Democrat, pleaded for it, argued for it, and most of them declared themselves ready to fight for it; and yet Mr. Webster rises in his place, and tells them they are all moonstruck, hallucinated, fatuous; because “an ordinance of nature and the will of God” had settled this question against them from the beginning of the world. Mr. Calhoun said, immediately after this speech, “Give us free scope and time enough, and we will take care of the rest.” MR. MASON said,-- “We have heard here from various quarters, and from high quarters, and repeated on all hands,--repeated here again to-day by the honorable senator from Illinois, [Mr. SHIELDS,] that there is a law of nature which excludes the southern people from every portion of the state of California. I know of no such law of nature,--none whatever; but I do know the contrary, that if California had been organized with a territorial form of government only, and for which, at the last two sessions of Congress, she has obtained the entire southern vote, the people of the Southern States would have gone there freely, and have taken their slaves there in great numbers. They would have done so, because the value of the labor of that class would have been augmented to them many hundred fold. Why, in the debates which took place in the convention in California which formed the constitution, and which any senator can now read for himself, after the provision excluding slavery was agreed upon, it was proposed to prohibit the African race altogether, free as well as bond. A debate arose upon it, and the ground was distinctly taken, as shown in those debates, that if the entire African race was not excluded, their labor would be found so valuable that the owners of slaves would bring them there, even though slavery were prohibited, under a contract to manumit them in two or three years. And it required very little reasoning, on the part of those opposed to this class of population, to show that the productiveness of their labor would be such as to cause that result. An estimate was gone into with reference to the value of the labor of this class of people, showing that it would be increased to such an extent in the mines of California, that they could not be kept out. It was agreed that the labor of a slave in any one of the states from which they would be taken, was not worth more than one hundred or one hundred and fifty dollars a year, and that in California it would be worth from four to six thousand dollars. They would work themselves free in one or two years, and thus the country would be filled by a class of free blacks, and their former owners have an excellent bargain in taking them there.”