Nebraska. The bill originated in the House, which passed it; in the Senate it was reported without amendment from the committee on Territories by Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, as chairman of the committee, but was defeated by southern votes, many northern members refraining from voting. As it was silent on slavery and hence did not disturb the Missouri compact, it caused no stir.

On the 4th of January, 1854, Douglas reported to the Senate a new Nebraska bill, accompanied by an explanation, in which it was stated that the committee, after due consideration, had decided to adhere to the principles of the Compromise measures of 1850 in relation to all new Territories, and therefore had adopted for every case the rule that "When admitted as a State, 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." After some debate a substitute measure was offered (January 23), creating two Territories, Nebraska and Kansas, without the restriction of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which restriction, it was added, "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

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own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States."

This Kansas-Nebraska bill, with its repeal of the Missouri Compromise, passed the Senate by 37 to 14 (11 not voting), and the House by 113 to 100 (21 not voting), and was signed by President Pierce on May 30, 1854.

For the repeal of the Missouri Compromise there can be no doubt that Douglas was primarily responsible. True, the desire to do away with it was not new. Individual southerners, especially Calhoun, had contended that the measure was unconstitutional, and it had been exceedingly distasteful to all southern statesmen, including those who originally accepted it in 1820; but no proposal to abrogate it had ever been urged in Congress. "From the circumstances under which the Missouri Compromise was enacted," says Rhodes, "from the fact that it received the seal of constitutionality from an impartial President [Monroe] and thoroughly representative cabinet, it had been looked upon as having the moral force of an article of the Constitution itself." Certainly Douglas, in initiating the repeal, was not inspired by any public demand from the south. In a recent historical discussion1 it is shown that Senator David R. Atchison, of Missouri, exerted a strong persuading influence upon Douglas, and the view is therefore maintained that Atchison was the real author of the repeal. This may be conceded

a

1The Repeal of the Missouri Compromise: Its Origin and Authorship, by P. Orman Ray.

without, however, altering the fact that the practical responsibility is to be assigned to Douglas. He is said to have been actuated by the desire of cultivating a more favorable southern disposition toward his nomination for the Presidency in 1856. However, his action was entirely consistent with his record and his positively announced opinions ever since the new slavery questions sprang up during the Mexican War. He had voted against the Wilmot Proviso while a member of the House, and had been actively identified with the legislation of 1850 for Congressional non-intervention regarding slavery in New Mexico and Utah. He firmly held that the only correct basis for settling the slavery issue in the Territories was that of an equal chance for each side-"popular sovereignty." Respecting the slavery institution itself, he always expressed unconcern; on that subject his mind was receptive to no other idea than that the people locally had the right to "vote it up or vote it down" without national tutelage or interference. After the failure of the original Nebraska bill of 1853, which contained no reference to the Missouri restriction, it was apparent that the south would not consent to the organization of new Territories in the Louisiana Purchase upon the plan of slavery inhibition. Early Territorial organization in that quarter was demanded by the people of Missouri;—and a bill embodying the popular Sovereignty principle seemed to Douglas eminently practical as well as logical.

As created by the act, Kansas and Nebraska Territories comprised the whole of the formerly unorgan

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ized part of the Louisiana Purchase north of the present southern line (37°) of Kansas. Like all the large Territories established from the beginning of the government, they were subject to ultimate partition, for additional State purposes, according to the discretion of Congress in due time. Kansas was made very much smaller than Nebraska; the former, in its south to north extent, was wholly adjacent to the slave State of Missouri, while Nebraska, except for a small part of its southern area, coincided with the western bounds of the free State of Iowa and free Territory of Minnesota. Manifestly, it was intended and expected that Kansas would be settled from Missouri and the south and have slavery, and that Nebraska would be left undisputedly to the north and freedom. To the minds of those who for various reasons believed in political concessions to the south, this was an ideal arrangement.

But northern sentiment instantaneously and unqualifiedly repudiated the plan as violative of a settled national principle and time-honored compact, and as purely donative to slavery. On January 24 (the day after the presentation in the Senate of the perfected Kansas-Nebraska bill with the specific Missouri Compromise repeal), an influential group of Democratic Senators and Representatives, headed by Chase and Sumner, issued a powerful deliverance entitled, "Appeal of the Independent Democrats in Congress to the People of the United States," in which the measure was bitterly denounced and Douglas was accused of sacrificing the interests of the country to promote his chances for the Presidency. "Will the people," it was

William Henry Harrison, 9th president; born at Berkeley, Va., February 9, 1773; physician; served in indian wars; appointed secretary of the Northwest territory and served as its delegate to congress from March 4, 1799 to March, 1800; territorial governor of Indiana, 1801-1813; defeated the british and indians at Tippecanoe, November 7, 1811; elected to congress and served from December 2, 1816 to March 3, 1819; member state senate, 1819-21; United States senator from March 4, 1825 to May 20, 1828; minister to Columbia from May 24, 1828 to September 6, 1829; president of the United States from March 4, 1841 until his death, which took place April 4, 1841 at Washington, D. C.