William Lloyd Garrison: “Why should not Nebraska be cultivated by Slave labour, as well as Florida or Texas?”

It is frightful to think of the capacity of a nation like this to commit sin, before the measure of its iniquities be filled, and the exterminating judgments of God overtake it.

Yet I know that God reigns, and that the slave system contains within itself the elements of destruction.

While, therefore, the Union is preserved, I see no end to the extension or perpetuity of Chattel Slavery--no hope for peaceful deliverance of the millions who are clanking their chains on our blood-red soil.

With the North, the preservation of the Union is placed above all other things--above honour, justice, freedom, integrity of soul, the Decalogue and the Golden Rule--the Infinite God himself.