On the motion of Senator Willey the bill was again considered on the first day of July, the question pending being the amendment of Mr. Sumner.[82] In support thereof, Mr. Sumner asserted that from statistics of Mr. Willey it appeared that twelve thousand bondsmen in Western Virginia were doomed to continue as such for the remainder of their lives, and that consequently the Senate must, for a generation, be afflicted with two additional slave-holding members. He quoted from Webster's speech of December 22, 1845, on the admission of Texas into the Union and rested his case on its arguments. Briefly stated, Mr. Webster opposed the admission of other States into the Union as slave States, and at the same time granting to them the inequalities arising from the mode of apportioning representation to Congress, as granted by the Constitution to the original slave-holding States. He held that the free States have the right to demand the abolition of slavery by a commonwealth seeking admission with a slave-holding constitution.[83] During the continuation of the debate, Mr. Hale asserted that Mr. Webster abandoned the position just attributed to him when in 1850 he voted against any restrictions upon any territory coming into the Union with a slave-holding constitution and when he voted exclusively against applying the "Wilmot Proviso" to these States. Mr. Hale added tersely that since Congress had consistently admitted States with slave-holding constitutions providing for perpetual slavery, it would be the merest folly to refuse to admit the first State whose constitution provided for gradual emancipation.[84] A new issue was injected into the debate when Mr. Collamer, of Vermont, while reviewing what is implied in being a sovereign State and a State in the Union, argued that the imposition by Congress of any condition precedent to the entrance, whether or not that condition be the abolition of slavery, is an unwarranted interference with the internal affairs of that State. Under such circumstances the proposed new State would not come into the Union on equal footing with other States. He did not wish, however, to be understood as saying that he would not vote against a State desiring to come in as a perpetual slave-holding State; but he failed to see the wisdom or justice in making the abolition of slavery a condition precedent to entrance. On the other hand, he saw no difference, in principle, between the provision in the bill as reported and the amendment offered by Mr. Sumner, since both of them failed to reflect the will of the Convention that framed the State's constitution.[85]