s of the rivers; but the rivers themselves dry up before midsummer
is gone. All that the people can do in that region is to raise some
little articles, some little wheat for their tortillas, and that by
irrigation. And who expects to see a hundred black men cultivating
tobacco, corn, cotton, rice, or any thing else, on lands in New Mexico,
made fertile by irrigation?

I look upon it, therefore, as a fixed fact, to use the current
expression of the day, that both California and New Mexico are destined
to be free, so far as they are settled at all, which I believe, in
regard to New Mexico, will be but partially, for a great length of time;
free by the arrangement of things ordained by the Power above us. I have
therefore to say, in this respect also, that this country is fixed
for freedom, to as many persons as shall ever live in it, by a less
repealable law than that which attaches to the right of holding slaves
in Texas; and I will say further, that, if a resolution or a bill were
now before us, to provide a territorial government for New Mexico,
I would not vote to put any prohibition into it whatever. Such a
prohibition would be idle, as it respects any effect it would have
upon the territory; and I would not take pains uselessly to reaffirm an
ordinance of nature, nor to re-enact the will of God. I would put in no
Wilmot proviso for the mere purpose of a taunt or a reproach. I would
put into it no evidence of the votes of superior power, exercised for no
purpose but to wound the pride, whether a just and a rational pride, or
an irrational pride, of the citizens of the southern States. I have no
such object, no such purpose. They would think it a taunt, an indignity;
they would think it to be an act taking away from them what they regard
as a proper equality of privilege. Whether they expect to realize any
benefit from it or not, they would think it at least a plain theoretic
wrong; that something more or less derogatory to their character and
their rights had taken place. I propose to inflict no such wound upon
anybody, unless something essentially important to the country, and
efficient to the preservation of liberty and freedom, is to be effected.
I repeat, therefore, sir, and, as I do not propose to address the Senate
often on this subject, I repeat it because I wish it to be distinctly
understood, that, for the reasons stated, if a proposition were now here
to establish a government for New Mexico, and it was move