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Territories, north of a given geographical line.
This compromise was clearly violative of the rights of the
South, for the
Territories were common property, which had been acquired, by the blood, and treasure, of the
North and the
South alike, and no discrimination could justly be made between the sections, as to emigration to those Territories; but discrimination would be made, if the
Northern man could emigrate to all of them, and the
Southern man to those of them only that lay South of the given line.
By the passage of the
Kansas-
Nebraska bill, introduced into the House of Representatives, in 1854 by
Mr. Stephen A. Douglas, this unjust compromise was repealed; the repealing clause declaring, that the
Missouri Compromise ‘being inconsistent with the principles 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, subject only to the
Constitution of the United States.’
Nothing would seem more just, than the passage of this act, which removed the restriction which had been put upon a portion of the States, threw open the Territories to immigration from all the States, alike, and left the question of local government, the question of slavery included, to be decided by the inhabitants of the Territories themselves.
But this act of justice, which Mr. Douglas had had the address and ability to cause to be passed, was highly distasteful to the Northern people.
It was not consistent with their views of empire that there should be any more Southern Slave States admitted into the Union.
The Republican party, which, up to that time, had made but little headway, now suddenly sprang into importance.
and at the next elections in the North, swept every thing before it. The Northern Democratic members of Congress who had voted for the hated measure, were beaten by over whelming majorities, and Republicans sent in their places; and the Republican Convention which assembled at Chicago in 1860, to nominate a candidate for the Presidency, adopted
