along with all other constitutional
obligations upon the section seceded from, while I should expect no
treaty stipulation would be ever made to take its place.

But there is another difficulty. The great interior region bounded east
by the Alleghanies, north by the British dominions, west by the Rocky
Mountains, and south by the line along which the culture of corn and
cotton meets, ... already has above ten millions of people, and will
have fifty millions within fifty years, if not prevented by any
political folly or mistake. It contains more than one-third of the
country owned by the United States,--certainly more than one million of
square miles. Once half as populous as Massachusetts already is, and it
would have more than seventy-five millions of people. A glance at the
map shows that, territorially speaking, it is the great body of the
republic. The other parts are but marginal borders to it, the
magnificent region sloping west from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific
being the deepest, and also the richest, in undeveloped resources. In
the production of provisions, grains, grasses, and all which proceed
from them, this great interior region is naturally one of the most
important in the world. Ascertain from the statistics the small
proportion of the region which has, as yet, been brought into
cultivation, and also the large and rapidly increasing amount of its
products, and we shall be overwhelmed with the magnitude of the prospect
presented. And yet this region has no sea-coast, touches no ocean
anywhere. As part of one nation, its people now find, and may for ever
find, their way to Europe by New York, to South America and Africa by
New Orleans, and to Asia by San Francisco. But separate our common
country into two nations, as designed by the present rebellion, and
every man of this great interior region is thereby cut off from one or
more of these outlets,--not perhaps by a physical barrier, but by
embarrassing and onerous trade regulations.

And this is true, wherever a dividing or boundary line may be fixed.
Place it between the now free and slave country, or place it south of
Kentucky, or north of Ohio, and still the truth remains that none south
of it can trade to any port or place north of it, except upon terms
dictated by a government foreign to them. These outlets, east, west, and
south, are indispensable to the well-being of the people inhabiting, and
to inhabit, this vast interior region. Which of th