, the fault was his own and not Mr. G's.

[Will the numerous Loco-foco papers, who published this falsehood, retract it now, after it has been thus nailed to the counter on the floor of Congress?]

JACKSON FINE.

The House went into Committee of the Whole. Mr. DAVIS, of Ia., in the Chair.

Mr. WELLER took the floor, and made a flowing speech, in a sort of blank-verse style, upon the bill to refund the fine to the old hero, which he hoped would be passed on or before the glorious 8th of January. He took occasion to allude to Mr. Peyton's speech, and asked that gentleman if he was afraid of General Jackson's influence?

Mr. PEYTON, of Tennessee, replied that if the question was whether he entertained personal fear of the General, he would say that he trusted he had as little personal fear as the gentleman from Ohio--if he meant political fear, he could tell the gentleman that he had bearded the lion at the very door of the Hermitage, he had met the parasites of royalty in their very court, he had met one of the royal family itself, and defeated him and them. No, neither he, nor his State, had any political fear of General Jackson.

Several Executive communications were then laid before the House.

Messrs. DICKINSON, DOUGLASS, and McCLERNAND, severally addressed the House, and Mr. SCHENCK, of Ohio, obtained the floor, when the Committee rose, and the House adjourned.