CHAPTER XIX
THE REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE
The long contest in Congress over the compromise measures of 1850, and the reluctance of a minority, alike in the North and the South, to accept them, had in reality seriously demoralized both the great political parties of the country. The Democrats especially, defeated by the fresh military laurels of General Taylor in 1848, were much exercised to discover their most available candidate as the presidential election of 1852 approached. The leading names, Cass, Buchanan, and Marcy, having been long before the public, were becoming a little stale. In this contingency, a considerable following grouped itself about an entirely new man, Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois. Emigrating from Vermont to the West, Douglas had run a career remarkable for political success. Only in his thirty-ninth year, he had served as member of the legislature, as State's Attorney, as Secretary of State, and as judge of the Supreme Court in Illinois, and had since been three times elected to Congress and once to the Senate of the United States. Nor did he owe his political fortunes entirely to accident. Among his many qualities of leadership were strong physical endurance, untiring industry, a persistent boldness, a ready facility in public speaking, unfailing political shrewdness, an unusual power in running debate, with liberal instincts and progressive purposes. It was therefore not surprising that he should attract the admiration and support of the young, the ardent, and especially the restless and ambitious members of his party. His career in Congress was sufficiently conspicuous. As Chairman of the Committee on Territories in the Senate, he had borne a prominent part in the enactment of the compromise measures of 1850, and had just met and overcome a threatened party schism in his own State, which that legislation had there produced.
In their eagerness to push his claims to the presidency, the partisans of Douglas committed a great error. Rightly appreciating the growing power of the press, they obtained control of the "Democratic Review," a monthly magazine then prominent as a party organ, and published in it a series of articles attacking the rival Democratic candidates in very flashy rhetoric. These were stigmatized as "old fogies," who must give ground to a nominee of "Young America." They were reminded that the party expects a "new man." "Age is to be honored, but senility is pitiable"; "statesmen of a previous generation must get out of the way"; the Democratic party was owned by a set of "old clothes-horses"; "they couldn't pay their political promises in four Democratic administrations"; and the names of Cass and Marcy, Buchanan and Butler, were freely mixed in with such epithets as "pretenders," "hucksters," "intruders," and "vile charlatans."
Such characterization of such men soon created a flagrant scandal in the Democratic party, which was duly aired both in the newspapers and in Congress. It definitely fixed the phrases "old fogy" and "Young America" in our slang literature. The personal friends of Douglas hastened to explain and assert his innocence of any complicity with this political raid, but they were not more than half believed; and the war of factions, begun in January, raged with increasing bitterness till the Democratic National Convention met at Baltimore in June, and undoubtedly exerted a decisive influence over the deliberations of that body.
The only serious competitors for the nomination were the "old fogies" Cass, Marcy, and Buchanan on the one hand, and Douglas, the pet of "Young America," on the other. It soon became evident that opinion was so divided among these four that a nomination could only be reached through long and tedious ballotings. Beginning with some 20 votes, Douglas steadily gained adherents till on the 30th ballot he received 92. From this point, however, his strength fell away. Unable himself to succeed, he was nevertheless sufficiently powerful to defeat his adversaries. The exasperation had been too great to permit a concentration or compromise on any of the "seniors." Cass reached only 131 votes; Marcy, 98; Buchanan, 104; and finally, on the 49th ballot, occurred the memorable nearly unanimous selection of Franklin Pierce— not because of any merit of his own, but to break the insurmountable dead-lock of factional hatred. Young America gained a nominal triumph, old fogydom a real revenge, and the South a serviceable Northern ally. Douglas and his friends were discomfited but not dismayed. Their management had been exceedingly maladroit, as a more modest championship would without doubt have secured him the coveted nomination. Yet sagacious politicians foresaw that on the whole he was strengthened by his defeat. From that time forward he was a recognized presidential aspirant and competitor, young enough patiently to bide his time, and of sufficient prestige to make his flag the rallying point of all the free-lances in the Democratic party.
