* * *
Sir, we hear occasionally of the annexation of Canada; and if there be
any man, any of the northern Democracy, or any of the Free Soil party,
who supposes it necessary to insert a Wilmot Proviso in a territorial
government for New Mexico, that man would, of course, be of opinion that
it is necessary to protect the ever-lasting snows of Canada from the
foot of slavery by the same overspreading wing of an act of Congress.
Sir, wherever there is a substantive good to be done, wherever there is
a foot of land to be prevented from becoming slave territory, I am ready
to assert the principle of the exclusion of slavery. I am pledged to
it from the year 1837; I have been pledged to it again and again; and I
will perform these pledges; but I will not do a thing unnecessarily
that wounds the feelings of others, or that does discredit to my own
understanding. * * *
Mr. President, in the excited times in which we live, there is found
to exist a state of crimination and recrimination between the North
and South.
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