claimed. In 1848 and 1849 and 1850, you only asked to have the line of 36° 30′. The Nashville Convention fixed that as its ultimatum. I offered it in the Senate in August, 1848, and it was adopted here, but rejected in the House of Representatives. You asked only up to 36° 30′, and non-intervention has given you Slave Territory up to 38°, a degree and a half more than you asked; and yet you say that this is a sacrifice of Southern rights.
“These are the fruits of this principle which the Senator from Mississippi regards as hostile to the rights of the South. Where did you ever get any other fruits that were more palatable to your taste, or more refreshing to your strength? What other inch of Free Territory has been converted into Slave Territory on the American continent, since the Revolution, except in New Mexico and Arizona under the principle of non-intervention affirmed at Charleston? If it is true that this principle of non-intervention has conferred upon you all that immense territory, has protected slavery in that comparatively Northern and cold region where you did not expect it to go, cannot you trust the same principle farther South, when you come to acquire additional territory from Mexico? If it be true that this principle of non-intervention has given to slavery all New Mexico, which was surrounded on nearly every side by free territory, will not the same principle protect you in the Northern States of Mexico when they are acquired, since they are now surrounded by slave territory?”
Indeed! This, then, is the practical solution of the difficulty which Mr. Douglas proposes: The “great principle of non-intervention” which, according to his own testimony, strengthens slavery by increasing the number of Slave States and their representation and power in
