then prevailed on this and other subjects, if properly cherished by us, will enable us to achieve similar objects. If we meet upon principles of reciprocity, we cannot fail to do justice to all. It has already been avowed, by gentlemen on this floor from the South and the West, that they will agree upon a line which shall divide the slave-holding from the non-slave-holding States. It is this proposition I am anxious to effect; but I wish to effect it by some compact which shall be binding upon all parties, and all subsequent Legislatures; which cannot be changed, and will not fluctuate with the diversity of feeling and of sentiment to which this empire, in its march, must be destined. There is a vast and immense tract of country west of the Mississippi, yet to be settled, and intimately connected with the northern section of the Union, upon which this compromise can be effected."
The suggestions of compromise were at this time vain. Each party was determined. The North, by the prevailing voice of its representatives, claimed all for freedom; the South, by its potential command of the Senate, claimed all for slavery.
The report of this debate aroused the country. For the first time in our history, freedom, after an animated struggle, hand to hand, had been kept in check by slavery. The original policy of our fathers in the restriction of slavery, was suspended, and this giant wrong threatened to stalk into all the broad national domain. Men at the North were humbled and amazed. The imperious demands of slavery seemed incredible. Meanwhile, the whole subject was adjourned from Congress to the people. Through the press, and at public meetings, an earnest voice was raised against the admission of Missouri into the Union without the restriction of slavery. Judges
