n of
the Union can go there and enjoy their property, when the
people of another portion cannot enjoy the right of property
in that territory--territory common to the whole country;
territory that was earned or acquired by the common blood
and common treasure of all; territory that is sustained by
the common treasure of all; and to say that all shall not
have an equal right there, is to deny a fact so plain, a
principle so just, a right so manifest, that I can hardly
see how any man who professes to be a Democrat can deny it,
or how he can attempt to embarrass the adoption of the
correct principles announced in these resolutions. I shall
therefore vote against all the amendments, and every thing
that is offered to obstruct their passage, upon the ground
that they assert justice, that they assert truth, that they
assert the equality and constitutional rights of all the
States, which principle must be maintained, or this Union
cannot be preserved."

That was my doctrine then, it is the doctrine which I have held and
advocated for twenty years. It is the doctrine I hold now; and I so
notified the Senator from Tennessee, who arraigned me here as voting
against protecting property, and who did me willful and gross
injustice in it--for I voted for it and he voted against it. That is
to say, I voted against the resolution introduced by Mr. CLINGMAN,
declaring "that slave property did not need protection in the
Territories," while the Senator from Tennessee voted for it; and when
the motion was made to reconsider the vote adopting it in lieu of the
fourth resolution of the DAVIS series, I voted to reconsider, and the
Senator from Tennessee voted against it, showing clearly that he was
against affording that protection to slave property which the fourth
resolution provided for. Did I not maintain the truth? Was I not
prophetic in the announcement that I made in this Senate Chamber then?
I said, that unless this great principle of justice, of equality, of
the right of every man to the common territory should be maintained,
this Union would be broken up. This great principle has not been
maintained, but the Union has been destroyed.

But, sir, to go to the votes. It will be borne in mind, and every
Senator on this floor will bear me out in my statement, that while the
DAVIS resolutions--the series of which I speak--were up, various
proposition