It is to this presidential aspiration of Mr. Douglas that we must look as the explanation of his agency in bringing about the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. As already said, after some factious opposition the measures of 1850 had been accepted by the people as a finality of the slavery question. Around this alleged settlement, distasteful as it was to many, public opinion gradually crystallized. Both the National Conventions of 1852 solemnly resolved that they would discountenance and resist, in Congress or out of it, whenever, wherever, or however, or under whatever color or shape, any further renewal of the slavery agitation. This determination was echoed and reechoed, affirmed and reaffirmed, by the recognized organs of the public voice—from the village newspaper to the presidential message, from the country debating school to the measured utterances of senatorial discussion.
[Sidenote: Appendix "Congressional Globe" 1851-2, p. 63.]
[Sidenote: Douglas, Senate speech 1850. Appendix, 1849-50 pp. 369 to 372.]
[Sidenote: Douglas, Springfield speech, Oct. 28, 1849. Illinois
"Register.">[
In support of this alleged "finality" no one had taken a more decided stand than Senator Douglas himself. Said he: "In taking leave of this subject I wish, to state that I have determined never to make another speech upon the slavery question; and I will now add the hope that the necessity for it will never exist…. So long as our opponents do not agitate for repeal or modification, why should we agitate for any purpose! We claim that the compromise [of 1850] is a final settlement. Is a final settlement open to discussion and agitation and controversy by its friends? What manner of settlement is that which does not settle the difficulty and quiet the dispute? Are not the friends of the compromise becoming the agitators, and will not the country hold us responsible for that which we condemn and denounce in the abolitionists and Free-soldiers? These are matters worthy of our consideration. Those who preach peace should not be the first to commence and reopen an old quarrel." In his Senate speeches, during the compromise debates of 1850, while generally advocating his theory of "non-intervention," he had sounded the whole gamut of the slavery discussion, defending the various measures of adjustment against the attacks of the Southern extremists, and specifically defending the Missouri Compromise. More than this; he had declared in distinct words that the principle of territorial prohibition was no violation of Southern rights; and denounced the proposition of Calhoun to put a "balance of power" clause into the Constitution as "a retrograde movement in an age of progress that would astonish the world." These repeated affirmations, taken in connection with his famous description of the Missouri Compromise in 1849, in which he declared it to have had "an origin akin to the Constitution," and to have become "canonized in the hearts of the American people as a sacred thing which no ruthless hand would ever be reckless enough to disturb," all seemed, in the public mind, to fix his position definitely; no one imagined that Douglas would so soon become the subject of his own anathemas.
The full personal details of this event are lost to history. We have only a faint and shadowy outline of isolated movements of a few chief actors, a few vague suggestions and fragmentary steps in the formation and unfolding of the ill-omened plot.
As the avowed representative of the restless and ambitious elements of the country, as the champion of "Young America," Douglas had so far as possible in his Congressional career made himself the apostle of modern "progress." He was a believer in "manifest destiny" and a zealous advocate of the Monroe doctrine. He desired—so the newspapers averred—that the Caribbean Sea should be declared an American lake, and nothing so delighted him as to pull the beard of the British lion. These topics, while they furnished themes for campaign speeches, for the present led to no practical legislation. In his position as chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories, however, he had control of kindred measures of present and vital interest to the people of the West; namely, the opening of new routes of travel and emigration, and of new territories for settlement. An era of wonder had just dawned, connecting itself directly with these subjects. The acquisition of California and the discovery of gold had turned the eyes of the whole civilized world to the Pacific coast. Plains and mountains were swarming with adventurers and emigrants. Oregon, Utah, New Mexico, and Minnesota had just been organized, and were in a feeble way contesting the sudden fame of the Golden State. The Western border was astir, and wild visions of lands and cities and mines and wealth and power were disturbing the dreams of the pioneer in his frontier cabin, and hurrying him off on the long, romantic quest across the continent.
