the accepted consideration for
waiving the right to extend, and Massachusetts may rightfully insist
on this waived right to extend, so long as this "better security" is
demanded of her.

Southern gentlemen in this Convention propose to be governed by the
principles of the founders of the Government, and by the Constitution,
or compact of union, as those founders understood it. By that they say
they are willing to do as the fathers did, and adjust the present
unhappy controversy by applying to new territory the same principles
which the fathers applied to the old. Let me assure gentlemen from the
slave States that if they are really in earnest in offering these
terms of adjustment, this unhappy controversy can be settled in less
than an hour's time. Having always claimed the right to recapture
fugitive slaves in territory acquired since, as well as in that
acquired before the adoption of the Constitution, the slave States
have ever been bound, upon every principle of honor and fair dealing,
to concede the original consideration for it, that is, prohibition. A
purpose secretly entertained when that compromise was made, to use the
Government in the manner it has actually been used, to enlarge the
area of slavery and the obligation to guarantee it, would have been
dishonest and fraudulent; but the fact that this purpose was conceived
afterward, as it doubtless was, does not alter the case a whit. No man
possessed of the facts can honestly claim that the bargain between the
North and South, interpreted according to the true interest and
meaning of both parties at the time of making it, can justify the
extension of slavery a rod beyond the original States, or a particle
of protection to it beyond the right to recover fugitives from such
States.

Having thus shown, as I think I have, that an essential element in the
basis of the "more perfect Union" on the question of slavery, was the
principle of non-extension, we find the first failure to assert this
principle was in the omission to apply it to the Louisiana purchase.
The importation of slaves into that territory was immediately
prohibited. That probably cut off the only source of supply from which
danger of extension was then apprehended. The policy of the Government
was well understood, and no apprehension of a practical departure from
it existed. There was nothing in the circumstance of the purchase, or
the reasons for making it, to excite such apprehension. But it was