Never before in the existence of the Federal Government had its territory been so open, by Congressional enactment and by judicial decision, to the slave-holder as on the day that Abraham Lincoln assumed the office of President of the United States.
Blaine reflects on the paradox of slavery's legal status at a pivotal moment in American history.
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These divergent practices had been allowed to develop for seventy-seven years of the nation's life, when, admonished by the Stockton case of the latitudinary results to which loose methods might lead, Congress took jurisdiction of the…
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