message takes much of the air of the conqueror, and assumes that the principles of those in whose track he was following were now the long-tried and estab lished standards and rules of the people and Government. The ground for this position was not utopian; and it may be that there was an apology even for a President to exhibit in a general message to the country, some token of pride in the overthrow and complete dissolution of a party. Under what was termed the "Virginia Dynasty" of Democratic Presidents the old Federal party had died out as an organization; and although General Jackson remodeled the Democratic party (the old Republican), and infused a new spirit into it with some strange doctrines, and almost succeeded in giving it his own name, it still lived on, and now with gratification saw its last great opponents, the Whigs, go down.

To a casual looker-on, perhaps, at no time in the history of the Nation had the Democrats stronger motives for rejoicing and taking courage, than at the moment this message was written. The country was at peace, and they were masters, and who could tell that the slumbering fires of a long and fearful strife were so near this peaceful surface? In no uncertain tone does the President refer to the Compromises of 1850, which should be the eternal bond of the Union. While advocating the Pacific Railway enterprise and Territorial improvements, and a certain cautious degree of defensive and other undoubted works of national interest, he reiterates with force the old antiinternal improvement theory of his party; and

announces with great positiveness in the peculiar terms of the Democratic vocabulary the doctrine of a confederacy of sovereign States and State Rights. It was supposed and claimed at this time that the Democratic party had approached nearer its 1798 or old Jefferson or Republican state than at any period after John Quincy Adams so nearly Federalized it, and Andrew Jackson pretty thoroughly Jacksonized it.

Congress soon began the consideration of the subjects of which the message treated, and it was reasonably expected throughout the country that there would be a valuable and satisfactory session. The Pacific Railway was attracting general attention; the outcome of the various foreign expeditions was anxiously looked for; Central American affairs, and other matters of importance were to be settled with England; and it was believed that the treaties in progress would greatly advance American mercantile interests, and that affairs generally would be greatly set forward by this year's work. The great mass of his countrymen joined the President in these expectations.

But an event now occurred in Congress which changed the whole current of things at home, and which stirred out that slumbering subterranean fire of slavery which continued to burn until the Democratic party was not only rent asunder, but for a time rendered powerless and shorn at least of its usual respectability; and the combustible matter itself destroyed, root and branch, in the great War of the Rebellion.

CONGRESS-THE

CHAPTER IX.

"LITTLE GIANT"-THE COMPROMISES

ABANDONED-HUMAN SLAVERY-KANSAS-NE

ON

BRASKA - THE IRRECONCILABLE

CONFLICT.

N the 15th of December, A. C. Dodge, of Iowa, introduced a bill before the Senate for the organization of the Territory of Nebraska. After this bill had been twice read, it was referred to the Committee on Territories, of which Stephen A. Douglas was chairman. All the vast territorial region lying west, southwest, and northwest of Missouri and Iowa, and stretching to the Rocky Mountains and British America, was at this time mainly inhabited by Indians; and the necessity of any kind of governmental establishment over any part of it was a matter chiefly, if not wholly, confined to the mind of the restless and ambitious politician. The white men who resided in this wild country were, to a great extent, in the employ of the Government as soldiers, or in the management of its affairs with the Indians, and as followers of these.

On the 4th of January the Territorial Committee made a report, and Mr. Douglas brought in a bill for the organization of the Territory of Nebraska. The introduction of this bill at once threw the country

into a feverish state of excitement, which was greatly augmented by Mr. Douglas bringing forward on the 23d of the same month, as a substitute for his former measure, a bill making provision for the organization of two Territories, Kansas and Nebraska, out of this vast country. This last bill provided for the repeal of the "Missouri Compromise of 1820," but it was strenuously argued by its advocates that it should not affect, and was not designed to affect, in the least, the Compromises of 1850.

It may now be observed that in the winter of 1852, during the last session of Congress under Mr. Fillmore, a bill was introduced looking to the organization of Nebraska, and among its most earnest supporters was Stephen A. Douglas. But the question of the slave line in the "Missouri Compromise" was not suggested by this event. Nor was it intimated then that that Compromise was not in full force.

In 1845, on the annexation of Texas, the question was brought up, but the line of 36° 30' was adopted. In 1848 some of the friends of slavery in Congress favored opening New Mexico, California, and even Utah, to the chances of all territory south of 36° 30'. In 1850, on the application of California for admission as a State with an anti-slavery constitution, some Southern Congressmen, especially at the outset, took the position that this would lead to a dissolution of the Union, as a part of the territory of that State lay south of 36° 30, the slave line; some of them proposed to strike from the proposed State of California all that part of its territory lying

south of that line, which could subsequently be erected into a Slave State, as the people might desire; and Mr. Jefferson Davis declared that he would submit to nothing less than the extension of the "Missouri Compromise" line to the Pacific Ocean. Mr. Douglas at this time favored the organization of New Mexico and Utah on a basis of giving the people in them an opportunity of deciding about slavery for themselves.

The fact is, however, plain enough that a very considerable number of Northern men, not of the extreme class even, never did consider themselves bound either by the Compromises of 1820 or 1850, and were continually watching for an opportunity to avoid or circumvent them. It is equally patent, too, that a large, restless class of Southern leaders and agitators was ever on the lookout for events to turn in their favor in enlarging slavery territory.

It was argued in 1850 by the opponents of slavery that the compromise line of 1820 only extended to the territory ceded to the United States by France in 1803, in the Louisiana purchase. And although this opinion was in keeping with the language of the Act of 1820, it savored to a certain extent of political chicanery, as in 1845 the line was extended as Texas chose to adopt it. It had come to be pretty well understood that the principle applied to all the territory of the United States west of Missouri, and the extent of that territory had never been well defined until after the Mexican War. Besides this, it had been claimed by Americans (perhaps statesmen) both North and South, in all controversies with Eng