of any more slave States into the Union, I state to you very frankly that
I would be exceedingly sorry ever to be put in a position of having to
pass upon that question. I should be exceedingly glad to know that there
would never be another slave State admitted into the Union; but I must
add that if slavery shall be kept out of the Territories during the
territorial existence of any one given Territory, and then the people
shall, having a fair chance and a clear field, when they come to adopt
the constitution, do such an extraordinary thing as to adopt a slave
constitution, uninfluenced by the actual presence of the institution
among them, I see no alternative, if we own the country, but to admit
them into the Union.

The third interrogatory is answered by the answer to the second, it
being, as I conceive, the same as the second.

The fourth one is in regard to the abolition of slavery in the District
of Columbia. In relation to that, I have my mind very distinctly made up.
I should be exceedingly glad to see slavery abolished in the District of
Columbia. I believe that Congress possesses the constitutional power to
abolish it. Yet as a member of Congress, I should not, with my present
views, be in favor of endeavoring to abolish slavery in the District of
Columbia, unless it would be upon these conditions: First, that the
abolition should be gradual; second, that it should be on a vote of the
majority of qualified voters in the District; and third, that
compensation should be made to unwilling owners. With these three
conditions, I confess I would be exceedingly glad to see Congress abolish
slavery in the District of Columbia, and, in the language of Henry Clay,
"sweep from our capital that foul blot upon our nation."

In regard to the fifth interrogatory, I must say here that, as to the