CHAPTER VI.

NEBRASKA BILL-ORIGIN OF MISSOURI COMPROMISE-INJUSTICE OF ITS REPEAL-ACTION OF SENATOR DOUGLAS

—THOMAS F. MARSHALL, OF KENTUCKY— ENLISTING UNDER THE BANNER OF REPEAL.

THE introduction of the Nebraska bill into the Senate by Senator Douglas was the inauguration of a grand political era. The hearts of all the people were stirred. Mass conventions were held throughout the North; old political differences were obliterated; old parties were disintegrating and new parties were forming for the new issues that were coming before the people. Of the Nebraska bill, Mr. Colfax thus wrote in the Register at that time:

THE NEBRASKA BILL.

"Thirty years had passed away after the adoption of the Federal Constitution before the first serious struggle between the North and the South agitated the country. Louisiana had been peacefully acquired from France; and that part of it known as the State of Louisiana had been peacefully admitted as a slave State without question or conflict. At the earliest period, 1808, when Congress could constitutionally prohibit the slave trade, it had done so; and instead of its former acquiescence in its horrors, had placed it under the ban of the law as piracy. Legislation on both sides of the slavery question had been tranquilly enacted. But when Missouri,

all of whose territory was north of 36° 30', applied for admission as a slave State, the whole North with one voice said 'No.' During two sessions her claim for admission was resisted by almost a geographical vote; the North, being a majority, voting against it, and the South, the minority, for it. The public excitement increased as the discussion was prolonged. Every Northern State, through its Legislature, protested against its admission; the South complained with bitterness that their rights were assailed, and the Union rocked to its centre. At last, Henry Clay, anxious for peace, proposed, as a compromise, that Missouri should be admitted with her slave constitution, but that in the remainder of the territory acquired from France, stretching over what were then considered desert plains, to the crests of the Rocky Mountains, slavery should be forever prohibited. It was no wonder that the South joyfully acceded to this. A few Northern members, wearied out with the prolonged contest, joined them and secured its passage by a close vote. John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, William Wirt, of Virginia, and William H. Crawford, of Georgia, gave to the President written opinions in favor of the constitutionality of the bill; and James Monroe, a Virginia President, affixed to it his signature. The South were victors of the sharply-contested battle-field. They obtained all the then present advantage; while the share of the North in the compromise was to be enjoyed perhaps twenty, perhaps fifty, perhaps not till one hundred years afterward. The South rejoiced-the North mourned-but the contest was over.

"For thirty-four years this compromise has been held sacred. During that long term, longer than the existence of a generation of men, the South has enjoyed, without

fear of molestation, the great benefit which she gained by its passage. Missouri's slaveholding delegations in both Houses have assisted in shaping the legislation of the country-her votes aided to pass the Compromise Measures of 1850-on one or two of them, her members turned the doubtful scale against the North, and her number of slaves has increased from ten thousand to eighty-seven thousand. Propositions of various kinds have been made, during that time, to amend the Constitution, but no statesman, no Senator, no Congressman, no President, from the North or the South, has ever proposed an amendment to the Missouri Compromise, in any of its features; much less its abrogation or repeal. It was considered a compact which the plighted faith of the South required should be faithfully fulfilled. They had secured by it a State, having an equal vote in the Senate with the teeming millions of New York's population. The North, as its share, had obtained only an unpeopled territory, with no voice or vote in the National Councils.

"At last, a Senator representing a free State, though said to be the owner of a plantation in a Southern one -Senator Douglas, of Illinois-proclaims himself the champion in the United States Senate of a bill for the organization of this vast territory, extending from the borders of Missouri and Iowa to the boundaries of California, Oregon, and Utah, which declares that this sacred, time-honored compact is null and void-that it is inconsistent with the principles of the Compromise of 1850, and is therefore abrogated-and, we regret to say, this unjust act is certain to pass the Senate, and almost certain to pass the House by a large majority. Trampling under foot the noble invocation of the states

man-philosopher, Benjamin Franklin, to the first American Congress-Step to the very verge of power vested in you to discourage every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow-men'-an American Congress, in this noon of the nineteenth century, prepares the way for the entrance of slavery, with all its blight and evil, into a vast expanse of territory, larger in its area than all the free States of the Republic, before the admission of California. And this, too, at the sacrifice of honor and of plighted faith.

"A single paragraph will suffice to show the fallacy of the weak subterfuge, under the cover of which the slavery-prohibition of the Missouri Compromise is sought to be repealed. The Territorial Compromises (Utah, New Mexico, etc.) passed in 1850. During all the debates upon them, not the slightest whisper was heard of any intention thereby to repeal the Missouri Compromise. No speaker, no committee, no report, no press took that ground then or since. In no discussions upon the subject afterwards was it ever adduced by friend or foe. Every one understood that the Compromise of 1850 related to the territory acquired from Mexico, not to the territory legislated upon in 1820, which had been ac quired from France. Three years after 1850, no longer ago than last March, Senator Douglas himself urged upon Congress the passage of a bill, already adopted by the House, for organizing Nebraska, which was silent on the slavery question, silent on the repeal or supersedure of the Missouri Compromise. In his speech he never even hinted that the Freedom clause of that Compromise had been in the slightest degree affected by the legislation of 1850, nor did any other Senator. On the contrary, Senator Atchison, of Missouri, now the acting Vice

President of the United States in the Senate, in his speech, March 3d, 1853, declared that he had thought of opposing the bill, but that he saw 'no prospect, no hope of a repeal of the Missouri Compromise,' that 'that great error was irremediable,' and that 'we might therefore as well agree to the admission of this territory now as next year, or five or ten years hence!' (Cong. Globe, Vol. 26, p. 1,112). And no Senator, not even Douglas, rose to inform him that it had been superseded three years before. Not even the Washington Union, with its eyes so intent on the interests of slavery, ever discovered this alleged repeal, until Senator Douglas, in his bid for the Presidency, avowed it as the pretext for his recreancy to the interests of freedom.

"Nay, more. At the opening of the present session, Senator Dodge, of Iowa, now one of Douglas' followers, introduced a Nebraska bill, copied from the one of last session, again silent on slavery, and Douglas himself, in reporting on it from the Committee on Territories, on the 4th of January, though desiring and intending to open the door to slavery, dared not then declare the Compromise repealed. He said, on the contrary, that as the framers of the Compromise of 1850 deemed it 'wise and prudent' not to attempt, in their bills, to decide that the Mexican anti-slavery laws were in force or abrogated, so he deemed it equally wise and prudent not to affirm that the Missouri Compromise was or was not in force in Nebraska. But the South asked more than this; if his bid was to be considered by them at all. Accordingly, on the 10th of January, another section was added to the bill, declaring that all slavery questions should be left to the settlers in the territory, which would certainly be a virtual repeal of the decla