The effect of the bill as passed in the Senate was to establish these new territories as slave-holding States.  The House disagreed.  The Senate receded from their ground, and the bill passed, establishing Oregon as a free Territory, and making no provision for the newly acquired territories on the South.  My vote, and the reasons I gave for it, are known to the good people of Massachusetts, and I have not heard that they have expressed any particular disapprobation of them.

But this question is to be resumed at the first session of the next Congress.  There is no probability that it will be settled at the next session of this Congress.  But at least at the first session of the next Congress this question will be resumed.  It will enter at this very period into all the elections of the South.

And now I venture to say, Gentlemen, two things; the first well known to you, that General Cass is in favor of what is called the Compromise Line, and is of opinion that the Wilmot Proviso, or the Ordinance of 1787, which excludes slavery from territories, ought not to be applied to territories lying south of 36 deg. 30’.  He announced this before he was nominated, and if he had not announced it, he would have been 36 deg. 30’ farther off from being nominated.  In the next place, he will do all he can to establish that compromise line; and lastly, which is a matter of opinion, in my conscientious belief he will establish it.

Give him the power and the patronage of the government, let him exercise it over certain portions of the country whose representatives voted on this occasion to put off that question for future consideration; let him have the power of this government with his attachments, with his inducements, and we shall see the result.  I verily believe, that unless there is a renewed strength, an augmented strength, of Whig votes in Congress, he will accomplish his purpose.  He will surely have the Senate, and with the patronage of the government, with every interest which he can bring to bear, co-operating with every interest which the South can bring to bear, he will establish the compromise line.  We cry safety before we are out of the woods, if we feel that the danger respecting the territories is over.

Gentlemen, I came here to confer with you as friends and countrymen, to speak my own mind and hear yours; but if we all should speak, and occupy as much time as I have, we should make a late meeting.  I shall detain you no longer.  I have been long in public life, longer, far longer than I shall remain there.  I have had some participation for more than thirty years in the councils of the nation.  I profess to feel a strong attachment to the liberty of the United States, to the Constitution and free institutions of this country, to the honor, and I may say the glory, of my native land.  I feel every injury inflicted upon it, almost as a personal injury.  I blush for every fault which I think I see committed in its