In a chronological order, I must now consider some vitally important views, which have been submitted by some members in the House, and by Mr. Webster and others in the Senate. In mentioning the name of this great statesman, and in avowing that I am one among the many whom his recently expressed opinions have failed to convince, it is due to myself, however indifferent it may be to him or to his friends, that I should express my admiration of his powers, my gratitude for his past services, and the diffidence with which I dissented, at first, from his views. But I have pondered upon them long, and the longer I have pondered the more questionable they appear. I shall therefore venture upon the perilous task of inquiring into their correctness; and while I do it with the deference and respect which belong to his character, I shall do it also with that fidelity to conscience and to judgment that belong to mine. He is great, but truth is greater than us all. I shall confine myself mainly, and perhaps wholly, to Mr. Webster’s views, because he has argued the cause of the south with vastly more ability than it has been argued by any one among themselves. If his conclusions, then, be not tenable, their case is lost.[9] Mr. Webster casts away the “Proviso” altogether. He says, “_If a resolution or a law were now before us to provide a territorial government for New Mexico, I would not vote to put any prohibition into it whatever_.” (p. 44.) The reason given is, that slavery is already excluded from “California and New Mexico” “by the law of nature, of physical geography, the law of the formation of the earth.” (p. 42.) “California and New Mexico are Asiatic in their formation and scenery. They are composed of vast ridges of mountains of enormous height, with broken ridges and deep valleys.” (p. 43.)