3. In the acquisition of Florida as slave territory.
4. In making the Missouri Compromise.
5. In the annexation of Texas as a slave State.
6. In the Mexican war—a war, mean and wicked, even amongst wars.
Since the Revolution, there have been three instances of great national importance, in which freedom has overcome slavery; there have been three victories:
1. In prohibiting slavery from the Northwest Territory, before the adoption of the Constitution.
2. In prohibiting the slave-trade in 1808. I mean, in prohibiting the African slave-trade; the American slave-trade is still carried on in the capital of the United States.
3. The prohibition of slavery in Oregon may be regarded as a third victory, though not apparently of so much consequence as the others.
Now comes another battle, and it remains to be decided whether the idea of slavery or the idea of freedom is to prevail in the territory we have conquered and stolen from Mexico. The present strife is to settle that question. Now, as before, it is a battle between freedom and slavery; one on which the material and spiritual welfare of millions of men depends; but now the difference between freedom and slavery is more clearly seen than in 1787; the consequences of each are better understood, and the sin of slavery is felt and acknowledged by a class of persons who had few representatives sixty years ago. It is a much greater triumph for slavery to prevail now, and carry its institutions into New Mexico in 1850, than it was to pass the pro-slavery provisions of the Constitution in 1787. It will be a greater sin now to extend slavery, than it was to establish it in 1620, when slaves were first brought to Virginia.
Ever since the adoption of the Constitution, protected by that shield, mastering the energies of the nation, and fighting with that weapon, slavery has been continually aggressive. The slave-driver has coveted new soil; has claimed it; has had his claim allowed. Louisiana, Florida, Texas, California and New Mexico are the results of Southern aggression. Now the slave-driver reaches out his hand towards Cuba, trying to clutch that emerald gem set in the tropic sea. How easy it was to surrender to Great Britain portions of the Oregon Territory in a high northern latitude! Had it been south of 36° 30´, it would not have been so easy to settle the Oregon question by a compromise. So when we make a compromise there, "the reciprocity must be all on one side."