Four new States. It is said that the Territories of Iowa, Wisconsin, and the two Floridas will knock at the door of the next Congress for admission to the family of the American Union. The Floridas will probably endeavor to come in as slave States. We trust that the representatives of the non-slaveholding States will not be so recreant to every great and good interest as to vote for the reception of the Floridas on these terms. Our southern brethren may and probably will talk fiercely about ‘interference,’ ‘domestic institutions,’ ‘disunion’. ‘Southern chivalry’, etc, etc. to the end of the chapter. The time has been when this blarney weighed more than it now does. Its avoirdupois is now very trifling in the opinion of sensible men. It ought not to weigh down the great interests of humanity in a case where our representatives have a clear constitutional right to vindicate those interests in legislation. We trust that there will be none of John Randolph’s ‘dough faces’ in the next Congress …. Greenfield Gazette
(Liberator, June 18, 1841, pg 2)
