been, he should have voted for that repeal; for although in 1850 he
had favored the extension of the Missouri Compromise line to the
Pacific Ocean, and believed that it would most conduce to the harmony
of the States, he had yielded to the action of the Government, and
considered the position then taken as conclusive against the retention
of the line in Louisiana and Texas, which its beneficiaries had
refused to extend through the territories acquired from Mexico. As a
general principle, he thought it was best to leave the territories all
open. Equality of right demanded it, and the federal government had no
power to withhold it. Whatever validity the Missouri Compromise act
had, it derived from the acquiescence of the people. After 1850 then
it had none. The South had not asked Congress to extend slavery into
the territories, and he in common with most Southern statesmen, denied
the existence of any power to do so. He held it to be the creed of the
Democracy, both in the North and the South, that the General
Government had no constitutional power either to establish or prohibit
slavery anywhere; a grant of power to do the one must necessarily have
involved the power to do the other. Hence it is their policy not to
interfere on the one side or the other, but protecting each individual
in his constitutional rights, to leave every independent community to
determine and adjust all domestic questions as in their wisdom may
seem best.

Politicians of the opposite school seemed to forget the relation of
the General Government to the States; even so far as to argue as
though the General Government had been the creator instead of the
creature of the States. He had learned that attempts had been made to
impress upon the people of Maine the belief that they were in danger
of having slavery established among them by decree of the Supreme
Court of the United States. He scarcely knew how to answer so palpable