And just then the day was fast approaching when the moral idea, which so far had broken out only sporadically, and moved small numbers of men to open action, should receive a reinforcement strong enough to transform a forlorn hope into an army of irresistible strength. One of those eternal laws which govern the development of human affairs asserted itself,—the law that a great wrong, which has been maintained in defiance of the moral sense of mankind, must finally, by the very means and measures necessary for its sustenance, render itself so insupportable as to insure its downfall and destruction.
So it was with slavery. I candidly acquit the American slave-power of wilful and wanton aggression upon the liberties and general interests of the American people. If slavery was to be kept alive at all, its supporters could not act otherwise than they did.
Slavery could not live and thrive in an atmosphere of free inquiry and untrammeled discussion. Therefore free inquiry and discussion touching slavery had to be suppressed.
Slavery could not be secure, if slaves, escaping merely across a State line, thereby escaped the grasp of their masters. Hence an effective fugitive- slave law was imperatively demanded.
Slavery could not protect its interests in the Union unless its power balanced that of the free States in the National councils. Therefore by colonization or conquest the number of slave States had to be augmented. Hence the annexation of Texas, the Mexican War and intrigues for the acquisition of Cuba.
Slavery could not maintain the equilibrium of power, if it permitted itself to be excluded from the National territories. Hence the breaking down of the Missouri compromise and the usurpation in Kansas.
Thus slavery was pushed on and on by the inexorable
