"Gentlemen from the South declare that we invade their rights when we deprive them of a participation in the enjoyment of territories acquired by the common services and common exertions of all. Is this true? Of what do we deprive them? Why, they say that we deprive them of the privilege of carrying their slaves as slaves into the new territories. Well, Sir, what is the amount of that? They say, that in this way we deprive them of going into this acquired territory with their property. Their property! What do they mean by this 'property'? We certainly do not deprive them of the privilege of going into those newly acquired territories with all that, in the general estimate of human society and common and universal understanding of mankind, is esteemed property. Not at all. The truth is just this. They have in their own States peculiar laws which create property in persons.... The real meaning, then, of Southern gentlemen, in making this complaint, is, that they cannot go into the territories of the United States carrying with them their own peculiar law, a law which creates property in persons." So the Wilmot Proviso was no monstrous thing at all, as applied to Oregon. When the question came up of applying this same Proviso to New Mexico and California, Mr. Webster discovered in these Territories a certain peculiarity of physical geography and Asiatic scenery which he had not discovered in Oregon, and which, he found, rendered it a physical impossibility for Southern gentlemen to carry there "a law which creates property in persons," and he therefore gave them full liberty to carry their law into those vast regions, if they could. But at the very moment of giving this liberty to Southern gentlemen, he courageously warned them that his thunder was good constitutional thunder, and would be used whenever necessary. "Wherever there is an _inch of land_ to be stayed back from becoming slave territory, I am ready to insert the principle of the exclusion of slavery. I am pledged to that from 1837,--pledged to it again and again, and I will perform those pledges." So, should we get another slice of Mexico, or annex Cuba or St. Domingo, Mr. Webster would revive the Wilmot Proviso, and then _he_ will be the means, if he succeeds, of dissolving the Union! 3. The next condition announced to the Safety Committee is,--"No attempt shall be made in Congress to prohibit slavery in the District of Columbia."