"Congress shall have no power to legislate in respect to persons held to service or labor in any case, except to provide for the rendition of fugitives from such service or labor, and to suppress the foreign slave trade; and the existing _status_ or condition of all the Territories of the United States, in respect to persons held to service or labor, shall remain unchanged during their territorial condition; and whenever any Territory, with suitable boundaries, shall contain the population requisite for a representative in Congress, according to the then federal ratio of representation, it shall be entitled to admission into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, with or without persons held to service or labor, as the Constitution of such new State may prescribe." Mr. BRONSON'S motion was agreed to. Mr GUTHRIE:--I call for the order of the day. The PRESIDENT:--The order of the day is called for, and the gentleman from New York has the floor. Mr. SMITH:--At the adjournment yesterday, I had proceeded to state two or three grounds upon which I think the proposals of amendment to the Constitution reported by the majority of the committee would be unacceptable to the North, and I had also stated some special objections to action in this way and at the present time. The next consideration to which I would invite attention is this: Is it necessary or wise for the Conference, composed as it is of friends of the Union, or is it _expedient_ thus to encounter the settled sentiments and convictions of the people of so large a section of the country? It is not necessary, for various reasons. This territorial question is, after all, a question to be looked at in a prospective view. Why is it necessary to disturb the Constitution by inserting such a provision as you propose? Why is it necessary for gentlemen from the South to have it in, in order to enable them to stand with their people at home? Slavery is now in New Mexico. That must be acknowledged as a fact. The South think it rightfully there--the North believe it is there wrongfully. But its existence in the territories is a fact nevertheless. President LINCOLN cannot help it if he would. The Supreme Court will affirm its rightful existence there, whenever the question comes before that body. That Court cannot be changed before these territories are admitted as States, if the disposition exists to change it. You claim that the question is already decided. How, then, can it be important to you to press the adoption of these sections as a part of the Constitution? My judgment is, that it is best to leave this subject alone--that that is the true way to save the Union.