Congressman Horace Mann, January 28, 1850

JAN. 28, 1850.

This morning I was introduced to a gentleman from North Carolina, who wanted to have a talk with me about slavery. He is embedded in all the doctrines in its favor. He has been offering all commercial, economical, and pecuniary arguments to me in reference to slavery in the Territories. As to the moral and religious aspect of the question, he is as firm for slavery as William Lloyd Garrison is against it. He says he is willing to take up with any portion of the new territory which the South can accept, as a decent pretext for surrendering the rest. I told him I would give the South any money as an equivalent, any amount of the public lands which they may turn into money; but one inch of territory for slavery never! let what would come.

Dark clouds overhang the future: and that is not all; they are full of lightning.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 287-8