To cross parallels of latitude, to enable the man of commerce to make
up his assorted cargo, is infinitely more important than anything you
can propose within the same parallels of latitude. I look upon it as a
great chain to unite North and South."[342] Senator Shields of
Illinois only voiced the inmost thought of Douglas, when he exclaimed,
"The measure is too grand, too magnificent a one to meet with such a
fate at the hands of Congress. And really, as it is to connect the
North and South so thoroughly, it may serve to get rid of even the
Wilmot Proviso, and tie us together so effectually that the idea of
separation will be impossible."[343]

The settlement of the West had followed parallels of latitude. The men
of the Lake Plains were transplanted New Englanders, New Yorkers,
Pennsylvanians; the men of the Gulf Plains came from south of Mason
and Dixon's line,--pioneers both, aggressive, bold in initiative, but
alienated by circumstances of tremendous economic significance. If
ever North should be arrayed against South, the makeweight in the
balance would be these pioneers of the Northwest and Southwest. It was
no mean conception to plan for the "man of commerce" who would cross
from one region to the other, with his "assorted cargo,"[344] for in
that cargo were the destinies of two sections and his greatest
commerce was to consist in the exchange of imponderable ideas. The
ideal which inspired Douglas never found nobler expression, than in
these words with which he replied to Webster's slighting reference to
the West:

"There is a power in this nation greater than either the North or the
South--a growing, increasing, swelling power, that will be able to
speak the law to this nation, and to execute the law as spoken. That
power is the country known as the great West--the Valley of the