ch
menaces us is to be avoided at all, it must be by Legislation; which is
more ready, more certain, and more likely to be satisfactory, than
Constitutional Amendment. The main difficulty is the Territorial
question. The demand of the Senators on the other side of the Chamber,
and of those whom they represent, is that the territory south of the
line of the Missouri Compromise shall be open to their peculiar
Property. All this territory, except the Indian Reservation, is within
the limits of New Mexico; which, for a part of its northern boundary,
runs up two degrees above that line. This is now a Slave Territory;
made so by Territorial Legislation; and Slavery exists there, recognized
and protected. Now, I am willing, as soon as Kansas can be admitted, to
vote for the admission of New Mexico as a State, with such Constitution
as the People may adopt. This disposes of all the territory that is
adapted to Slave Labor or that is claimed by the South. It ought to
settle the whole question. Surely if we can dispose of all the
territory that we have, we ought not to quarrel over that which we have
not, and which we have no very honest way of acquiring. Let us settle
the difficulties that threaten us now, and not anticipate those which
may never come. Let the public mind have time to cool * * *. In
offering to settle this question by the admission of New Mexico, we of
the North who assent to it propose a great Sacrifice, and offer a large
Concession.

"* * * But we make the offer in a spirit of Compromise and good
feeling, which we hope will be reciprocated. * * * I appeal to
Senators on the other side, when we thus offer to bridge over full
seven-eighths of the frightful chasm that separates us, will you not
build the other eighth? When, with outstretched arms, we approach you
so near that, by reaching out your hands you can clasp ours in the
fraternal grasp from which they should never be separated, will you,
with folded arms and closed eyes, stand upon extreme demands which you
know we cannot accept, and for which, if we did, we could not carry our
constituents? * * * Together our Fathers achieved the Independence of
their Country; together they laid the foundations of its greatness and
its glory; together they constructed this beautiful system under which
it is our privilege to live, which it is our duty to preserve and to
transmit. Together we enjoy that privilege; together we must perform
that duty. I w