I think I may assume that if such a power be anything but nominal, it is much more than adequate to the present object—­that it is a power of vast expansion, to which human sagacity can assign no reasonable limits—­that it is a capacious reservoir of authority, from which you may take, in all time to come, as occasion may serve, the means of oppression as well as of benefaction.  I know that it professes at this moment to be the chosen instrument of protecting mercy, and would win upon us by its benignant smiles; but I know, too, it can frown and play the tyrant, if it be so disposed.  Notwithstanding the softness which it now assumes, and the care with which it conceals its giant proportions beneath the deceitful drapery of sentiment, when it next appears before you it may show itself with a sterner countenance and in more awful dimensions.  It is, to speak the truth, sir, a power of colossal size—­if indeed it be not an abuse of language to call it by the gentle name of a power.  Sir, it is a wilderness of power, of which fancy in her happiest mood is unable to perceive the far distant and shadowy boundary.  Armed with such a power, with religion in one hand and philanthropy in the other, and followed with a goodly train of public and private virtues, you may achieve more conquests over sovereignties not your own than falls to the common lot of even uncommon ambition.  By the aid of such a power, skilfully employed, you may “bridge your way” over the Hellespont that separates State legislation from that of Congress; and you may do so for pretty much the same purpose with which Xerxes once bridged his way across the Hellespont that separates Asia from Europe.  He did so, in the language of Milton, “the liberties of Greece to yoke.”  You may do so for the analogous purpose of subjugating and reducing the sovereignties of States, as your taste or convenience may suggest, and fashioning them to your imperial will.  There are those in this House who appear to think, and I doubt not sincerely, that the particular restraint now under consideration is wise, and benevolent, and good; wise as respects the Union—­good as respects Missouri—­benevolent as respects the unhappy victims whom with a novel kindness it would incarcerate in the south, and bless by decay and extirpation.  Let all such beware, lest in their desire for the effect which they believe the restriction will produce, they are too easily satisfied that they have the right to impose it.  The moral beauty of the present purpose, or even its political recommendations (whatever they may be), can do nothing for a power like this, which claims to prescribe conditions ad libitum, and to be competent to this purpose, because it is competent to all.  This restriction, if it be not smothered in its birth, will be but a small part of the progeny of the prolific power.  It teems with a mighty brood, of which this may be entitled to the distinction of comeliness as well as of primogeniture.  The rest may want the boasted loveliness of their predecessor, and be even uglier than “Lapland witches”.