[PeaRidge]

Thank you for your interesting post.

If I insinuated that I thought that Lincoln was the sole source on the issue, then I was in error.

The conversation, as you state and know, began years before, and can be traced to the pulpits of New England to before the signing of the Constitution.

However, my point was that as a widely accepted, not simply discussed concept, it did not manifest itself in popular elections until brought to the public by the Republican political machine of the 1850s-1860 era.

And as you know, the census data showed for a fact that slavery spread was a concept not a reality.

[lentulusgracchus]

As a matter of fact, I recall looking at a map of slave populations on the eve of the Civil War, and in 1860, the Nebraska Territory (as in, Kansas-Nebraska) contained two (2) live slaves.