The passage is as follows:-- "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.