west to the
Pacific Ocean, and was so situated that if the Missouri line should be
extended straight west, the new country would be divided by such extended
line, leaving some north and some south of it. On Judge Douglas's motion,
a bill, or provision of a bill, passed the Senate to so extend the
Missouri line. The proviso men in the House, including myself, voted it
down, because, by implication, it gave up the southern part to slavery,
while we were bent on having it all free.

In the fall of 1848 the gold-mines were discovered in California. This
attracted people to it with unprecedented rapidity, so that on, or soon
after, the meeting of the new Congress in December, 1849, she already had
a population of nearly a hundred thousand, had called a convention, formed
a State constitution excluding slavery, and was knocking for admission
into the Union. The proviso men, of course, were for letting her in,
but the Senate, always true to the other side, would not consent to her
admission, and there California stood, kept out of the Union because
she would not let slavery into her borders. Under all the circumstances,
perhaps, this was not wrong. There were other points of dispute connected
with the general question of Slavery, which equally needed adjustment. The
South clamored for a more efficient fugitive slave law. The North clamored
for the abolition of a peculiar species of slave trade in the District
of Columbia, in connection with which, in view from the windows of the
Capitol, a sort of negro livery-stable, where droves of negroes were
collected, temporarily kept, and finally taken to Southern markets,
precisely like droves of horses, had been openly maintained for fifty
years. Utah and New Mexico needed territorial governments; and whether
slavery should or should not be prohibited within them was another
question. The indefinite western boundary of Texas was to be settled. She
was a slave State, and consequently the farther west the slavery men could
push her boundary, the more slave country they secured; and the farther
east the slavery opponents could thrust the boundary back, the less slave
ground was secured. Thus this was just as clearly a slavery question as
any of the others.

These points all needed adjustment, and they were held up, perhaps wisely,
to make them help adjust one another. The Union now, as in 1820, was
thought to be in danger, and devotion to the Union rightfully inclined
men to yield some