When a majority of the Senate shall have passed the bill--when
the majority of the States shall have endorsed it through their
representatives upon this floor--when a majority of the South and a
majority of the North shall have sanctioned it--when a majority of the
Whig party and a majority of the Democratic party shall have voted for
it--when each of these propositions shall be demonstrated by the vote
this night on the final passage of the bill, I shall be willing to
submit the question to the country, whether, as the organ of the
committee, I performed my duty in the report and bill which have called
down upon my head so much denunciation and abuse.
Mr. President, the opponents of this measure have had much to say about
the mutations and modifications which this bill has undergone since it
was first introduced by myself, and about the alleged departure of the
bill, in its present form, from the principle laid down in the original
report of the committee as a rule of action in all future Territorial
organizations. Fortunately there is no necessity, even if your patience
would tolerate such a course of argument at this late hour of the night,
for me to examine these speeches in detail, and reply to each charge
separately. Each speaker seems to have followed faithfully in the
footsteps of his leader in the path marked out by the Abolition
confederates in their manifesto, which I took occasion to expose on a
former occasion.
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