I feel, Mr. President, as if I had wearied your patience, while I am sure my own bodily powers admonish me to close; but I cannot do so without again reminding my constituents of the greetings that have taken place on the consummation and ratification of the treaty, offensive and defensive, between the slaveholding and bank powers, in order to carry on a war against the liberties of our country, and to put down the present administration. Yes, there is no voice heard from New England now. Boston and Faneuil Hall are silent as death. The free day-laborer is, in prospect, reduced to the political, if not moral condition of the slave; an ideal line is to divide them in their labor; yes, the same principle is to govern on both sides. Even the farmer, too, will soon be brought into the same fold. It will be again said, with regard to the government of the country, "The farmer with his huge paws upon the statute book, what can he do?" I have endeavored to warn my fellow-citizens of the present and approaching danger, but the dark cloud of slavery is before their eyes, and prevents many of them from seeing the condition of things as they are. That cloud, like the cloud of summer, will soon pass away, and its thunders cease to be heard. Slavery will come to an end, and the sunshine of prosperity warm, invigorate and bless our whole country.
I do not know, Mr. President, that my voice will ever again be heard on this floor. I now willingly, yes, gladly, return to my constituents, to the people of my own State. I have spent my life amongst them, and the greater portion of it in their service, and they have bestowed upon me their confidence in numerous instances. I feel perfectly conscious that, in the discharge of every trust which they have committed to me, I have, to the best of my abilities, acted solely with a view to the general good, not suffering myself to be influenced by any particular or private interest whatever; and I now challenge those who think I have done otherwise, to lay their finger upon any public act of mine, and prove to the country its injustice or anti-republican tendency. That I have often erred in the selection of means to accomplish important ends I have no doubt, but my belief in the truth of the doctrines of the Declaration of Independence, the political creed of President Jefferson, remains unshaken and unsubdued. My greatest regret is that I have not been more zealous, and done more for the cause of individual and political liberty than I have done. I hope, on returning to my home and my friends, to join them again in rekindling the beacon-fires of liberty upon every hill in our State, until their broad glare shall enlighten every valley, and the song of triumph will soon be heard, for the hearts of our people are in the hands of a just and holy being, (who can not look upon oppression but with abhorrence.) and he can turn them whithersoever he will, as the rivers of water are turned. Though our national sins are many and grievous, yet repentance, like that of ancient Nineveh, may divert from us that impending danger which seems to hang over our heads as by a single hair. That all may be safe, I conclude that THE NEGRO WILL YET BE SET FREE.