So of the subject of the recovery of fugitive slaves who have escaped
from their lawful owners: not a mere border contest, as has been
supposed--although there, undoubtedly, it has given rise to more
irritation than in other portions of the Union--but everywhere
through-out the slave-holding country it has been felt as a great evil,
a great wrong which required the intervention of congressional power.
But these two subjects, unpleasant as has been the agitation to which
they have given rise, are nothing in comparison to those which have
sprung out of the acquisitions recently made from the Republic of
Mexico. These are not only great and leading causes of just apprehension
as respects the future, but all the minor circumstances of the day
intimate danger ahead, whatever may be its final issue and consequence.
* * *
Mr. President, I will not dwell upon other concomitant causes, all
having the same tendency, and all well calculated to awaken, to arouse
us--if, as I hope the fact is, we are all of us sincerely desirous
of preserving this Union--to rouse us to dangers which really exist,
without underrating them upon the one hand, or magnifying them upon the
other.
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