Transactions of the McLean County Historical Society, Bloomington, Illinois, Volume 3

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Page 30 - I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it." I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
Page 75 - Twas thine own genius gave the final blow, And helped to plant the wound that laid thee low : So the struck eagle, stretched upon the plain, No more through rolling clouds to soar again, Viewed his own feather on the fatal dart, And winged the shaft that quivered in his heart ; Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel He nursed the pinion which impelled the steel ; While the same plumage that had warmed his nest Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding breast.
Page 102 - All they ask we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right; all we ask they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong. Their thinking it right and our thinking it wrong is the precise fact upon which depends the whole controversy.
Page 119 - March 6, 1820,) 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...
Page 16 - That in all that Territory ceded by France to the United States, under the name of Louisiana, which lies north of Thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude, not included within the limits of the state contemplated by this act, slavery and involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the parties shall have been duly convicted, shall be and is hereby forever prohibited.
Page 119 - That the legislative power of the territory shall extend to all rightful subjects of legislation consistent with the constitution of the United States and the provisions of this act ; but no law shall be passed interfering with the primary disposal of the soil...
Page 119 - Kansas ; and when admitted as a State or States, the said Territory, or any portion of the same, shall be received into the Union with or without slavery, as their constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission...
Page 102 - Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.
Page 116 - The principal amendments which your committee deem it their duty to commend to the favorable action of the Senate, in a special report, are those in which the principles established by the Compromise Measures of 1850, so far as they are applicable to territorial organizations, are proposed to be affirmed and carried into practical operation within the limits of the new Territory.
Page 116 - If any other consideration were necessary to render the propriety of this course imperative upon the committee, they may be found in the fact that the Nebraska country occupies the same relative position to the slavery question as did New Mexico and Utah when those Territories were organized.

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