It is said that the bill presents the state of
coercion--that members are coerced, in order to get what they want, to
vote for that which they disapprove. Why, sir, what coercion is there?
* * * Can it be said upon the part of our Northern friends, because they
have not got the Wilmot proviso incorporated in the territorial part
of the bill, that they are coerced--wanting California, as they do, so
much--to vote for the bill, if they do vote for it? Sir, they might
have imitated the noble example of my friend (Senator Cooper, of
Pennsylvania), from that State upon whose devotion to this Union I place
one of my greatest reliances for its preservation. What was the course
of my friend upon this subject of the Wilmot proviso? He voted for it;
and he could go back to his constituents and say, as all of you could go
back and say to your constituents, if you chose to do so--"We wanted the
Wilmot proviso in the bill; we tried to get it in; but the majority of
the Senate was against it.
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