Why, then,
should our institutions be endangered because it is proposed to submit
to the people of the remainder of our newly acquired territory lying
south of 36 degrees 30 minutes, embracing less than four degrees of
latitude, the question whether, in the language of the Texas compromise,
they "shall be admitted [as a State] into the Union with or without
slavery." Is this a question to be pushed to such extremities by excited
partisans on the one side or the other, in regard to our newly acquired
distant possessions on the Pacific, as to endanger the Union of thirty
glorious States, which constitute our Confederacy? I have an abiding
confidence that the sober reflection and sound patriotism of the people
of all the States will bring them to the conclusion that the dictate of
wisdom is to follow the example of those who have gone before us, and
settle this dangerous question on the Missouri compromise, or some other
equitable compromise which would respect the rights of all and prove
satisfactory to the different portions of the Union.
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