Where the entirety of the period leading up to war following the Northwest Ordinance and Missouri Compromise, as well as the hypocrisy on the part of Southern politicians that demanded Northern states' rights be pulverized via the Fugitive Slave Law proves my point. But again, why let facts intrude on a good story of the evil government depriving white men of the ability to be idle off the labor of black men and women and to have a free supply of mistresses from slave women? Such a tragedy for people who never worked a day in their lives, and such a triumph for industry and modernity.