Excerpt from Speech Delivered by Hon. Thomas Hart Benton: At Jefferson, the Capitol of Missouri on the 26th May, 1849<br><br>In reading this Speech, however, we have been tempted to regret that Mr. Benton has not gone yet further, so far at least as to admit the expediency of prohibiting slavery in the territories. He holds that Congress has a right to enforce such a prohibition; he is against slavery, he tells us; he would resist its introduction into California and New Mexico; the ordinance of 1787 was a noble and a wise ordinance in his view, and the same policy which we then adopted in regard to the Northwestern Territory ought, he thinks, to be pursued in the government of the country acquired from Mexico. He believes, how ever, the express prohibition of slavery in these provinces to be necessary an since slavery does not now exist there, and cannot be introduced but by act of Congress, and he would not vote for a regulation which he thought to be simply superfluous.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.