Hitherto, stringent Federal laws had kept settlers and unlicensed traders out of the Indian territory, which lay beyond the western boundaries of Arkansas, Missouri, and Iowa, and which the policy of our early Presidents fixed upon as the final asylum of the red men retreating before the advance of white settlements. But now the uncontrollable stream of emigration had broken into and through this reservation, creating in a few years well-defined routes of travel to New Mexico, Utah, California, and Oregon. Though from the long march there came constant cries of danger and distress, of starvation and Indian massacre, there was neither halting nor delay. The courageous pioneers pressed forward all the more earnestly, and to such purpose that in less than twenty-five years the Pacific Railroad followed Fremont's first exploration through the South Pass.
[Illustration: FRANKLIN PIERCE.]
Douglas, himself a migratory child of fortune, was in thorough sympathy with this somewhat premature Western longing of the people; and as chairman of the Committee on Territories was the recipient of all the letters, petitions, and personal solicitations from the various interests which were seeking their advantage in this exodus toward the setting sun. He was the natural center for all the embryo mail contractors, office-holders, Indian traders, land-sharks, and railroad visionaries whose coveted opportunities lay in the Western territories. It is but just to his fame, however, to say that he comprehended equally well the true philosophical and political necessities which now demanded the opening of Kansas and Nebraska as a secure highway and protecting bridge to the Rocky Mountains and our new-found El Dorado, no less than as a bond of union between the older States and the improvised "Young America" on the Pacific coast. The subject was not yet ripe for action during the stormy politics of 1850-1, and had again to be postponed for the presidential campaign of 1852. But after Pierce was triumphantly elected, with a Democratic Congress to sustain him, the legislative calm which both parties had adjured in their platforms seemed favorable for pushing measures of local interest. The control of legislation for the territories was for the moment completely in the hands of Douglas. He was himself chairman of the Committee of the Senate; and his special personal friend and political lieutenant in his own State, William A. Richardson, of Illinois, was chairman of the Territorial Committee of the House, He could therefore choose his own time and mode of introducing measures of this character in either house of Congress, under the majority control of his party—a fact to be constantly borne in mind when we consider the origin and progress of "the three Nebraska bills."
[Sidenote: "Globe," Feb. 2, 1853, p. 474.]
[Sidenote: Ibid., Feb. 8, p. 542-544.]
[Sidenote: Ibid., Feb. 10, p. 566.]
[Sidenote: Ibid., Feb. 10, p. 559.]
The journal discloses that Richardson, of Illinois, chairman of the Committee on Territories of the House of Representatives, on February 2, 1853, introduced into the House "A bill to organize the Territory of Nebraska." After due reference, and some desultory debate on the 8th, it was taken up and passed by the House on the 10th. From the discussion we learn that the boundaries were the Missouri River on the east, the Rocky Mountains on the west, the line of 36 degrees 30' or southern line of Missouri on the south, and the line of 43 degrees, or near the northern line of Iowa, on the north. Several members opposed it, because the Indian title to the lands was not yet extinguished, and because it embraced reservations pledged to Indian occupancy in perpetuity; also on the general ground that it contained but few white inhabitants, and its organization was therefore a useless expense. Howard, of Texas, made the most strenuous opposition, urging that since it contained but about six hundred souls, its southern boundary should be fixed at 39 degrees 30', not to trench upon the Indian reservations. Hall, of Missouri, replied in support of the bill: "We want the organization of the Territory of Nebraska not merely for the protection of the few people who reside there, but also for the protection of Oregon and California in time of war, and the protection of our commerce and the fifty or sixty thousand emigrants who annually cross the plains." He added that its limits were purposely made large to embrace the great lines of travel to Oregon, New Mexico, and California; since the South Pass was in 42 degrees 30', the Territory had to extend to 43 degrees north.
[Sidenote: "Globe," Feb. 8, 1858, p. 543.]
[Sidenote: Ibid., Feb. 10, 1853, p. 565.]
