In context, <em>when he was a candidate he was opposed to the expansion of slavery into any U.S. territory and even proposed a compensated emancipation. This was before the Civil War and before he got elected</em>. His aim was to slowly end slavery through gradual emancipation and voluntary colonization, and not by immediately ending slavery.
It was later on when he was already president that he issued the Emancipation Proclamation (in 1863).
It is called the ''sextant'' is a traditional navigational tool. It measures the angle between two objects, such as the horizon and a celestial object such as a star or planet.
Many Americans believed that the United States was destined to stretch across the continent from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. In 1845, a newspaper editor named John O'Sullivan gave a name to that belief.
