dent
that the "repose" of the country on the slavery question "should
suffer no shock during his administration," the bill to organize
the Territory of Nebraska was again introduced in the Senate. The
motive for its defeat the preceding session was soon made apparent.
Mr. Archibald Dixon of Kentucky, the last Whig governor of that
State, had been chosen to succeed Mr. Clay in the Senate. But he
did not succeed to Mr. Clay's political principles. He belonged
to a class of men that had been recently and rapidly growing in
the South,--men avowedly and aggressively pro-slavery. Mr. Dixon
was the first to strike an open blow against the Missouri Compromise.
Mr. Clay had been honorably identified with the pacific work of
1820, and throughout his life believed that it had been effectual
in allaying the strife which in his judgment had endangered the
Union. It was an alarming fact that his own successor in the Senate
--less than two years after Mr. Clay's death--was the first to
assail his work and to re-open a controversy which was not to cease
till a continent was drenched in blood. Mr. Dixon made no concealment
of his motive and his purpose, declaring that he wished the
restriction removed because he was a pro-slavery man. He gave
notice early in January, 1854, that when the bill to organize the
Territory of Nebraska should come before the Senate, he would move
that "the Missouri Compromise be repealed, and that the citizens
of the several States shall be at liberty to take and hold their
slaves within any of the Territories." It was very soon found that
this was not a capricious movement by Mr. Dixon alone, but that
behind him there was a settled determination on the part of the
pro-slavery men to break down the ancient barrier and to remove
the honored landmark of 1820.

The Senate had a large Democratic majority, and there was probably
not one among them all who had not in the Presidential contest of
1852 publicly and solemnly vowed that the Compromise measures of
1850 were a final settlement of the slavery question, not in any
event, nor upon any pretext, to be disturbed. It was specially
embarrassing and perilous for Northern senators to violate pledges
so recently made, so frequently repeated. It much resembled the
breaking of a personal promise, and seemed to the mass of people
in the free State to be a gross breach of national honor. To escape
the sharp edge of condemnation, sure to follow such a transac