I protest against being
bound to harmonize on all abstract questions. This is an abstraction.
Gentlemen schooled in deduction could spend weeks in argument over it.

The vote was taken upon the amendment proposed by Mr. FIELD, and
resulted as follows:

AYES.--Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine,
Massachusetts, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, and
Kansas--10.

NOES.--Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey,
North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee,
and Virginia--11.

So the amendment was disagreed to.

Mr. GUTHRIE:--I now submit that we ought to take the vote on the
substitute proposed by the gentleman from Connecticut. I trust we are
through with speeches, and hope we shall now get to some result. We
may as well vote upon all these propositions within the next hour.

Mr. SOMES:--I desire to move an amendment by adding the following, to
be numbered

SECTION 8. "That the freedom of speech, or of the press,
shall not be abridged; but that the people of any Territory
of the United States shall be left perfectly free to discuss
the subject of slavery."

Mr. BRONSON:--I move to lay that amendment on the table.

Mr. SOMES:--Is not that motion debatable?

The PRESIDENT:--It is not debatable.

The motion to lay the amendment offered by Mr. SOMES upon the table,
prevailed by the following vote:

AYES.--Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New
Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island,
Tennessee, Virginia, and Kansas--13.

NOES.--Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, and Vermont--5.

Thus the amendment was laid upon the table.

Mr. VANDEVER:--I move to amend the report by the addition of the
following section:

"The navigation of the Mississippi River shall remain free
to the people of each and all the States; and Congress shall
provide by law for the protection of commerce on said river
against all interference, foreign or domestic."

The importance of this proposition can be seen at once. It is one in
which the whole country is interested, especially that portion of it
in which I reside, which is drained by the upper waters of the
Mississippi and Missouri. On this subject we have our apprehensions,
and they are better founded, too, than any which I have heard from the
South. We believe that our right to the navigation of this great
national highway is im