But, Sir, let us look further into this alleged inequality.  There is no pretence that Southern people may not go into territory which shall be subject to the Ordinance of 1787.  The only restraint is, that they shall not carry slaves thither, and continue that relation.  They say this shuts them altogether out.  Why, Sir, there can be nothing more inaccurate in point of fact than this statement.  I understand that one half the people who settled Illinois are people, or descendants of people, who came from the Southern States.  And I suppose that one third of the people of Ohio are those, or descendants of those, who emigrated from the South; and I venture to say, that, in respect to those two States, they are at this day settled by people of Southern origin in as great a proportion as they are by people of Northern origin, according to the general numbers and proportion of people, South and North.  There are as many people from the South, in proportion to the whole people of the South, in those States, as there are from the North, in proportion to the whole people of the North.  There is, then, no exclusion of Southern people; there is only the exclusion of a peculiar local law.  Neither in principle nor in fact is there any inequality.

The question now is, whether it is not competent to Congress, in the exercise of a fair and just discretion, considering that there have been five slave-holding States added to this Union out of foreign acquisitions, and as yet only one free State, to prevent their further increase.  That is the question.  I see no injustice in it.  As to the power of Congress, I have nothing to add to what I said the other day.  Congress has full power over the subject.  It may establish any such government, and any such laws, in the territories, as in its discretion it may see fit.  It is subject, of course, to the rules of justice and propriety; but it is under no constitutional restraints.

I have said that I shall consent to no extension of the area of slavery upon this continent, nor to any increase of slave representation in the other house of Congress.  I have now stated my reasons for my conduct and my vote.  We of the North have already gone, in this respect, far beyond all that any Southern man could have expected, or did expect, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution.  I repeat the statement of the fact of the creation of five new slave-holding States out of newly acquired territory.  We have done that which, if those who framed the Constitution had foreseen, they never would have agreed to slave representation.  We have yielded thus far; and we have now in the House of Representatives twenty persons voting upon this very question, and upon all other questions, who are there only in virtue of the representation of slaves.