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least, for he represented none but the "bone and sinew." I presume there were other gentlemen at this convention that were not exactly in the same situation with him. They represented the entire community. Well, they resolved that the line of 36° 30' should be their ultimatum, with some additional suggestions. I wish to call the attention of the honorable President to how that line has been regarded by southern men heretofore, in an instance that occurred in our legislation some years since. I recollect well that but one southern man voted for the Missouri compromise, in relation to the measure of forming a territorial government for Oregon. I recollect that the South then repudiated the Missouri compromise line, and denounced it as impolitic, and as one of the greatest misfortunes and most pernicious measures which had ever been introduced into the policy of the United States. I recollect how it was characterized. It was not only denounced and voted down in this body, but I know that, voting for it, I was denounced for adherence to that Missouri com- promise. How can the South now ask to have that established which they formerly repudiated and denounced? I vote for that now. I have voted for it. I never change my opinions or my actions- at least if they are decorous ; and I try to keep them so. I have voted for such amendments to this bill, not because I believe the South would derive any advantage from extending the Missouri line to the Pacific. If you partition California by that line, I have no idea that you would create one solitary slave State, but rather that you would multiply "free-soil" States. I shall vote for the admission of California, because the people there were thrown into a situation in which organization was necessary to supersede a military government, for which all necessity had ceased, unless they had failed to organize them- selves, as they have done, as a State. I am for admitting them as a State. I contend that it is an inherent right in the American people, wherever they are thrown together in sufficient numbers, that they shall establish some government for themselves, pro- visional, territorial, or whatever they may please. You cannot plant upon a spot of the earth a thousand Americans that will not establish for themselves free institutions assimilated to the government under which they have been reared. It is inherent in the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo American races to govern them- selves. You cannot prevent it. And this people have elected a government.
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