44 black men cultivating tobacco, com, cotton, rice, or any thing else, on lands in New Mexico, made fertile only by irrigation ? I look upon it, therefore, as a fixed fact, to use an expression current at this day, that both California and New Mexico are destined to be free, so far as they are settled at all, which I believe, especially in regard to New Mexico, will be very little for a great length of time; free by the arrangement of things by the Power above us. I have therefore to say, in this respect also, that this country is fixed for freedom, to as many persons as shall ever live in it, by as irrepealable and more irre- pealable a law, than the law that attaches to the right of holding slaves in Texas; and I will say further, that if a resolution, or a law, were now before us to provide a territorial Government for New Mexico, I would not vote to put any prohibition into it whatever. The use of such a prohibition would be idle, as it respects any effect it would have upon the Territory; and I would not take pain'S uselessly to re-affirm an ordinance of Nature, nor to re-enact the will of God. And I would put in no Wilmot proviso for the mere purpose of a taunt or a reproach. I would put into it no evidence of the votes of superior power, for no purpose but to wound the pride, even whether a just pride, a rational pride, or an irrational pride, to wound the pride of the gentlemen who belong to Southern States. I have no such object, no such purpose. They would think it a taunt, an indignity; they would think it to be an act taking away from them what they regard a proper equality of privilege; and whether they expect to realize any benefit from it or not, they would think it at least a plain theo- ‘ retie wrong; that something more or less derogatory to
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