My vote, and the
reasons I gave for it, are known to the good people of Massachusetts,
and I have not heard that they have expressed any particular
disapprobation of them.
But this question is to be resumed at the first session of the next
Congress. There is no probability that it will be settled at the next
session of this Congress. But at least at the first session of the next
Congress this question will be resumed. It will enter at this very
period into all the elections of the South.
And now I venture to say, Gentlemen, two things; the first well known to
you, that General Cass is in favor of what is called the Compromise
Line, and is of opinion that the Wilmot Proviso, or the Ordinance of
1787, which excludes slavery from territories, ought not to be applied
to territories lying south of 36 deg. 30'. He announced this before he was
nominated, and if he had not announced it, he would have been 36 deg. 30'
farther off from being nominated. In the next place, he will do all he
can to establish that compromise line; and lastly, which is a matter of
opinion, in my conscientious belief he will establish it.
Give him the power and the patronage of the government, let him exercise
it over certain portions of the country whose representatives voted on
this occasion to put off that question for future consideration; let him
have the power of this government with his attachments, with his
inducements, and we shall see the result. I verily believe, that unless
there is a renewed strength, an augmented strength, of Whig votes in
Congress, he will accomplish his purpose.
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