But what renders the argument of General Cass still more extraordinary is the fact, that, according to his own doctrine, he has spent the greater part of his political life in violating the constitution, while constantly repeating his oath to support it. As marshal of Ohio, as governor of Michigan, as Indian agent, he has appointed officers and magistrates, and executed laws, when, according to his own showing, he was a mere interloper and usurper; he has met territorial legislatures, which had no more right to assemble than a mob; he has doubtless imprisoned, if not executed many alleged offenders, who had as good a legal right to execute or to imprison him; and he has received salaries for more than twenty years, to which the khan of Tartary was as much entitled as he. Now, if he will refund the salaries he has unconstitutionally received; make reparation for the penalties or forfeitures he has wrongfully extorted; show some signs of contrition for the men whom he has unlawfully imprisoned or hung, it will remove the suspicions of many minds, in regard to the sincerity, if not the soundness, of his argument. I mention these facts from no personal feelings in regard to the senator from Michigan; but only to show to what desperate extremities men are driven in order to defend the right of spreading slavery from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean; and because this is the last reading of the constitution which has been invented for the purpose. Since the last session of Congress, the condition of a part of this territory has greatly changed. The unexampled velocity with which a living stream of men has poured into it within the last twelve months, has reversed its condition and decided its destiny. In other countries, _individuals_ seek their fortunes by changing their residence. Under the vehement action of our enterprise, _cities_ migrate. The new residents of California have framed a constitution, have applied for admission into this Union, and their application is now pending before us. Of their own accord, they have excluded slavery from their borders by their fundamental law. Until the discovery of gold in that country, and until all incredulity in regard to that remarkable fact had been overcome, it was confidently anticipated at the south, and intensely feared at the north, that the whole region would be overrun with slaveholders and with slaves. As far back as 1842, Mr. Wise, of Virginia, the administration leader in the House of Representatives, boldly declared that “_slavery should pour itself abroad without restraint, and find no limit but the Southern Ocean_.” The war with Mexico was waged for the twofold purpose of robbing that republic of its territory, and then robbing that territory of its freedom. Congressional orators and the southern press avowed that the object of acquiring territory was to extend the “divine institution.” I could quote pages in proof of this assertion. The north had no hope, the