12 employed by the Government, in connection with the administration of Indian affairs, and other persons temporarily drawn around the post of Fort Leavenworth. It is clear, then, that this abrogation of the Missouri Compromise is not necessary for the purpose of establishing Territorial Governments in Nebraska, but that, on the contrary, these bills, establishing such Governments, are only a vehicle for carrying, or a pretext for carrying, that act of abrogation. It is alleged, that the non-slaveholding States have forfeited their rights in Nebraska, under the Missouri Compromise, by first breaking that Compromise themselves. The argument is, that-the Missouri Compromise line of 36 deg. 30 min., in the region acquired from France, although confined to that region which was our westernmost possession, was, nevertheless, understood as intended to be prospect- i ively applied also to the territory reaching thence westward to the Pacific Ocean, which we should afterwards acquire from Mexico; and that when afterwards, having acquired these Territories, including California, New Mexico, and Utah, we were engaged in 1848 in extending Governments over them, the free States refused to extend that line, on a proposition to that effect made by the honorable Senator from Illinois. It need only be stated, in refutation of this argument, that the .Missouri Compromise law, like any other statute, was limited by the extent of the subject of which it treated. Thig subject was the Territory of Louisiana, acquired from France, whether the same were more or less, t hen in our lawful and peaceful possession. The length of the line of 36 deg. 30 min, established by the Missouri Cdmpro- mise, was the distance between the parallels of longitude which were the borders of that pos-' session. Young America—I mean aggrandizing, conquering America—had not yet been born; nor was the statesman then in being, who dreamed that, within thirty years afterwards, we should have pushed our adventurous way, not only across the Rocky Mountains, but also across the Snowy Mountains. Nor did any one then imagine, that even if we should have done so within the period I have named, ! we were then prospectively carving up and । dividing, not only the mountain passes, but the Mexican Empire on the Pacific coast, between Freedom and Slavery. If such a proposition had been made then, and persisted in, we know enough of the temper of 1820 to know this, । viz ; that Missouri and .Arkansas would, have stood outside of the Union until even this portentous day. The time, for aught I know, may not be thirty years distant, when the convulsions of the Celestial Empire and the decline of British sway in India shall have opened our way into the regions beyond the Pacific Ocean. I desire to know now and be fully certified of the geographical extent of the laws we are now passing, so that there may be no such mistake hereafter as that now complained of here. We are now confiding to Territorial Legislatures the power to legislate on slavery. Are the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas alone within the purview of these acts? Or do they reach to the Pacific coast, and embrace also Oregon and Washington? Do they stop there, or do they take in China and India and Affghanistan, even to the gigantic base of tlfeHimafaya Mountains? Do they stop there, or, on the contrary, do they encircle the earth, and, meeting us again on the Atlantic coast, embrace the islands of Iceland and Greenland, and exhaust themselves on the barren coasts of Greenland and Labrador ? Sir, if the. Missouri Compromise neither in its spirit nor by its letter extended the line of 36 deg. 30 min. beyond the confines of Louisiana, or beyond the then confines of the United States, for the terms are equivalent, then it was no violation of the Missouri Compromise in 1848 to refuse to extend it to the* subsequently acquired possessions of Texas, New Mexico, and California. But suppose we did refuse to extend it; how did that refusal work a forfeiture of our vested rights under it ? I desire to know that. Again: If this forfeiture of Nebraska occurred in 1848, as the Senator charges, how does it happen that he not only failed in 1850, when the parties were in court here, adjusting their mutual claims, to demand judgment against the free States, but, on the contrary, even urged that the same old Missouri Compromise line, yet held valid and sacred, should be extended through to the Pacific Ocean ? I come now to the chief ground of the defence of this extraordinary measure, which is, that it abolishes a geographical line of division between the proper fields of free labor and slave labor, and refers the claim between them to the people of the Territories. Even if this great change of policy was actually wise and necessary, I have shown that it is not necessary to make it now, in regard to rhe Territory of Nebraska. If it would be just elsewhere, it would be unjust in regard to Nebraska, simply because, for ample and adequate equivalents, fully received, you have contracted in effect not to abolish that line there. 1 But why is this change of policy wise or necessary ? It must be because either that the extensiomof slavery is no evil, or because you have not the power to prevent it at all, or because the maintenance of a geographical line is no longer practicable. I know that the opinion is sometimes advanced, here and elsewhere, that the extension of slavery, abstractly considered, is not an evil; but our laws prohibiting the African slave trade are still standing on the statute book, and express the contrary judgment of the American Congress and of the American People. I pass on, therefore, from that point.
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