sectional jealousies and irritations growing out of this vexed question,
and harmonized and tranquillized the whole country. It has given to Henry
Clay, as its prominent champion, the proud sobriquet of the "Great
Pacificator," and by that title, and for that service, his political
friends had repeatedly appealed to the people to rally under his standard
as a Presidential candidate, as the man who had exhibited the patriotism
and power to suppress an unholy and treasonable agitation, and preserve
the Union. He was not aware that any man or any party, from any section
of the Union, had ever urged as an objection to Mr. Clay that he was the
great champion of the Missouri Compromise. On the contrary, the effort
was made by the opponents of Mr. Clay to prove that he was not entitled
to the exclusive merit of that great patriotic measure, and that the
honor was equally due to others, as well as to him, for securing its
adoption; that it had its origin in the hearts of all patriotic men, who
desired to preserve and perpetuate the blessings of our glorious
Union--an origin akin to that of the Constitution of the United States,
conceived in the same spirit of fraternal affection, and calculated to
remove forever the only danger which seemed to threaten, at some distant
day, to sever the social bond of union. All the evidences of public
opinion at that day seemed to indicate that this compromise had been
canonized in the hearts of the American people, as a sacred thing which
no ruthless hand would ever be reckless enough to disturb."

I do not read this extract to involve Judge Douglas in an inconsistency.
If he afterward thought he had been wrong, it was right for him to
change. I bring this forward merely to show the high estimate placed on
the Missouri Compromise by all parties up to so late as the year 1849.

But going back a little in point of time. Our war with Mexico broke out
in 1846. When Congress was about adjourning that session, President Polk