“People keep claiming that, but the question I would put to you is “Where was it going to grow?”
“I want Cuba . . . I want Tamaulipas, Potosi, and one or two other Mexican States; and I want them all for the same reason — for the planting and spreading of slavery.”
-Albert Gallatin Brown, U.S. Senator from Mississippi, speaking with regard to the several filibuster expeditions to Central America
“The area of slavery must be extended correlative with its antagonism, or it will be put speedily in the ‘course of ultimate extinction.’....The extension of slavery is the vital point of the whole controversy between the North and the South...Amendments to the federal constitution are urged by some as a panacea for all the ills that beset us. That instrument is amply sufficient as it now stands, for the protection of Southern rights, if it was only enforced. The South wants practical evidence of good faith from the North, not mere paper agreements and compromises. They believe slavery a sin, we do not, and there lies the trouble.”
-Henry M. Rector, Governor of Arkansas, March 2, 1861
And what part of the United States was any of those places? Are you presuming to dictate to other countries their own domestic policies?
The vast majority of all slavery existed in Brazil. Why didn't they gather up their armies and ships and go destroy all that slavery there? It was 97% of the slavery in the world, yet nobody seems to care, because Brazil would not cost them money.