But, sir, unlike the Senator from Oregon, I will never agree to put into the Constitution of the country a clause establishing or making perpetual slavery anywhere. No, sir; no human being shall ever be made a slave by my vote. No foot of God's soil shall ever be dedicated to African slavery by my act--never, sir. I will not interfere with it where I have no authority by the Constitution to interfere; but I never will consent, the people of the great Northwest, numbering more in white population than all your Southern States together, never will consent by their act to establish African slavery anywhere. Why, sir, the seven free states of the Northwest, at the late presidential election, cast three hundred thousand more votes than all the fifteen Southern States together. Senators talk about the North and the South, and speak of having two Presidents, a Northern President and a Southern President, as if we had no such country as the Northwest, more populous with freemen than all the South. The people of the South and the people of the East both will, by and by, learn, if they have not already learned, that we have a country, and a great and growing country, in the Northwest; a free country--made free, too, by the act of Virginia herself. I do not propose to discuss the House Resolution. I have said on any and all proper occasions, and am willing to say at any time, to our brethren of the South, we have no disposition, and never had any, and have no power, if we had the disposition, to interfere with your domestic institutions.