We spoke of America even then as a land of the
free, but it was not free; nor on the other hand was it wholly
slave. Never in the history of the world has there been so great a
land, nor one of so diverse systems of government.
Before these travelers, for instance, who paused here at the head
of the Ohio River, there lay the ancient dividing line between the
South and the North. To the northwest, between the Great Lakes and
the Ohio, swept a vast land which, since the days of the old
Northwest Ordinance of 1787, had by _national_ enactment been
decreed for ever free. Part of this had the second time been
declared free, by _state_ law also. To the eastward of this lay
certain states where slavery had been forbidden by the laws of the
several states, though not by that of the nation. Again, far out
to the West, beyond the great waterway on one of whose arms our
travelers now stood, lay the vast provinces bought from Napoleon;
and of these, all lying north of that compromise line of thirty-six
degrees, thirty minutes, agreed upon in 1820, had been declared for
ever free by _national_ law.
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