n. I would make this an ocean-bound
republic, and have no more disputes about boundaries, or 'red lines'
upon the maps."[192]

In this speech there was one notable omission. The slavery question
was not once touched upon. Those who have eyes only to see plots
hatched by the slave power in national politics, are sure to construe
this silence as part of an ignoble game. It is possible that Douglas
purposely evaded this question; but it does not by any means follow
that he was deliberately playing into the hands of Southern leaders.
The simple truth is, that it was quite possible in the early forties
for men, in all honesty, to ignore slavery, because they regarded it
either as a side issue or as no issue at all. It was quite possible to
think on large national policies without confusing them with slavery.
Men who shared with Douglas the pulsating life of the Northwest wanted
Texas as a "theater for enterprise and industry." As an Ohio
representative said, they desired "a West for their sons and daughters
where they would be free from family influences, from associated
wealth and from those thousand things which in the old settled country
have the tendency of keeping down the efforts and enterprises of
young people." The hearts of those who, like Douglas, had carved out
their fortunes in the new States, responded to that sentiment in a way
which neither a John Quincy Adams nor a Winthrop could understand.

Yet the question of slavery in the proposed State of Texas was thrust
upon the attention of Congress by the persistent tactics of Alexander
H. Stephens and a group of Southern associates. They refused to accept
all terms of annexation which did not secure the right of States
formed south of the Missouri Compromise line to come into the Union
with slavery, if they desired to do so.[193] Douglas met this
opposition with the suggestion that not more than three States besides
Texas should be created out of the new State, but that such States
should be admitted into the Union with or without slavery, as the
people of each should determine, at the time of their application to
Congress for admission. As the germ of the doctrine of Popular
Sovereignty, this resolution has both a personal and a historic
interest. While it failed to pass,[194] it suggested to Stephens and
his friends a mode of adjustment which might satisfy all sides. It was
at his suggestion that Milton Brown of Tennessee proposed resolutions
providing for the