part of the purchase, north of a certain line, there should never be
slavery. As to what was to be done with the remaining part, south of the
line, nothing was said; but perhaps the fair implication was, it should
come in with slavery if it should so choose. The southern part, except a
portion heretofore mentioned, afterward did come in with slavery, as the
State of Arkansas. All these many years, since 1820, the northern part
had remained a wilderness. At length settlements began in it also. In due
course Iowa came in as a free State, and Minnesota was given a territorial
government, without removing the slavery restriction. Finally, the
sole remaining part north of the line--Kansas and Nebraska--was to be
organized; and it is proposed, and carried, to blot out the old dividing
line of thirty-four years' standing, and to open the whole of that country
to the introduction of slavery. Now this, to my mind, is manifestly
unjust. After an angry and dangerous controversy, the parties made friends
by dividing the bone of contention. The one party first appropriates her
own share, beyond all power to be disturbed in the possession of it, and
then seizes the share of the other party. It is as if two starving men had
divided their only loaf, the one had hastily swallowed his half, and then
grabbed the other's half just as he was putting it to his mouth.

Let me here drop the main argument, to notice what I consider rather
an inferior matter. It is argued that slavery will not go to Kansas and
Nebraska, in any event. This is a palliation, a lullaby. I have some hope
that it will not; but let us not be too confident. As to climate, a glance
at the map shows that there are five slave States--Delaware, Maryland,
Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, and also the District of Columbia, all
north of the Missouri Compromise line. The census returns of 1850 show
that within these there are eight hundred and sixty-seven thousand two
hundred and seventy-six slaves, being more than one fourth of all the
slaves in the nation.

It is not climate, then, that will keep slavery out of these Territories.
Is there anything in the peculiar nature of the country? Missouri adjoins
these Territories by her entire western boundary, and slavery is already
within every one of her western counties. I have even heard it said that
there are more slaves in proportion to whites in the northwestern county
of Missouri than within any other county in the State. Sl