A copy of the original document follows:

Against slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia and Florida

Signed by 113 men

Submitted to Congress on January 17, 1845

National Archives HR28A-G5.1

To the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States---

The undersigned petitioners, citizens of the town of Mexico, County of Oswego, New York, respectfully represent:

That in the District of Columbia, over which Congress is vested, by the Constitution, with the right of exclusive legislation in all cases whatever, Slavery exhists [sic]--subjecting a portion of the people of said District to every privation, disability & outrage: a That the slave trade, that odious and hateful traffic in humanity, which nearly the whole civilized world has long since declared to be piracy when carried out within the limits of Africa, also exhists [sic] in said District & is carried on under protection & sanction of your honorable body thereby subjecting the people of the whole Union to the merited reproach & ignominy
of that execrable system of unmitigated wrong and oppression.

That in the Territory of Florida, over which Congress exercises a like control a similar state of things prevail.

Your petitioners, therefore respectfully ask the enactment of laws abolishing slavery & prohibiting the slave trade in the said District of Columbia & also in the Territory of Florida.