he compromise of 1820, and the restoration of which
had been foreshadowed by the legislation of 1850. This bill was not,
therefore, as has been improperly asserted, a measure inspired by Mr.
Pierce or any of his Cabinet. Nor was it the first step taken toward the
repeal of the conditions or obligations expressed or implied by the
establishment, in 1820, of the politico-sectional line of thirty-six
degrees and thirty minutes. That compact had been virtually abrogated,
in 1850, by the refusal of the representatives of the North to apply it
to the territory then recently acquired from Mexico. In May, 1854, the
Kansas-Nebraska Bill was passed; its purpose was declared in the bill
itself to be to carry into practical operation the "propositions and
principles established by the compromise measures of 1850" The "Missouri
Compromise," therefore, was not repealed by that bill--its virtual
repeal by the legislation of 1850 was recognized as an existing fact,
and it was declared to be "inoperative and void."

It was added that the "true intent and meaning" of the act was "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 own way, subject only to
the Constitution of the United States."

From the terms of this bill, as well as from the arguments that were
used in its behalf, it is evident that its purpose was to leave the
Territories equally open to the people of all the States, with every
species of property recognized by any of them; to permit climate and
soil to determine the current of immigration, and to secure to the
people themselves the right to form their own institutions according to
their own will, as soon as they should acquire the right of
self-government; that is to say, as soon as their numbers should entitle
them to organize themselves into a State, prepared to take its place as
an equal, sovereign member of the Federal Union. The claim, afterward
advanced by Mr. Douglas and others, that this declaration was intended
to assert the right of the first settlers of a Territory, in its
inchoate, rudimental, dependent, and transitional condition, to
determine the character of its institutions, constituted the doctrine
popularly known as "squatter sovereignty." Its assertion led to the
dissensions which ultimately resulted in a rupture of the Democratic
party.

Sectional rivalry, the