s were made to amend them, and I voted against all
amendments. There are Senators here at this moment who will sustain me
when I say that, when in caucus and we had under consideration this
series of resolutions, I said, and said it boldly and in plain terms,
that if every man from every Southern State of this Union would come
here and say, for the sake of peace, if you please, or any other
reason, he was willing to abandon his equality, his right in the
common territory, then, if alone, I would stand and protest against
it; protest that he had no right to surrender a constitutional right;
that none but a coward would do it; that every man had a right in the
common territory; that it was his privilege, and he should never
surrender it with my permission. On the other hand, I said that if
every Northern man in the Senate Chamber--nay, but even every Northern
citizen--expressed a desire to surrender his right, his equality, his
privilege, to go to the common Territories with his property, I should
enter my solemn protest against it, and insist that he had a
constitutional right to go there, which he should never surrender with
my consent. Then, how any man could assert that I ever entertained the
opinion that slavery did not need protection from aggression, is to me
the strangest, falsest thing in nature. I said, as I have shown you,
that I had voted against all amendments, and would continue to vote
against all amendments, or any attempt whatsoever calculated to
obstruct the passage of the resolutions; for they asserted the right
of the people to go to the Territories, asserted the power of the
court to protect them in the possession of their property, and that if
the court failed to protect them, Congress should afford the necessary
authority to do so.

But, sir, allow me to observe, there was a resolution that I never
voted for, and that no man can charge me with ever having voted for.
Senators will recollect--and whoever has read the proceedings of the
Senate will recollect--that an amendment was offered as a substitute
to the fourth resolution, in these words:

"That the existing condition of the Territories does not
require the intervention of Congress for the protection of
property in slaves."

I did not vote for that resolution; but the Senator from Tennessee
did. That amendment was adopted in lieu of the fourth resolution of
the series that I have read, which insured protection to slave
propert