For you history buffs

For you history buffs, imagine the year is 1849 and you are in the gallery of the United States Senate. You hear the following speech. Try to guess who the speaker was:
“At the time of the adoption of the Constitution, there were 12 slaveholding states, and only one free state, and of those 12, six of them have since abolished slavery. This fact shows that the cause of freedom has steadily and firmly advanced, while slavery has receded in the same ratio.
“We all look forward with confidence to the time when Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, and probably North Carolina and Tennessee, will adopt a gradual system of emancipation, under the operation of which, those states must, in process of time, become free.

“In the meantime, we have a vast territory, stretching from the Mississippi to the Pacific, which is rapidly filling up with a hardy, enterprising, and industrious population, large enough to form at least 17 new free states. Now let me inquire, where are you to find the slave territory with which to balance the 17 free territories, Or even any one of them? Will you annex all Mexico? If you do, at least 20 out of 22 will be free states, if the “law of the formation of the earth, the ordinances of nature, or the will of God,“ is to be respected, or if the doctrine shall prevail of allowing the people to do as they please.
“Then, sir, the proposition of the senator from South Carolina is entirely impracticable. It is also inadmissible, if practicable. It would revolutionize the fundamental principles of the government. It would destroy the great principle of popular equality, which must necessarily form the basis of all free institutions. It would be a retrograde movement in an age of progress that would astonish the world.”
Who said this? See the comments. I’m sure it’s pretty easy for many.
“The senator from South Carolina“ referenced above by the speech maker is obviously Senator John C. Calhoun.