In pursuance of its territorial policy--being the line of action it
first resolved upon--the first movement of the South was to annex
Texas--a victory. The next was to make war on Mexico, and (a joke of
the day) conquer a "piece" from it large enough to make half a dozen
States, all expected to be slaveholding--another victory.
By a curious irony the filching of land for slavery's uses from a
neighbor, and on which the foot of a slave had never pressed, was
exultingly spoken of at the time by its supporters as "an extension of
the area of freedom." The act was justified on the ground that we
needed "land for the landless," which led Benjamin F. Wade of Ohio to
assert on the floor of the United States Senate, with as much truth as
wit, that it was not land for the landless that was wanted, but
"niggers for the niggerless."
Then came the battle over Kansas. The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska
Bill in Congress, although involving a breach of good faith on the
part of the South, was hailed as another victory for that section. It
was a costly victory. It was followed by defeat not only disastrous
but fatal. The result in Kansas was really the turning-point in the
great struggle.
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