"temporary want of labor and emigration," and that is the greatest argument for slavery, but I meet it with the reasoning of John Randolph, and the confirmatory facts of history. Seven States of this Union, similar to Oregon in soil and productions, and to some extent in climate, have tried the institution of slavery and found it undesirable. Shall we now commit the folly of repeating the experiment? New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey and New Hampshire ascertained by actual trial that slavery was detrimental to their interests, and therefore abolished it. Can we for any reason expect to find it otherwise? To argue that slavery is a good thing in Alabama, and must therefore be a good thing in Oregon, is illogical, for Alabama has a hot climate and cotton bearing soil, which Oregon has not, but to argue that because slavery was objectionable in Pennsylvania it would be so in Oregon, is logical, for with a cool climate, cereals and similar fruits are the chief productions of both.
I believe it is customary and proper to use the opinions of distinguished men in discussions of this kind. National Whigs, I presume, have not forgotten Henry Clay. When three score years and more had silvered o'er his brow, he stood up in the Senate of the United States and uttered these words: "Coming from a slave State as I do, I owe it to myself, I owe it to truth, I owe it to the subject to say, that no earthly power could induce me to vote for a specific measure for the introduction of slavery where it had not before existed, either south or north of that line. Coming as I do from a slave State, it is my solemn, deliberate, and well-matured determination, that no power, no earthly power, shall compel me to vote for the positive introduction of slavery either south or north of that line. Sir, while you reproach, justly too, our British ancestors for the introduction of this institution upon the continent of America, I am for one unwilling that the posterity of the present inhabitants of California and New Mexico shall reproach us for doing just what we reproach Great Britain for doing to us. If the citizens of
