Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/231

 Slavery Question in Oregon. 207 for North or South could blind the eyes to the facts in the case, v'hich were as easily comprehended as that 2 plus 2 make •4, for it was simply an arithmetical computation. Even sup- posing that Daniel Webster was wrong and that God's natural ordinances did not Avork against slavery and that all South of the line of 36 deg. 30 min. north latitude were given to it, yet that portion of territory already dedicated to freedom would overbalance it more than five to one, and no prospect of adding another foot of soil to serve as a bone of contention for th^ rival hosts of freedom and slavery. Both of them saw it. and but for that kidnapping statute and the subsequent infidelity of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, agitation of th'^' slavery question would have been confined to the non- political moral suasion of the Garrisonians. Mr. Lincoln's soothing vision of the time "when the public mind could rest in the belief that slavery in the United States was in the course of ultimate extinction" would have been realized. For there is not a doubt that slavery, surrounded, overmatched, reduced to a minority in the government and incapable of rewarding its supporters, thus alienating from it that all- too- numerous class of politicians who would serve either God or Mammon for the sake of place and power, there is not a doubt that under such conditions chattel slavery would succumb to the stern competitive grind of civilization. This view of the case was generally held by the more sagacious class of the Southern ultras and urged by them as a reason for secession. Toombs, Wigfall, Jefferson Davis, Breckinridge saw it, and saw also that their Northern allies were agitators for self and when trouble came would shirk consequences. At the presidential election in 1852, the Whig party ex- perienced the worst defeat ever known in the history of the country, of which Mr. Greeley wrote, ''Never before was there such an overwhelming defeat of a party that had hoped for success." The Whig candidate. General Scott, received only 42 of the 296 electoral votes. Mr. Greeley attributes much of this disparity to the votes given to the Freesoil candidates. Hale and Julien, but their vote was 135,517 less than the vote