The incident, however, of special historical significance had occurred in the debate of the 8th, when a member rose and said: "I wish to inquire of the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Giddings], who, I believe, is a member of the Committee on Territories, why the Ordinance of 1787 is not incorporated in this bill? I should like to know whether he or the committee were intimidated on account of the platforms of 1852?" To which Mr. Giddings replied that the south line of the territory was 36 degrees 30', and was already covered by the Missouri Compromise prohibition. "This law stands perpetually, and I do not think that this act would receive any increased validity by a reenactment. There I leave the matter. It is very clear that the territory included in this treaty [ceding Louisiana] must be forever free unless the law be repealed." With this explicit understanding from a member of the committee, apparently accepted as conclusive by the whole House, and certainly not objected to by the chairman, Mr. Richardson, who was carefully watching the current of debate, the bill passed on the 10th, ninety-eight yeas to forty-three nays. Led by a few members from that region, in the main the West voted for it and the South against it; while the greater number, absorbed in other schemes, were wholly indifferent, and probably cast their votes upon personal solicitation.
On the following day the bill was hurried over to the Senate, referred to Mr. Douglas's committee, and by him reported back without amendment, on February 17th; but the session was almost ended before he was able to gain the attention of the Senate for its discussion. Finally, on the night before the inauguration of President Pierce, in the midst of a fierce and protracted struggle over the appropriation bills, while the Senate was without a quorum and impatiently awaiting the reports of a number of conference committees, Douglas seized the opportunity of the lull to call up his Nebraska bill. Here again, as in the House, Texas stubbornly opposed it. Houston undertook to talk it to death in a long speech; Bell protested against robbing the Indians of their guaranteed rights. The bill seemed to have no friend but its author when, perhaps to his surprise, Senator D. R. Atchison, of Missouri, threw himself into the breach.
[Sidenote: "Globe," March 3, 1853, p. 1113.]
Prefacing his remarks with the statement that he had formerly been opposed to the measure, he continued: "I had two objections to it. One was that the Indian title in that territory had not been extinguished, or at least a very small portion of it had been. Another was the Missouri Compromise, or, as it is commonly called, the Slavery Restriction. It was my opinion at that time—and I am not now very clear on that subject—that the law of Congress, when the State of Missouri was admitted into the Union, excluding slavery from the territory of Louisiana north of 36 degrees 30', would be enforced in that territory unless it was specially rescinded; and whether that law was in accordance with the Constitution of the United States or not, it would do its work, and that work would be to preclude slaveholders from going into that territory. But when I came to look into that question, I found that there was no prospect, no hope, of a repeal of the Missouri Compromise excluding slavery from that territory…. I have always been of opinion that the first great error committed in the political history of this country was the Ordinance of 1787, rendering the North-west Territory free territory. The next great error was the Missouri Compromise. But they are both irremediable…. We must submit to them. I am prepared to do it. It is evident that the Missouri Compromise cannot be repealed. So far as that question is concerned, we might as well agree to the admission of this territory now as next year, or five or ten years hence."
[Sidenote: "Globe," March 3, 1853, p. 1117.]
Mr. Douglas closed the debate, advocating the passage of the bill for general reasons, and by his silence accepting Atchison's conclusions; but as the morning of the 4th of March was breaking, an unwilling Senate laid the bill on the table by a vote of twenty-three to seventeen, here, as in the House, the West being for and the South against the measure. It is not probable, however, that in this course the South acted with any mental reservation or sinister motive. The great breach of faith was not yet even meditated. Only a few hours afterwards, in a dignified and stately national ceremonial, in the midst of foreign ministers, judges, senators, and representatives, the new President of the United States delivered to the people his inaugural address. High and low were alike intent to discern the opening political currents of the new Administration, but none touched or approached this particular subject. The aspirations of "Young America" were not towards a conquest of the North, but the enlargement of the South. A freshening breeze filled the sails of "annexation" and "manifest destiny." In bold words the President said: "The policy of my Administration will not be controlled by any timid forebodings of evil from expansion. Indeed, it is not to be disguised that our attitude as a nation and our position on the globe render the acquisition of certain possessions not within our jurisdiction eminently important for our protection, if not in the future essential for the preservation of the rights of commerce and the peace of the world." Reaching the slavery question, he expressed unbounded devotion to the Union, and declared slavery recognized by the Constitution, and his purpose to enforce the compromise measures of 1850, adding, "I fervently trust that the question is at rest, and that no sectional or ambitious or fanatical excitement may again threaten the durability of our institutions, or obscure the light of our prosperity."
