Sir, our country early reached heights which it could not keep. Its fall was gentle, but complete. At the session of Congress immediately following the ratification of the Prohibition of Slavery in the national domain, a transfer of the territory now constituting Tennessee was accepted from North Carolina (2d April, 1790), loaded with the express proviso, "that no regulations made or to be made by Congress shall tend to emancipate slaves": a formal provision, which, while admitting the power of Congress over Slavery in the Territories, waived the prevailing policy of executing it. This was followed, in 1798, by the transfer from Georgia of the region between her present western limit and the Mississippi, under a similar condition. In both these cases apology may be found in the very terms of the transfer, and in the fact that the region constituted part of two States where Slavery actually existed,--though it will be confessed that even here there was a descent from that summit of Freedom on which the Nation had so proudly rested. Without tracing this downward course through its successive stages, let me refer to facts which too palpably reveal the abyss that has been reached. Early in our history no man was disqualified for public office by reason of his opinions on this subject; and this condition continued for a long period. As late as 1820, John W. Taylor, Representative from New York, who pressed with so much energy, not merely the prohibition of Slavery in the Territories, but its restriction in the State of Missouri, was elected to the chair of Henry Clay, as Speaker of the other House. It is needless to add, that no determined supporter of the prohibition of Slavery in the Territories at this day could expect that eminent trust.... To such lowest deep has our Government descended!