I call upon every conservative gentleman in this body, every one from a free State who desires to perpetuate the institutions of his country in their true spirit and character, who wishes not to convert our Union into an association of discordant and discontented parts, held together by dread or force, but to preserve us one people, united in heart and affection, I call upon him to meet us upon the ground of kindness, compromise, and conciliation. I say to him, drop this odious proviso, a measure powerful for evil and impotent for good; let it not have an immortality of mischief; give us security for the restoration of our fugitive slaves; admit California as you wish, and if you choose to abolish in the District of Columbia this foreign slave-trade, this conversion of the seat of government into a general mart for the slavedealers of the surrounding States, I say abolish it. My colleague [Mr. Mangum] and myself both stand ready to vote for it. Permit me, sir, to say to our Northern friends, that if they suppose Southern gentlemen to be wedded to any of the adventitious evils or abuses of slavery, to be unwilling to correct excesses, or disposed to support cruelty or to patronize inhumanity, they do us great injustice. Upon the rights of property we stand--these we consider sacred--and from our support of them we cannot be moved. But, saving these, make what regulations of police the occasion may require, and I will not only submit, but will give them my hearty concurrence and approbation.