The break now was ominous; the claim of equality had been disregarded; the superstition which upheld it was dispelled, and the defenders of slavery could see only a long procession of free States marching from the North-West to re-enforce a power already irresistibly strong.

From what quarter of the Union could this anti-slavery aggression be offset?
By what process could its growth be checked?
Texas might, if she chose to ask for her own partition, re-enforce the slave-power in the Senate by four new States, as guaranteed in the articles of annexation.

But the very majesty of her dimensions protested against dismemberment.

Texas was as large as France, and from the Sabine to the Rio Grande there was not a cotton-planter or a cattle- herder who did not have this fact before his eyes to inflame his pride and guide his vote against parting with a single square mile of her magnificent domain.

New Mexico and Utah were mountainous and arid, inviting only the miner and the grazier and offering no inducement for the labor of the slave.