guaranties.  To the full extent of these guaranties we are all bound, in honor, in justice, and by the Constitution.  All the stipulations contained in the Constitution in favor of the slave-holding States which are already in the Union ought to be fulfilled, and, so far as depends on me, shall be fulfilled, in the fulness of their spirit and to the exactness of their letter.  Slavery, as it exists in the States, is beyond the reach of Congress.  It is a concern of the States themselves; they have never submitted it to Congress, and Congress has no rightful power over it.  I shall concur, therefore, in no act, no measure, no menace, no indication of purpose, which shall interfere or threaten to interfere with the exclusive authority of the several States over the subject of slavery as it exists within their respective limits.  All this appears to me to be matter of plain and imperative duty.  But when we come to speak of admitting new States, the subject assumes an entirely different aspect.  Our rights and our duties are then both different.  The free States, and all the States, are then at liberty to accept or to reject.  When it is proposed to bring new members into this political partnership, the old members have a right to say on what terms such new partners are to come in, and what they are to bring along with them.  In my opinion, the people of the United States will not consent to bring into the Union a new, vastly extensive, and slave-holding country, large enough for half a dozen or a dozen States.  In my opinion they ought not to consent to it.”

Gentlemen, I was mistaken; Congress did consent to the bringing in of Texas.  They did consent, and I was a false prophet.  Your own State consented, and the majority of the representatives of New York consented.  I went into Congress before the final consummation of the deed, and there I fought, holding up both my hands, and urging, with a voice stronger than it now is, my remonstrances against the whole of it.  But you would have it so, and you did have it so.  Nay, Gentlemen, I will tell the truth, whether it shames the Devil or not.  Persons who have aspired high as lovers of liberty, as eminent lovers of the Wilmot Proviso, as eminent Free Soil men, and who have mounted over our heads, and trodden us down as if we were mere slaves, insisting that they are the only true lovers of liberty, they are the men, the very men, that brought Texas into this Union.  This is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and I declare it before you, this day.  Look to the journals.  Without the consent of New York, Texas would not have come into the Union, either under the original resolutions or afterwards.  But New York voted for the measure.  The two Senators from New York voted for it, and decided the question; and you may thank them for the glory, the renown, and the happiness of having five or six slave States added to the Union.  Do not blame me for it.  Let them answer who did the deed, and who are now