It is a rule of construction, that all parts of an instrument must be construed together; that due regard and effect must be given to all parts of it, unless they are clearly repugnant. Will any gentleman tell me how the Union can be more effectually preserved than by controlling disunion? It is by granting what is asked to those who might disturb its tranquillity, when they ask nothing unreasonable. This resolution every patriot can subscribe to; and I hold that it can be as effectually violated by the neglect to do all we can to turn aside disunion, as by affirmative action against the Government. And let me say that the party in this country which goes between the people and the preservation of the Union, will sink so low, eventually, that a bubble will not return to mark the spot where it went down. But I cannot understand how any one who is honestly opposed to the extension of slavery, as a political institution, can refuse the compromise proposed. The federal courts, to which we have committed the power, have decided that slavery, of right, goes into all the territories. The distinguished Republican from Massachusetts has told us that the court cannot be so organized, even if we keep the power, as to change that decision in twenty-five years. In that time the whole question will be determined. Now we have an opportunity, at once and forever, by constitutional enactment, to prohibit slavery from going into three-fourths of the territory, by simply agreeing that as to the other one-fourth, while it remains a territory, the _status_ of slavery shall not be changed. I confess I have not the ingenuity to contrive how I should apologize to an audience of Republicans for refusing such a contract.