[Sidebar: Senate Report, No. 15, 1st Session, 33d Congress.]
When Congress met again in the following December (1853), the annual message of President Pierce was, upon this subject, but an echo of his inaugural, as his inaugural had been but an echo of the two party platforms of 1852. Affirming that the compromise measures of 1850 had given repose to the country, he declared, "That this repose is to suffer no shock during my official term, if I have the power to avert it, those who placed me here may be assured." In this spirit, undoubtedly, the Democratic party and the South began the session of 1853-4; but unfortunately it was very soon abandoned. The people of the Missouri and Iowa border were becoming every day more impatient to enter upon an authorized occupancy of the new lands which lay a day's journey to the west. Handfuls of squatters here and there had elected two territorial delegates, who hastened to Washington with embryo credentials. The subject of organizing the West was again broached; an Iowa Senator introduced a territorial bill. Under the ordinary routine it was referred to the Committee on Territories, and on the 4th day of January Douglas reported back his second Nebraska bill, still without any repeal of the Missouri Compromise. His elaborate report accompanying this second bill, shows that the subject had been most carefully examined in committee. The discussion was evidently exhaustive, going over the whole history, policy, and constitutionality of prohibitory legislation. Two or three sentences are quite sufficient to present the substance of the long and wordy report. First, that there were differences and doubts; second, that these had been finally settled by the compromise measures of 1850; and, therefore, third, the committee had adhered not only to the spirit but to the very phraseology of that adjustment, and refused either to affirm or repeal the Missouri Compromise.
[Sidenote: Senator Benjamin Senate Debate, May 8, 1860. "Globe," p. 1966.]
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
[Sidenote: Douglas, pamphlet in reply to Judge Black, October, 1859, p. 6.]
This was the public and legislative agreement announced to the country. Subsequent revelations show the secret and factional bargain which that agreement covered. Not only was this territorial bill searchingly considered in committee, but repeated caucuses were held by the Democratic leaders to discuss the party results likely to grow out of it. The Southern Democrats maintained that the Constitution of the United States recognized their right and guaranteed them protection to their slave property, if they chose to carry it into Federal Territories. Douglas and other Northern Democrats contended that slavery was subject to local law, and that the people of a Territory, like those of a State, could establish or prohibit it. This radical difference, if carried into party action, would lose them the political ascendency they had so long maintained, and were then enjoying. To avert a public rupture of the party, it was agreed "that the Territories should be organized with a delegation by Congress of all the power of Congress in the Territories, and that the extent of the power of Congress should be determined by the courts." If the courts should decide against the South, the Southern Democrats would accept the Northern theory; if the courts should decide in favor of the South, the Northern Democrats would defend the Southern view. Thus harmony would be preserved, and party power prolonged. Here we have the shadow of the coming Dred Scott decision already projected into political history, though the speaker protests that "none of us knew of the existence of a controversy then pending in the Federal courts that would lead almost immediately to the decision of that question." This was probably true; for a "peculiar provision" was expressly inserted in the committee's bill, allowing appeals to the Supreme Court of the United States in all questions involving title to slaves, without reference to the usual limitations in respect to the value of the property, thereby paving the way to an early adjudication by the Supreme Court.
[Sidenote: "Globe," Jan. 15, 1854, p. 175.]
Thus the matter rested till the 16th of January, when Senator Dixon, of Kentucky, apparently acting for himself alone, offered an amendment in effect repealing the Missouri Compromise. Upon this provocation, Senator Sumner, of Massachusetts, the next day offered another amendment affirming that it was not repealed by the bill. Commenting on these propositions two days later, the Administration organ, the "Washington Union," declared they were both "false lights," to be avoided by all good Democrats. By this time, however, the subject of "repeal" had become bruited about the Capitol corridors, the hotels, and the caucus rooms of Washington, and newspaper correspondents were on the qui vive to obtain the latest developments concerning the intrigue. The secrets of the Territorial Committee leaked out, and consultations multiplied. Could a repeal be carried? Who would offer it and lead it? What divisions or schisms would it carry into the ranks of the Democratic party, especially in the pending contest between the "Hards" and "Softs" in New York? What effect would it have upon the presidential election of 1856? Already the "Union" suggested that it was whispered that Cass was willing to propose and favor such a "repeal." It was given out in the "Baltimore Sun" that Cass intended to "separate the sheep from the goats." Both statements were untrue; but they perhaps had their intended effect, to arouse the jealousy and eagerness of Douglas. The political air of Washington was heavy with clouds and mutterings, and clans were gathering for and against the ominous proposition.
