The things we do!

Yet beyond this, in the extreme
northwest, lay Oregon, fought through as free soil by virtue of the
old Northwest Ordinance, the sleeping dog of slavery being evaded
and left to lie when the question of Oregon came up. Along the
Pacific, and south of Oregon, lay the new empire of California,
bitterly contended over by both sections, but by her own
self-elected _state_ law declared for ever free soil. Minnesota
and the Dakotas were still unorganized, so there the sleeping dog
might lie, of course.
To the south of that river on which our voyagers presently were to
take ship, lay a section comprising the southern states, in extent
far larger than all the northern states, and much stronger in
legislative total power in the national halls of Congress. Here
slavery was maintained by laws of the _states_ themselves. The
great realm of Texas, long coveted by the South, now was joined to
the ranks of the slave-holding states, by virtue of a war of
somewhat doubtful justice though of undoubted success.


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