that, I have had nothing to say in regard to the existing Fugitive
Slave law, further than that I think it should have been framed so as
to be free from some of the objections that pertain to it, without
lessening its efficiency. And inasmuch as we are now not in an
agitation in regard to an alteration or modification of that law, I
would not be the man to introduce it as a new subject of agitation upon
the general question of slavery.

In regard to the other question, of whether I am pledged to the
admission of any more slave States into the Union, I state to you very
frankly that I would be exceedingly sorry ever to be put in a position
of having to pass upon that question. I should be exceedingly glad to
know that there would never be another slave State admitted into the
Union; but I must add, that if slavery shall be kept out of the
Territories during the territorial existence of any one given
Territory, and then the people shall, having a fair chance and a clear
field, when they come to adopt the Constitution, do such an
extraordinary thing as to adopt a slave Constitution, uninfluenced by
the actual presence of the institution among them, I see no
alternative, if we own the country, but to admit them into the Union.

The third interrogatory is answered by the answer to the second, it
being, as I conceive, the same as the second.

The fourth one is in regard to the abolition of slavery in the District
of Columbia. In relation to that, I have my mind very distinctly made
up. I should be exceedingly glad to see slavery abolished in the
District of Columbia. I believe that Congress possesses the
constitutional power to abolish it. Yet, as a member of Congress, I
should not, with my present views, be in favor of endeavoring to
abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, unless it would be upon
these conditions; First, that the abolition should be gradual; second,
that it should be on a vote of the majority of qualified voters in the
District; and third, that compensation should be made to unwilling
owners. With these three conditions, I confess I would be exceedingly
glad to see Congress abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and,
in the language of Henry Clay, "sweep from our Capital that foul blot
upon our nation."

In regard to the fifth interrogatory, I must say here that as to the
question of the abolition of the slave-trade between the different
States, I can truly answer, as I have, that I a