to force the planters, in the end, to free
their slaves, from an inability to support them, and to force the slaves
into more energy and intelligence in labor, in order that they may
subsist as freemen. People prattle about the necessity of compulsory
labor; but the true compulsory labor, the labor which has produced the
miracles of modern industry, is the labor to which a man is compelled by
the necessity of saving himself, and those who are dearer to him than
self, from ignominy and want. It was by this policy of territorial
limitation, that Henry Clay, before the annexation of Texas, declared
that Slavery must eventually expire. The way was gradual, it was
prudent, it was safe, it was distant, it was sure, it was according to
the nature of things. It would have been accepted, had there been any
general truth in the assertion that the slaveholders were honestly
desirous of reconverting, at any time, and on any practicable plan,
their chattels into men. But true to the malignant principles of their
system, they accepted the law of its existence, but determined to evade
the law of its extinction. As Slavery required large areas and scanty
population, large areas and scanty population it should at all times
have. New markets should be opened for the surplus slave-population;
to open new markets was to acquire new territory; and to acquire new
territory was to gain additional political strength. The expansive
tendencies of freedom would thus be checked by the tendencies no less
expansive of bondage. To acquire Texas was not merely to acquire an
additional Slave State, but it was to keep up a demand for slaves which
would prevent Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, and Kentucky from
becoming Free States. As soon as old soils were worn out, new soils were
to be ready to receive the curse; and where slave-labor ceased to be
profitable, slave-breeding was to take its place.

This purpose was so diabolical, that, when first announced, it
was treated as a caprice of certain hot spirits, irritated by the
declamations of the Abolitionists. But it is idle to refer to transient
heat thoughts which bear all the signs of cool atrocity; and needless
to seek for the causes of actions in extraneous sources, when they
are plainly but steps in the development of principles already known.
Slave-breeding and Slavery-extension are necessities of the system. Like
Romulus and Remus, "they are both suckled from one wolf."

But it was just her