"Now, sir, I assure senators from the South, that we of the free States mean to change our policy--I tell you, frankly, just how we feel and just what we propose to do. We mean to withdraw from these halls that class of public men who have betrayed us and deceived you; men who have misrepresented us, and not dealt frankly with you. And we intend to send men into these halls who will truly represent us and deal justly with you. We mean, sir, to place in the councils of the nation men who, in the words of Jefferson, 'have sworn on the altar of God eternal hostility to every kind of oppression of the mind and body of man.' Yes, sir, we mean to place in the national councils men who cannot be seduced by the blandishments, or deterred by the threats of power; men who will fearlessly maintain our principles. I assure senators from the South that the people of the North entertain for them and their people no feelings of hostility; but they will no longer consent to be misrepresented by their own representatives, nor proscribed for their fidelity to freedom. This determination of the people of the North has manifested itself during the past few months in acts not to be misread by the country. The stern rebuke administered to faithless northern representatives, and the annihilation of old and powerful political organizations, should teach senators that the days of waning power are upon them. This action of the people teaches the lesson, which I hope will be heeded, that political combinations can no longer be successfully made to suppress the sentiments of the people. We believe we have the power to abolish slavery in all the territories of the Union; that, if slavery exists there, it exists by the permission and sanction of the Federal Government, and we are responsible for it. We are in favor of its abolition wherever we are morally or legally responsible for its existence. "I believe conscientiously, that if slavery should be abolished by the National Government in the District of Columbia, and in the territories, the fugitive slave act repealed, the Federal Government relieved from all connection with, or responsibility for the existence of slavery, these angry debates banished from the halls of Congress, and slavery left to the people of the States, that the men of the South who are opposed to the existence of that institution, would get rid of it in their own States at no distant day. I believe that if slavery is ever peacefully abolished in this country--and I certainly believe it will be--it must be abolished in this way.