Gentlemen, I believe--yes, I know--that the people of the North are as true to the government and the Union of the States now as our fathers were when they stood shoulder to shoulder upon the field, fighting for the principles upon which that Union rests. If I thought the time had come when it would be fit or proper to consider amendments to the Constitution at all, I believe that we should have no trouble with you, except upon this question of slavery in the Territories. You cannot demand of us at the North anything that we will not grant, unless it involves a sacrifice of our principles. These we shall not sacrifice; these you must not ask us to abandon. I believe, further,--and I speak in all frankness, for I wish to delude no one,--if the Constitution and the Union cannot be preserved and effectually maintained without these new guarantees for slavery, then the Union is not worth preserving. The people of the North have always submitted to the decisions of the properly constituted powers. This obedience has been unpleasant enough when they thought those powers were exercised for sectional purposes; but it has always been implicitly yielded. I am ready, even now, to go home and say that, by the decision of the Supreme Court, slavery exists in all the Territories of the United States. We submit to the decision, and accept its consequences. But, in view of all the circumstances attending that decision, was it quite fair, was it quite generous, for the gentleman from Maryland to say that under it, by the adoption of these propositions, the South was giving up everything, the North giving up nothing? Does he suppose the South is yielding the point in relation to any territory which, by any probability, would become slave territory? Something more than the decision of the Supreme Court is necessary to establish slavery anywhere. The decision may give the _right_ to establish it: other influences must control the question of its actual establishment. I am opposed, further, to any restrictions on the acquisition of territory. They are unnecessary. The time may come when they would be troublesome. We may want the Canadas. The time may come when the Canadas may wish to unite with us. Shall we tie up our hands so that we cannot receive them, or make it forever your interest to oppose their annexation? Such a restriction would be, by the common consent of the people, disregarded. There are seven States out of the Union already. They have organized what they claim is an independent government. They are not to be coerced back, you say. Are the prospects very favorable that they will return of their own accord? But _they_ will annex territory. They are already looking to Mexico. If left to themselves, they would annex her and all her neighbors, and we should lose our highway to the Pacific coast. They would acquire it, and to us it would be lost forever.