y, neither
California, New Mexico, nor Utah. They were rather ultra-American, as I
thought. They were far from us, and I saw that they might lead to a
political conflict, and I voted against them all, against the treaty and
against the peace, rather than have the territories. Seeing that it
would be an occasion of dispute, that by the controversy the whole Union
would be agitated, Messrs. Berrien, Badger, and other respectable and
distinguished men of the South, voted against the acquisition, and the
treaty which secured it; and if the men of the North had voted the same
way, we should have been spared all the difficulties that have grown out
of it. We should have had peace without the territories.

Now there is no sort of doubt, Gentlemen, that there were some persons
in the South who supposed that California, if it came into the Union at
all, would come in as a slave State. You know the extraordinary events
which immediately occurred, and the impulse given to emigration by the
discovery of gold. You know that crowds of Northern people immediately
rushed to California, and that an African slave could no more live there
among them, than he could live on the top of Mount Hecla. Of necessity
it became a free State, and that, no doubt, was a source of much
disappointment to the South. And then there were New Mexico and Utah;
what was to be done with them? Why, Gentlemen, from the best
investigation I had given to the subject, and the reflection I had
devoted to it, I was of the opinion that the mountains of New Mexico and
Utah could no more sustain American slavery than the snows of Canada. I
saw it was impossible. I thought so then; it is quite evident now.
Therefore, when it was proposed in Congress to apply the Wilmot Proviso
to New Mexico and Utah, it appeared to me just as absurd as to apply it
here in Western New York. I saw that the snow-capped hills, the eternal
mountains, and the climate of those countries would never support
slavery. No man could carry a slave there with any expectation of
profit. It could not be done; and as the South regarded the Proviso as
merely a source of irritation, and as designed by some to irritate, I
thought it unwise to apply it to New Mexico or Utah. I voted
accordingly, and who doubts now the correctness of that vote? The law
admitting those territories passed without any proviso. Is there a
slave, or will there ever be one, in either of those territories? Why,
there is not a man in