Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Politics volume 4 .djvu/233

Rh their labour would result in the acquisition of pecuniary profits not heretofore realized by the most successful cotton or sugar planter of this country?" Does not Mr. Webster know this? Perhaps he did not hear Mr. Footers speech last year; perhaps he has a short memory, and has forgotten it. Then let us remind the nation of what its Senator forgets. Not know this—forget it? Who will credit such a statement? Mr. Webster is not an obscure clergyman, busy with far different things, but the foremost politician of the United States. But why do I mention the speeches of Mr. Foote, a year ago? Here is something hardly dry from the printing press. Here is an advertisement from the "Mississippian" of March 7th, 1850, the very day of that speech. The "Mississippian" is published at the city of Jackson, in Mississippi.

What does Mr. Webster say in view of all this? "If a proposition were now here for a government for New Mexico, and it was moved to insert a provision for the prohibition of slavery, I would not vote for it." Why not vote for it? There is a specious pretence, which is publicly proclaimed, but there is a real reason for it which is not mentioned!

In the face of all these facts, Mr. Webster says that these men would wish "to protect the everlasting snows of Canada from the pest of slavery by the same overspread- ing wing of an act of Congress." Exactly so. If we ever annex Labrador—if we "re-annex" Greenland, and Kamskatka, I would extend the Wilmot Proviso, there, and exclude slavery for ever and for ever. But Mr. Webster would not "re-affirm an ordinance of