Besides this element, there was another not less specious which lent to the scheme an air of fairness, and that was the application to the Territories of the American principle of local self-government, in other words, the leaving to the people of the Territories the right to vote slavery up or vote it down, as they might elect. The game was a deep one, worthy of the machinations of its Northern and Southern authors. But, like other elaborate schemes of mice and men, it went to pieces under the fatal stroke of an unexpected circumstance. The act which abrogated the Missouri Compromise broke the muchenduring back of Northern patience at the same time. In the struggle for the repeal Southern Whigs and Southern Democrats forgot their traditionary party differences in battling for Southern interests, which was not more or less than the extension to the national Territories of the peculiar institution. The final recognition of this ugly fact on the part of the free States, raised a popular flood in them big enough to whelm the Whig party and to float a great
