States, and all other quarters, except from the South, which it takes special care to exclude by holding up to them the danger of having their slaves liberated under the Mexican laws. The necessary consequence is to exclude the South from the Territories, just as effectually as would the Wilmot proviso. The only difference, in this respect, is, that what one proposes to effect directly and openly, the other proposes to effect indirectly and covertly. "But the executive proviso is more objectionable than the Wilmot in another and more important particular. The latter, to effect its object, inflicts a dangerous wound upon the Constitution, by depriving the Southern States, as joint partners and owners of the Territories, of their rights in them; but it inflicts no greater wound than is absolutely necessary to effect its object. The former, on the contrary, while it inflicts the same wound, inflicts others equally great, and, if possible, greater, as I shall next proceed to explain. "In claiming the right for the inhabitants, instead of Congress, to legislate for the Territories, the executive proviso assumes that the sovereignty over the Territories is vested in the former, or, to express it in the language used in a resolution offered by one of the Senators from Texas [General Houston, now absent], they 'have the same inherent right of self-government as the people in the States.' The assumption is utterly unfounded, unconstitutional, without example, and contrary to the entire practice of the Government, from its commencement to the present time, as I shall proceed to show."--_Calhoun's Works_, vol. 4, p. 562. MR. DAVIS. I find that I must abridge, by abstaining from the reading of extracts. When this question arose in 1820, Nathaniel Macon, by many considered the wisest man of his day, held the proposed interference to be unauthorized and innovative. In arguing against the Missouri Compromise, as it was called--the attempt by Congress to prescribe where slaves might or might not be held--the exercise, by the Federal Government north of a certain point, of usurped power by an act of inhibition, Mr. Macon said our true policy was that which had thus far guided the country in safety: the policy of non-intervention. By non-intervention he meant the absence of hostile legislation, not the absence of governmental protection. Our doctrine on this point is not new, but that of our opponents is so.