Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from California and New Mexico: Speech of Mr. Wm; B. Preston, of Virginia, in the House of Representatives, February 7, 1849, on the Formation of a New State Out of the Territories of California and New Mexico
Sir, the bill which I advocate takes other grounds. I have shown the de merits of these territorial bills. I have shown that you are staking yourselves upon a temporary issue. I have shown that you are staking yourselves upon an issue, and upon the division of a fund, and upon the division of a spoil, that does not belong to us but for the fulfilment of the primary object of that trust; and the day and the hour when it belonged to us is past, and it belongs to them, for they are in condition to assume it for themselves, and exercise it according to the principles of our Government.
Again, sir, I offer: this bill because, in the first clause, it declares that the people of California shall be at liberty to make a government for themselves. Look at the principle there. You have, as I am informed, one hundred and fifty thousand of your citizens there now. You will have, before this bill can go into operation, two hundred thousand there, which is twice or thrice as large a population as most of the States ever had when they were admitted into the Union. I ask you, who is there here who can stand back and refuse the surrender of the trust upon any grounds - personal, individual, sectional, or partisan? I ask you who, sir? None. None of you can; none of you ought.
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