30' the Missouri Compromise had dedicated the entire country to freedom.

In extent it was, to the Southern view, alarmingly great, including at least a million square miles of territory.

Except along its river boundaries it was little known.
Its value was underrated, and a large portion of it was designated on our maps as the Great American Desert.

At the time Texas was annexed, and for several years afterwards, not a single foot of that vast area was organized under any form of civil government.
Had the Southern statesmen foreseen the immense wealth, population, and value of this imperial domain in the five great States and four Territories into which it is to-day divided, they would have abandoned the struggle for equality.

But the most that was hoped, even in the North, within any near period, was one State north of Iowa, one west of Missouri, and one from the Oregon country.