So far as history has been allowed a glimpse into these secret communings, three principal personages were at this time planning a movement of vast portent. These were Stephen A. Douglas, chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories; Archibald Dixon, Whig Senator from Kentucky; and David R. Atchison, of Missouri, then president pro tempore of the Senate, and acting Vice-President of the United States. "'For myself,' said the latter in explaining the transaction, 'I am entirely devoted to the interest of the South, and I would sacrifice everything but my hope of heaven to advance her welfare.' He thought the Missouri Compromise ought to be repealed; he had pledged himself in his public addresses to vote for no territorial organization that would not virtually annul it; and with this feeling in his heart he desired to be the chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories when a bill was introduced. With this object in view, he had a private interview with Mr. Douglas, and informed him of what he desired—the introduction of a bill for Nebraska like what [sic] he had promised to vote for, and that he would like to be the chairman of the Committee on Territories in order to introduce such a measure; and, if he could get that position, he would immediately resign as president of the Senate. Judge Douglas requested twenty-four hours to consider the matter, and if at the expiration of that time he could not introduce such a bill as he (Mr. Atchison) proposed, he would resign as chairman of the Territorial Committee in Democratic caucus, and exert his influence to get him (Atchison) appointed. At the expiration of the given time, Senator Douglas signified his intention to introduce such a bill as had been spoken of." [Footnote: Speech at Atchison City, September, 1854, reported in the "Parkville Luminary.">[
Senator Dixon is no less explicit in his description of these political negotiations. "My amendment seemed to take the Senate by surprise, and no one appeared more startled than Judge Douglas himself. He immediately came to my seat and courteously remonstrated against my amendment, suggesting that the bill which he had introduced was almost in the words of the territorial acts for the organization of Utah and. New Mexico; that they being a part of the compromise measures of 1850 he had hoped that I, a known and zealous friend of the wise and patriotic adjustment which had then taken place, would not be inclined to do anything to call that adjustment in question or weaken it before the country.
"I replied that it was precisely because I had been and was a firm and zealous friend of the Compromise of 1850 that I felt bound to persist in the movement which I had originated; that I was well satisfied that the Missouri Restriction, if not expressly repealed, would continue to operate in the territory to which it had been applied, thus negativing the great and salutary principle of non-intervention which constituted the most prominent and essential feature of the plan of settlement of 1850. We talked for some time amicably, and separated. Some days afterwards Judge Douglas came to my lodgings, whilst I was confined by physical indisposition, and urged me to get up and take a ride with him in his carriage. I accepted his invitation, and rode out with him. During our short excursion we talked on the subject of my proposed amendment, and Judge Douglas, to my high gratification, proposed to me that I should allow him to take charge of the amendment and ingraft it on his territorial bill. I acceded to the proposition at once, whereupon a most interesting interchange occurred between us.
"On this occasion Judge Douglas spoke to me in substance thus: 'I have become perfectly satisfied that it is my duty, as a fair-minded national statesman, to cooperate with you as proposed, in securing the repeal of the Missouri Compromise restriction. It is due to the South; it is due to the Constitution, heretofore palpably infracted; it is due to that character for consistency which I have heretofore labored to maintain. The repeal, if we can effect it, will produce much stir and commotion in the free States of the Union for a season. I shall be assailed by demagogues and fanatics there without stint or moderation. Every opprobrious epithet will be applied to me. I shall be probably hung in effigy in many places. It is more than probable that I may become permanently odious among those whose friendship and esteem I have heretofore possessed. This proceeding may end my political career. But, acting under the sense of the duty which animates me, I am prepared to make the sacrifice. I will do it.'
