Excerpt from The Doctrine of Non-Intervention With Slavery in the Territories From the time of the development of the Abolition movement until the beginning of the Civil War nearly three decades later, the American nation was agitated by the discussion of the slavery question. During the latter half of this period, beginning with the annexation of Texas in 1845, slavery was the dominant political issue. Over it the nation became sectionalized and the issue was resolved into a struggle between the two sections for political and industrial supremacy. The possession, first of the prospective Mexican acquisitions, later of the unorganized portion of the Louisiana Purchase, was the prize for which they strove, - the South to extend its system of slave labor to these regions, the North to restrain that system within existing limits and dedicate the future Territories and States to freedom. The long contest was characterized by great intensity and ever increasing bitterness, with the single exception of the period of "finality" which followed the Compromise of 1850; then, indeed, it was temporarily lulled into an unquiet sleep, - a sleep rudely terminated by the introduction of Douglas's Nebraska Bill in 1854. 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.