H. Stephens and a group of Southern associates. They refused to accept
all terms of annexation which did not secure the right of States
formed south of the Missouri Compromise line to come into the Union
with slavery, if they desired to do so.[193] Douglas met this
opposition with the suggestion that not more than three States besides
Texas should be created out of the new State, but that such States
should be admitted into the Union with or without slavery, as the
people of each should determine, at the time of their application to
Congress for admission. As the germ of the doctrine of Popular
Sovereignty, this resolution has both a personal and a historic
interest. While it failed to pass,[194] it suggested to Stephens and
his friends a mode of adjustment which might satisfy all sides. It was
at his suggestion that Milton Brown of Tennessee proposed resolutions
providing for the admission of not more than four States besides
Texas, out of the territory acquired. If these States should be formed
south of the Missouri Compromise line, they were to be admitted with
or without slavery, as the people of each should determine. Northern
men demurred, but Douglas saved the situation by offering as an
amendment, "And in such States as shall be formed north of said
Missouri Compromise line, slavery or involuntary servitude, except for
crime, shall be prohibited."[195] The amendment was accepted, and thus
amended, the joint resolution passed by an ample margin of votes. In
view of later developments, this extension of the Missouri Compromise
line is a point of great significance in the career of Douglas.

Not long after Douglas had voiced his vision of "an ocean-bound
republic," he was called upon to assist one of the most remarkable
emigrations westward, from his own State. The Mormons in Hancock
County had become the most undesirable of neighbors to his
constituents. Once the allies of the Democrats, they were now held in