In passing from a free to a slave State, the most casual observer is struck with the contrast.  The signs of industry and prosperity on the broad face of the country are universally in favor of the former, and that to a degree which none but an eye witness can conceive.  This fact has been often noticed, and has been affirmed by slaveholders themselves, in the most emphatic terms.  In cities the difference is not less remarkable, and was forcibly brought to our notice in the hotel at which we took up our residence on arriving at Washington, and which, though the first in the city, and the temporary residence of many members of Congress, was greatly deficient in the cleanliness, comfort, and order, which prevail in the well-furnished and well-conducted establishments of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, &c.  At this house, I understood, some of the servants were free, and others slaves.

We were now in the District of Columbia, the seat of this powerful Federal Government, and in the city of Washington, the metropolis of the United States.  Here are concentrated as it were into one focus, the associations of the past, connected with the great struggle for independence, and the memory of those names and events which already belong to history.  Whatever may be our political principles, or the opinions of those who like myself consider all resort to arms as forbidden under the Christian dispensation, it is impossible to recall without emotion, transactions which have exerted and will continue to exert, so marked an influence on the destinies of mankind.  This city was not the scene of those events, but it was erected to be a perpetual monument of them, and in the limited district of ten miles square, in which it stands, the Government which was then called into existence reigns sole and supreme.  If a stranger were to inquire here for the monuments of the fathers of the Revolution, the American would proudly point to the Capitol, with the national Congress in full session, and to the levee of the President, crowded by free citizens, and representatives of foreign nations.  The United States were thirteen dependent colonies, they are now twenty-six sovereign States, rich and populous, covering the face of this vast continent, and compacted into one powerful confederacy.  But notwithstanding the glowing emotions which seem naturally called forth by the locality, there is many an American who bitterly feels that the District of Columbia is the shame, rather than the glory of his country.  Here is proclaimed to the whole world by the united voice of the American people, “We hold these truths to be self-evident—­that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights—­that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;” and here also by a majority of the same people expressing their deliberate will, through their representatives, this declaration is trampled under foot, and turned into derision.[A]