Southern gentlemen in this Convention propose to be governed by the principles of the founders of the Government, and by the Constitution, or compact of union, as those founders understood it. By that they say they are willing to do as the fathers did, and adjust the present unhappy controversy by applying to new territory the same principles which the fathers applied to the old. Let me assure gentlemen from the slave States that if they are really in earnest in offering these terms of adjustment, this unhappy controversy can be settled in less than an hour's time. Having always claimed the right to recapture fugitive slaves in territory acquired since, as well as in that acquired before the adoption of the Constitution, the slave States have ever been bound, upon every principle of honor and fair dealing, to concede the original consideration for it, that is, prohibition. A purpose secretly entertained when that compromise was made, to use the Government in the manner it has actually been used, to enlarge the area of slavery and the obligation to guarantee it, would have been dishonest and fraudulent; but the fact that this purpose was conceived afterward, as it doubtless was, does not alter the case a whit. No man possessed of the facts can honestly claim that the bargain between the North and South, interpreted according to the true interest and meaning of both parties at the time of making it, can justify the extension of slavery a rod beyond the original States, or a particle of protection to it beyond the right to recover fugitives from such States.