boundary, and consequently is part of the country into which by
implication slavery was permitted to go by that compromise. There it has
lain open ever s, and there it still lies, and yet no effort has been
made at any time to wrest it from the South. In all our struggles to
prohibit slavery within our Mexican acquisitions, we never so much as
lifted a finger to prohibit it as to this tract. Is not this entirely
conclusive that at all times we have held the Missouri Compromise as a
sacred thing, even when against ourselves as well as when for us?

Senator Douglas sometimes says the Missouri line itself was in principle
only an extension of the line of the Ordinance of '87--that is to say, an
extension of the Ohio River. I think this is weak enough on its face. I
will remark, however, that, as a glance at the map will show, the
Missouri line is a long way farther south than the Ohio, and that if our
Senator in proposing his extension had stuck to the principle of jogging
southward, perhaps it might not have been voted down so readily.

But next it is said that the compromises of '50, and the ratification of
them by both political parties in '52, established a new principle which
required the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. This again I deny. I deny
it, and demand the proof. I have already stated fully what the
compromises of '50 are. That particular part of those measures from which
the virtual repeal of the Missouri Compromise is sought to be inferred
(for it is admitted they contain nothing about it in express terms) is
the provision in the Utah and New Mexico laws which permits them when
they seek admission into the Union as States to come in with or without
slavery, as they shall then see fit. Now I insist this provision was made
for Utah and New Mexico, and for no other place whatever. It had no more
direct reference to Nebraska than it had to the territories of the moon.
But, say they, it had reference to Nebraska in principle. Let us see. The