By his own confession, Mr. Badger had not read my speech. He takes up a single sentence, therefore, for comment, without the justice of looking at the context. He is like the man who should declare that the Scriptures say “there is no God,” when it is the fool, and not the Bible, that makes the declaration. My speech discussed the question of extending slavery over our territories and the proposed southern remedy for prohibiting that extension, namely, the disunion of the states. The conclusion to which I came was, that the north had better submit to the application of the southern remedy, than to surrender the new territories to all the horrors of bondage. Beyond our present limits “no more slave territories and no more slave states,” was the exact ground I took. But Mr. Badger represents me as saying that I would “prefer a disunion of these states,” and all the other evils in his long and labored catalogue, “rather than the extension of slavery _one foot_;” “yes,” he repeats with emphasis, “_one foot_.” Now, I never made such a declaration as this. I never said any thing to give countenance or color to such a declaration. Many persons, seeing the statement of the honorable senator, and relying upon his character for fairness and veracity, have believed that I did. But he has led them into the error. My argument and conclusion had reference to new slave territories, or to a new slave territory. Mr. Badger construes, or rather misconstrues this to mean “one foot.” If my speech is fairly susceptible of this construction, I wish so far to retract it. He shall have my consent to a “_one foot_” territory, and to as many slaves as he can hold on it under the _local law_.