"This progress, sir, is not to be arrested. It will go on. The end is not yet. There are persons now living who will see over a hundred million human beings within the present boundaries of the United States, to say nothing of future extension, and perhaps double the number of States we now have, should the Union last. For myself, I say to you, my southern colleagues on this floor, that I do not apprehend danger to our constitutional rights from the bare fact of increasing the number of States with institutions dissimilar to ours. The whole governmental fabric of the United States is based and founded upon the idea of dissimilarity in the institutions of the respective members. Principles, not numbers, are our protection. When these fail, we have like all other people, who, knowing their rights, dare maintain them, nothing to rely upon but the justice of our cause, our own right arms and stout hearts. With these feelings and this basis of action, whenever any State comes and asks admission, as Oregon does, I am prepared to extend her the hand of welcome, without looking into her constitution further than to see that it is republican in form, upon our well-known American models. "When aggression comes, if come it ever shall, then the end draweth nigh. Then, if in my day, I shall be for resistance, open, bold, and defiant. I know of no allegiance superior to that due the hearthstones of the homestead. This I say to all. I lay no claim to any sentiment of nationality not founded upon the patriotism of a true heart, and I know of no such patriotism that does not centre at home. Like the enlarging circle upon the surface of smooth waters, however, this can and will, if unobstructed, extend to the utmost limits of a common country. Such is my nationality--such my sectionalism--such my patriotism. Our fathers of the South joined your fathers of the North in resistance to a common aggression from their fatherland; and if they were justified in rising to right a wrong inflicted by a parent country, how much more ought we, should the necessity ever come, to stand justified before an enlightened world, in righting a wrong from even those we call brothers. That necessity, I trust, will never come.