Slave labor was exceedingly profitable in the cotton states, as the increase of the cotton product shows. In 1801, these states only produced 48,000,000 pounds, while 1860 returned 2,054,698,800 pounds. There were, however, two things inserted in the government plat that were unsatisfactory: “That all men are created equal” in natural rights, and the Missouri Compromise--the thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north latitude, Mason and Dixon’s line. It was not so clear as they wished it might be, that “unalienable rights,” “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” belonged only to masters; and when the failure to rescind the “Compromise” in 1853 occurred through democratic influence, of such men as Albert P. Edgerton, the possibility of peacefully enlarging the area of slavery became as hopeless as it was manifestly evident that bondage and freedom could not much longer remain peaceably in the same government. And with amendments to the fugitive slave law the Southern political bosses, who had usurped the control of the national government, knew the constitution found slavery in the states, and as a state institution left its local existence to the chances of state laws. They knew full well it was not made a national institution and that the time was close at hand when they must go to the rear or abandon their northern allies and set up a slavocracy for themselves. They had obtained sufficient to know Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Arthur Tappan and the Boston Liberator were actual facts; and the large meetings of the “dough faces” and their expressions of sympathy was not the kind of “Soothing Syrup” the South desired, although giving great encouragement to secession. The division of sentiment existing in the free states in regard to the rights of slavery and its extension became more and more expressive, especially along the border lines of the opposing institutions. Consequently Ohio felt a full share of the evils due to political and social disturbances arising from this cause. But the intercommunications given by railroads and the light emanating from a free and fearless press--cheap postage and speedy transportation--infused new life; and mankind began thinking--thinking differently from that of past times when the postage on a letter was twenty-five cents and required four days for an individual to travel one hundred miles and return.