Unlike Mr. Webster, Mr. Winthrop seems to think religion is a good thing in politics, for in his speech of May 7th, he says--"I acknowledge my allegiance to the whole Constitution of the United States.... And whenever I perceive a plain conflict of jurisdiction and authority between the Constitution of my country and the laws of my God, my course is clear. I shall resign my office, whatever it may be, and renounce all connection with public service of any sort." That is fair and manly. He will not hold a position under the Constitution of the United States which is inconsistent with the Constitution of the Universe. But he says--"There are provisions in the Constitution [of the United States, he means, not of the universe], which involve us in painful obligations, and from which some of us would rejoice to be relieved; and this [the restoration of fugitive slaves], is one of them. But there is none, none, in my judgment, which involves any conscientious or religious difficulty." So he has no "conscientious or religious" objection to return a fugitive slave. He thinks the Constitution of the United States "avoids the idea that there can be property in man," but recognizes "that there may be property in the service or labor of man." But when it is property in the service of man without value received by the servant, and a claim which continues to attach to a man and his children forever, it looks very like the idea of property in man. At any rate, there is only a distinction in the words, no difference in the things. To claim the sum of the accidents, all and several of a thing, is practically to claim the thing. Mr. Winthrop once voted for the Wilmot Proviso, in its application to the Oregon Territory. Some persons have honored him for it, and even contended that he also was a free soiler. He wipes off that calumny by declaring, that he attached that proviso to the Oregon bill for the purpose of defeating the bill itself. "This proviso was one of the means upon which I mainly relied for the purpose." "There can be little doubt," he says, "that this clause had its influence in arresting the bill in the other end of the capitol," where it was "finally lost." That is his apology for appearing to desire to prevent the extension of slavery. It is worth while to remember this. Unlike Mr. Webster, he thinks slavery may go into New Mexico. "We may hesitate to admit that nature has everywhere [in the new territory] settled the question against slavery." Still he would not now pass the proviso to exclude slavery. It "would ... unite the South as one man, and if it did not actually rend the Union asunder, would create an alienation and irritation in that quarter of the country, which would render the Union hardly worth preserving." "Is there not ample reason for an abatement of the northern tone, for a forbearance of northern urgency upon this subject, without the imputation of tergiversation and treachery?"