er, the whole
treatment of the subject to which they relate being conceded to be a
matter of common interest to them, exclusively within their
jurisdiction, and subject to their control. A time may arrive, in
the course of years, when they will themselves desire some act of
interference in a friendly and beneficent spirit. If so, they have
the power reserved to them of initiating the very form in which it
would be most welcome. If not, they have a security, so long as this
government shall endure, that no sister State shall dictate any
change against their will.

I have now considered all the alleged grievances which have thus far
been brought to our attention, 1. The personal liberty laws, which
never freed a slave. 2. Exclusion from a Territory which
slaveholders will never desire to occupy. 3. Apprehension of an
event which will never take place. For the sake of these three
causes of complaint, all of them utterly without practical result,
the slaveholding States, unquestionably the weakest section of this
great Confederacy, are voluntarily and precipitately surrendering
the realities of solid power woven into the very texture of a
government that now keeps nineteen million freemen, willing to
tolerate, and, in one sense, to shelter, institutions which, but for
that, would meet with no more sympathy among them than they now do
in the remainder of the civilized world.

For my own part, I must declare that, even supposing these alleged
grievances to be more real than I represent them, I think the
measures of the committee dispose of them effectually and
forever. They contribute directly all that can be legitimately done
by Congress, and they recommend it to the legislatures of the States
to accomplish the remainder. Why, then, is it that harmony is not
restored? The answer is, that you are not satisfied with this
settlement, however complete. You must have more guarantees in the
Constitution. You must make the protection and extension of slavery
in the Territories now existing, and hereafter to be acquired, a
cardinal doctrine of our great charter. Without that, you are
determined to dissolve the Union. How stands the case, then? We
offer to settle the question finally in all of the present territory
that you claim, by giving you every chance of establishing slavery
that you have any right to require of us. You decline to take the
offer, because you fear it will do you no good. Slavery will not go
t