What do the rebels demand?  First, “that the people of the United States shall have an equal right to emigrate and settle in the present or any future acquired Territories, with whatever property they may possess (including slaves), and be securely protected in its peaceable enjoyment until such Territory may be admitted as a State into the Union, with or without slavery, as she may determine, on an equality with all existing States.”  That is our Territorial demand.  We have fought for this Territory when blood was its price.  We have paid for it when gold was its price.  We have not proposed to exclude you, tho you have contributed very little of blood or money.  I refer especially to New England.  We demand only to go into those Territories upon terms of equality with you, as equals in this great Confederacy, to enjoy the common property of the whole Union, and receive the protection of the common government, until the Territory is capable of coming into the Union as a sovereign State, when it may fix its own institutions to suit itself.

The second proposition is, “that property in slaves shall be entitled to the same protection from the government of the United States, in all of its departments, everywhere, which the Constitution confers the power upon it to extend to any other property, provided nothing herein contained shall be construed to limit or restrain the right now belonging to every State to prohibit, abolish, or establish and protect slavery within its limits.”  We demand of the common government to use its granted powers to protect our property as well as yours.  For this protection we pay as much as you do.  This very property is subject to taxation.  It has been taxed by you and sold by you for taxes.

The title to thousands and tens of thousands of slaves is derived from the United States.  We claim that the government, while the Constitution recognizes our property for the purposes of taxation, shall give it the same protection that it gives yours.

Ought it not to be so?  You say no.  Every one of you upon the committee said no.  Your senators say no.  Your House of Representatives says no.  Throughout the length and breadth of your conspiracy against the Constitution there is but one shout of no!  This recognition of this right is the price of my allegiance.  Withhold it, and you do not get my obedience.  This is the philosophy of the armed men who have sprung up in this country.  Do you ask me to support a government that will tax my property:  that will plunder me; that will demand my blood, and will not protect me?  I would rather see the population of my native State laid six feet beneath her sod than they should support for one hour such a government.  Protection is the price of obedience everywhere, in all countries.  It is the only thing that makes government respectable.  Deny it and you can not have free subjects or citizens; you may have slaves.

We demand, in the next place, “that persons committing crimes against slave property in one State, and fleeing to another, shall be delivered up in the same manner as persons committing crimes against other property, and that the laws of the State from which such persons flee shall be the test of criminality.”  That is another one of the demands of an extremist and a rebel.