"He spoke in the most earnest and touching manner, and I confess that I was deeply affected. I said to him in reply: 'Sir, I once recognized you as a demagogue, a mere party manager, selfish and intriguing. I now find you a warm-hearted and sterling patriot. Go forward in the pathway of duty as you propose, and though all the world desert you, I never will.'" [Footnote: Archibald Dixon to H. S. Foote, October 1, 1858. "Louisville Democrat" of October 3, 1858.]
[Sidenote: "Globe," Feb. 15, 1864, p. 421.]
Such is the circumstantial record of this remarkable political transaction left by two prominent and principal instigators, and never denied nor repudiated by the third. Gradually, as the plot was developed, the agreement embraced the leading elements of the Democratic party in Congress, reenforced by a majority of the Whig leaders from the slave States. A day or two before the final introduction of the repeal, Douglas and others held an interview with President Pierce, [Transcriber's Note: Lengthy footnote (1) relocated to chapter end.] and obtained from him in writing an agreement to adopt the movement as an Administration measure. Fortified with this important adhesion, Douglas took the fatal plunge, and on January 23 introduced his third Nebraska bill, organizing two territories instead of one, and declaring the Missouri Compromise "inoperative." But the amendment—monstrous Caliban of legislation as it was—needed to be still further licked into shape to satisfy the designs of the South and appease the alarmed conscience of the North. Two weeks later, after the first outburst of debate, the following phraseology was substituted: "Which being inconsistent with the principle of non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the States and Territories, as recognized by the legislation of 1850 (commonly called the Compromise measures), is hereby declared inoperative and void; it being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution"—a change which Benton truthfully characterized as "a stump speech injected into the belly of the Nebraska bill." [Transcriber's Note: Lengthy footnote (2) relocated to chapter end.]
The storm of agitation which this measure aroused dwarfed all former ones in depth and intensity. The South was nearly united in its behalf, the North sadly divided in opposition. Against protest and appeal, under legislative whip and spur, with the tempting smiles and patronage of the Administration, after nearly a four months' parliamentary struggle, the plighted faith of a generation was violated, and the repealing act passed—mainly by the great influence and example of Douglas, who had only five years before so fittingly described the Missouri Compromise as being "akin to the Constitution," and "canonized in the hearts of the American people as a sacred thing which no ruthless hand would ever be reckless enough to disturb."
[Relocated Footnote (1): Jefferson Davis, who was a member of President Pierce's Cabinet (Secretary of War), thus relates the incident: "On Sunday morning, the 22d of January, 1854, gentlemen of each committee {House and Senate Committees on Territories} called at my house, and Mr. Douglas, chairman of the Senate Committee, fully explained the proposed bill, and stated their purpose to them through my aid, to obtain an interview on that day with the President, to ascertain whether the bill would meet his approbation. The President was known to be rigidly opposed to the reception of visits on Sunday for the discussion of any political subject; but in this case it was urged as necessary, in order to enable the committee to make their report the next day. I went with them to the Executive Mansion, and, leaving them in the reception-room, sought the President in his private apartments, and explained to him the occasion of the visit. He thereupon met the gentlemen, patiently listened to the reading of the bill and their explanations of it, decided that it rested upon sound constitutional principles, and recognized in it only a return to that rule which had been infringed by the Compromise of 1820, and the restoration of which had been foreshadowed by the legislation of 1850. This bill was not, therefore, as has been improperly asserted, a measure inspired by Mr. Pierce or any of his Cabinet."—Davis, "Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government," Vol. I., p. 28.]
[Relocated Footnote (2): We have the authority of ex-Vice-President Hannibal Hamlin for stating that Mr. Douglas (who was on specially intimate terms with him) told him that the language of the final amendment to the Kansas-Nebraska bill repealing the Missouri Compromise was written by President Franklin Pierce. Douglas was apprehensive that the President would withdraw or withhold from him a full and undivided Administration support, and told Mr. Hamlin that he intended to get from him something in black and white which would hold him. A day or two afterwards Douglas, in a confidential conversation, showed Mr. Hamlin the draft of the amendment in Mr. Pierce's own handwriting.]