Here I am reminded of a remarkable sentence in Mr. Webster's speech at Marshfield, in relation to the northern men who helped to annex Texas. Here it is:-- "For my part, I think that Dough-faces is an epithet not sufficiently reproachful. Now, I think such persons are dough-faces, dough-heads, and dough-souls, that they are all dough; that the coarsest potter may mould them at pleasure to vessels of honor or dishonor, but most readily to vessels of dishonor." The Representative from Boston, in the year 1850, has small objection to the extension of slave soil. Hearken to his words:-- "I can never put the question of extending slave soil on the same footing with one of directly increasing slavery and multiplying slaves. If a positive issue could ever again be made up for our decision, whether human beings, few or many, of whatever race, complexion or condition, should be freshly subjected to a system of hereditary bondage, and be changed from free men into slaves, I can conceive that no bonds of union, no ties of interest, no cords of sympathy, no consideration of past glory, present welfare, or future grandeur, should be suffered to interfere, for an instant, with our resolute and unceasing resistance to a measure so iniquitous and abominable. There would be a clear, unquestionable moral element in such an issue, which would admit of no compromise, no concession, no forbearance whatever.... A million of swords would leap from their scabbards to assert it, and the Union itself would be shivered like a Prince Rupert's dress in the shock. "But, Sir, the question whether the institution of slavery, as it already exists, shall be permitted to extend itself over a hundred or a hundred thousand more square miles than it now occupies, is a different question.... It is not, in my judgment, such an issue that conscientious and religious men may not be free to acquiesce in whatever decision may be arrived at by the constituted authorities of the country.... It is not with a view of cooping up slavery ... within limits too narrow for its natural growth;... it is not for the purpose of girding it round with lines of fire, till its sting, like that of the scorpion, shall be turned upon itself,... that I have ever advocated the principles of the Ordinance of 1787."