I look upon it, therefore, as a fixed fact, to use the current expression of the day, that both California and New Mexico are destined to be free, so far as they are settled at all, which I believe, in regard to New Mexico, will be but partially, for a great length of time; free by the arrangement of things ordained by the Power above us.  I have therefore to say, in this respect also, that this country is fixed for freedom, to as many persons as shall ever live in it, by a less repealable law than that which attaches to the right of holding slaves in Texas; and I will say further, that, if a resolution or a bill were now before us, to provide a territorial government for New Mexico, I would not vote to put any prohibition into it whatever.  Such a prohibition would be idle, as it respects any effect it would have upon the territory; and I would not take pains uselessly to reaffirm an ordinance of nature, nor to re-enact the will of God.  I would put in no Wilmot proviso for the mere purpose of a taunt or a reproach.  I would put into it no evidence of the votes of superior power, exercised for no purpose but to wound the pride, whether a just and a rational pride, or an irrational pride, of the citizens of the southern States.  I have no such object, no such purpose.  They would think it a taunt, an indignity; they would think it to be an act taking away from them what they regard as a proper equality of privilege.  Whether they expect to realize any benefit from it or not, they would think it at least a plain theoretic wrong; that something more or less derogatory to their character and their rights had taken place.  I propose to inflict no such wound upon anybody, unless something essentially important to the country, and efficient to the preservation of liberty and freedom, is to be effected.  I repeat, therefore, sir, and, as I do not propose to address the Senate often on this subject, I repeat it because I wish it to be distinctly understood, that, for the reasons stated, if a proposition were now here to establish a government for New Mexico, and it was moved to insert a provision for a prohibition of slavery, I would not vote for it. * * * Sir, we hear occasionally of the annexation of Canada; and if there be any man, any of the northern Democracy, or any of the Free Soil party, who supposes it necessary to insert a Wilmot Proviso in a territorial government for New Mexico, that man would, of course, be of opinion that it is necessary to protect the ever-lasting snows of Canada from the foot of slavery by the same overspreading wing of an act of Congress.  Sir, wherever there is a substantive good to be done, wherever there is a foot of land to be prevented from becoming slave territory, I am ready to assert the principle of the exclusion of slavery.  I am pledged to it from the year 1837; I have been pledged to it again and again; and I will perform these pledges; but I will not do a thing unnecessarily that wounds the feelings of others, or that does discredit to my own understanding. * * *