"We hear much just now of a panacea for the dangers and evils of slavery and slave annexation, which they call the 'Wilmot Proviso.' That certainly is a just sentiment, but it is not a sentiment to found any new party upon. It is not a sentiment on which Massachusetts Whigs differ. There is not a man in this hall who holds to it more firmly than I do, nor one who adheres to it more than another.
"I feel some little interest in this matter, sir. Did I not commit myself in 1837 to the whole doctrine, fully, entirely? And I must be permitted to say that I cannot quite consent that more recent discoverers should claim the merit, and take out a patent.
"I deny the priority of their invention. Allow me to say, sir, it is not their thunder.
"There is no one who can complain of the North for resisting the increase of slave representation, because it gives power to the minority in a manner inconsistent with the principles of our government. What is past must stand; what is established must stand; and with the same firmness with which I shall resist every plan to augment the slave representation, or to bring the Constitution into hazard by attempting to extend our dominions, shall I contend to allow existing rights to remain.
"Sir, I can only say that, in my judgment, we are to use the first, the last, and every occasion which occurs, in maintaining our sentiments against the extension of the slave-power."
In the following winter Mr. Webster continued his policy of opposition to all acquisitions of territory. Although the cloud of domestic sorrow was already upon him, he spoke against the legislative powers involved in the "Ten Regiment" Bill, and on the 23d of March, after the ratification of the treaty of peace, which carried with it large cessions of territory, he delivered a long and elaborate speech on the "Objects of the Mexican War." The weight of his speech was directed against the acquisition of territory, on account of its effect on the Constitution, and the increased inequality of representation which it involved. He referred to the plan of cutting up Texas so as to obtain ten senators, as "borough mongering" on a grand scale, a course which he proposed to resist to the last; and he concluded by denouncing the whole project as one calculated to turn the Constitution into a curse rather than a blessing. "I resist it to-day and always," he said. "Whoever falters or whoever flies, I continue the contest."