n, a measure, or _proviso_,
stipulating that slavery could not be introduced into conquered
provinces. Such was the starting point. It was sought then, in 1847, to
prevent the territorial extension of slavery. This seems to me
reasonable enough; and I am not astonished that the Lincoln platform
tends simply to return to this primitive policy. The measure passes the
House of Representatives, but is defeated in the Senate.
Notwithstanding, the American people hold firm to the principle that
slavery shall henceforth no longer be extended; it elects, in 1848, the
upright Administration of Gen. Taylor. The cause of justice seems about
to triumph, when the death of the whig President, succeeded by the
feeble Mr. Fillmore, comes to restore good fortune to the Southerners,
the _proviso_ is forgotten, and the nation, weary of resistance, ends by
adopting a series of deplorable compromises.

Beginning from this moment, the progress of the evil is rapid. Among the
compromises, the oldest and most respected, dating back to 1820, was
that which bore the name of the _Missouri Compromise_. On admitting
Missouri as a Slave State, it had been stipulated that slavery should be
no longer introduced north of the 36th degree of latitude. Of this
limit, so long accepted, the South now complains; it is no longer
willing that the development of its "peculiar institution" shall be
obstructed in any thing. Other combats, another victory. A bill
proposed by Mr. Douglas annuls the Missouri Compromise, and, based on
the principle of local sovereignties, withdraws from Congress the right
to interfere in the question of slavery.

The Wilmot proviso could not subsist in the presence of these absolute
pretensions. The liberty of slavery (pardon me this mournful and
involuntary conjunction) finds an application on the spot. At this
juncture, Texas, a province detached from Mexico, is admitted in the
quality of a slave State.

What happens then? The partisans of slavery, hampered by nothing any
longer, either by limits at the North, or limits at the South, or
provisos, or compromises, encounter, to their great horror, an obstacle
of quite a different nature. The local sovereignty which they have
invoked turns against them; in the Territory of Kansas, the majority
votes the exclusion of slavery. At once the Southerners change theory;
against local sovereignty they invoke the central power; they demand,
they exact that the decisions of the majority in K