Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Relative Territorial Status of the North and the South
Cuba, united with Florida and Louisiana, would landlock the Gulf of Mexico, and shut in securely the mouths Of inhumera ble tributaries flowing from all directions, watering and drain ing inexhaustible valleys spreading out eastward and west ward two thousand miles to the Appalachian and Alleghany mountains on the one hand, and the Rocky Mountains on the other hand and extending northward an equal distance to the lake plateau, already teeming with human life and human wealth, and capable of sustaining in luxurious ease three hun dred millions of people. Such were the elements compos ing the grand idea of Texas annexation. First, to equalize sectional antagonisms, whether arising in prejudice or passion, in differences of social institutions or of political organizations as thus, to enlarge our domain, but thereby to balance sectional limits to extend our domain, but thereby to balance section al powers; to increase our resources, but thereby to balance sectional interests; so that oppressive sectional majorities, wantoning in the mad exercise of authority, tearing the Constitution into shreds, and desecrating the Union, should never be attainable; but permitting the confederacy to ex pand State by State, slaveholding and non-slaveholding, side by side in amity and in perpetuity second, to establish peace internally, by assuring against civil discord, not through the repression Of overgrowing forces, but by bringing coun ter-forces into equalizing play and externally, by effectually closing the entrances of our main avenues, and by grasping in cotton, the raw material in chief, for manufacturing pur poses, without an annual supply of which starvation would visit the nations thus reposing the country in all its industrial pursuits, upon the undisturbed basis Of an expanding civili zation, securing individual comfort and happiness together with general wealth and prosperity, but not the one without the other, and terminating in unbounded national greatness and glory. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
