ion establishes slavery
anywhere, but that the Constitution, extending over a Territory, will
protect me in all my rights not prohibited by a local competent
authority; that my rights are to take any property which I own in any
part of the Union, Yankee clocks from the North, polar bears from the
Rocky Mountains, mules from the Middle States, and slaves from the
South; and that, unless there is a competent local authority to
prohibit my rights in these respective classes of property, I am to be
protected. The second step is that there can be no local authority as
long as the territorial condition remains, competent to prohibit
slavery in any Territory.

These are my positions; and hence, so far from this extraordinary
position that slavery is local being true, the reverse is true. It may
be local in the United States, but so far from its being local to the
Territory in the United States, the reverse is true. Talk about
freedom being national, and slavery local! I have a right to pass
through Pennsylvania, and my right of transit is as perfect this day
as it was when Pennsylvania was a slave State....

I have been anxious from the beginning of this session to stave off
public action, to hold the public pulse still, and give an opportunity
for reaction of northern sentiment. I want no reaction south. It has
been my only hope, and my last hope, and that hope has failed....

These resolutions are intended to lull old Virginia, Maryland,
Missouri, and Kentucky, until we are hand-cuffed and tied fast, and
then action is to commence. They are all designed simply to lull us
into a fancied security; but if we are wise betimes, and look forward
to coming events, we will at once strike the blow, and separate from a
Confederation which denies us peace, denies us protection, denies us
our constitutional rights, and seek them in some other association of
States....

Now, Mr. President, I want all these propositions voted down, and I
hope my friend from Kentucky will revive his propositions and bring
them up again. There is some vitality in them; there is some point in
them; but as for these wishy-washy resolutions, that amount to
nothing, it is impossible that any Senator here will, for a moment,
entertain the idea of supporting them. The Peace Conference! And the
smallest peace that ever I have heard of. Let the Senator adhere to
his original propositions; let the Senator bring them up and press
them upon the attention of the S