A wise legislature will always consider the character, condition and feelings of those to be legislated for. In a government and people like ours this is indispensable. The question now under debate demands this consideration. To a part of the United States, and that part which supports the amendment, it cannot be important except as it is made so by the circumstances of the time. In all questions like the present, in the United States, the strong may yield without disgrace even in their own opinion; the weak cannot. Hence the propriety of not attempting to impose this new condition on the people of Missouri. Their numbers are few compared to those of the whole United States. Let the United States then abandon this new scheme, let their magnanimity and not their power be felt by the people of Missouri. The attempt to govern too much has produced every civil war that ever has been, and probably every one that ever may be. All governments, no matter what their form, want more power and more authority, and all the governed want less government. Great Britain lost the United States by attempting to govern too much and to introduce new principles of governing. The United States would not submit to the attempt, and earnestly endeavored to persuade Great Britain to abandon it, but in vain. The United States would not yield, and the result is known to the world. The battle is not always to the strong nor the race to the swift. What reason have we to expect that we can persuade Missouri to yield to our opinion that did not apply as strongly to Great Britain? They are as near akin to us as we were to Great Britain. They are "flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone." But as to kin, when they fall out they do not make up sooner than other people. Great Britain attempted to govern us on a new principle, and we are attempting to establish a new principle for the people of Missouri on becoming a State. Great Britain attempted to collect a threepenny tax on the tea consumed in the then colonies, which were not represented in Parliament; and we to regulate what shall be property when Missouri becomes a State, when she has no vote in Congress. The great English principle of no tax without representation was violated in one case, and the great American principle, that people are able to govern themselves, will be violated if the amendment be adopted. Every free nation has had some principle in its government to which more importance was attached than to any other. The English principle was not to be taxed without the consent of the people given in Parliament; the American principle is the right of the people to form their State governments in their own way, provided they be not inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States. If the power in Congress to pass the restriction was expressly delegated, and so clear that no one could doubt it, in the present circumstances of the country, it would still not be wise or prudent to do so; especially against