In the first place, a large proportion of our people at the North claim _the right to abolish slavery in places ceded to the United States, or formed by contributions from the States, such as the District of Columbia_. I do not know what my learned friends' views on that subject are, but I know that the two great political parties of the country have had distinct opinions on that subject. By one, it has been steadily maintained, and with great energy, that, so far as the nation has power over the subject of slavery, it shall exercise it to abolish slavery. And the South says: "If you undertake to abolish slavery in any fort, any ceded place, any territory that we have given you for the purposes of the National Government, we will regard that as a breach of faith; for, whether you abhor slavery, or only pretend to abhor it, it is the means of our life. I, a Southerner, whose mother was virtuous as yours--whom I loved as you loved your mother--received from her at her death, as my inheritance, the slaves whom my father purchased--whom I am taught, under my religious belief, to regard as property, and whom I will so continue to regard as long as I live." That is the argument of the South; and if men at the South conscientiously believe that, from their knowledge of the sentiments, factions, or agitations at the North, such as these, there is an intention to make a raid and foray on the institution of slavery, deprive them of all the property they have in the world, and condemn them to any stigma--is it any wonder that they should express and act upon such an opinion? Next, gentlemen, in the category of their complaints, is the _agitation for the prohibition of what is called the inter-State slave trade_. Next is _the exclusion of slavery from new territory_, which, says the South, "we helped to acquire by our blood and treasure--towards which we contributed as you did. If you had a gallant regiment in the field in Mexico, had we not the Palmetto and other regiments, which came back--such of them as survived--covered with glory?" This has been the great subject that has recently divided our political parties--the Republican party, so-called, proclaiming with great earnestness and great decency its sincere conviction that it was a moral and political right to prevent slavery from being carried into new territory, and insisting that the slave-owner, if he went there with his slaves, must bring them to a state of freedom.