And the events which now fill the scene are but due successors in the
train that has swept over the stage ever since the nineteenth century
opened the procession with the purchase of Louisiana. The acquisition
of that vast territory, important as it was in a national point of
view,--but coveted by the South mainly as the fruitful mother of
slave-holding States, and for the precedent it established, that the
Constitution was a barrier only to what should impede, never to what
might promote, the interests of Slavery,--was the first great stride
she made as she stalked to her design. The admission of Missouri as a
slaveholding State, granted after a struggle that shook American
society to the centre, and then only on the memorable promises now
broken to the ear as well as to the hope, was the next vantage-ground
seized and maintained. The nearly contemporary purchase of Florida,
though in design and in effect as revolutionary an action as that of
Louisiana, excited comparatively little opposition. It was but the
following up of an acknowledged victory by the Slave Power.
Pages:
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393