g the Missouri Compromise or restriction of 1820. The
end sought by the repeal was, as stated by Douglas, to leave the
people of said Territories respectively to determine the question of
the introduction or exclusion of slavery for themselves; in
other words, "to regulate their domestic institutions in their own
way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States."
The principle strenuously contended for was that of "popular
sovereignty" or non-intervention by Congress, in the affairs of
the Territories. In closing the protracted and exciting debate
just prior to the passage of the bill in the Senate, he said:

"There is another reason why I desire to see this principle recognized
as a rule of action in all time to come. It will have the effect to
destroy all sectional parties and sectional agitation. If you
withdraw the slavery question from the halls of Congress and the
political arena, and commit it to the arbitrament of those who are
immediately interested in and alone responsible for its consequences,
there is nothing left out of which sectional parties can be organized.
When the people of the North shall all be rallied under one banner,
and the whole South marshalled under another banner, and each
section excited to frenzy and madness by hostility to the institutions
of the other, then the patriot may well tremble for the perpetuity
of the Union. Withdraw the slavery question from the political
arena and remove it to the States and Territories, each to decide for
itself, and such a catastrophe can never happen."

These utterances of little more than half a century ago, fall
strangely upon our ears at this day. In the light of all that has
occurred in the long reach of years, how significant the words,
"No man is wiser than events"! Likewise, "The actions of men are to
be judged by the light surrounding them at the time--not by the
knowledge that comes after the fact." The immediate effect of the
passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was directly the reverse of
that so confidently predicted by Douglas. The era of concord
between the North and the South did not return. The slavery
question--instead of being relegated to the recently organized
Territories for final settlement--at once assumed the dimensions
of a great national issue. The country at large--instead of a
single Territory--became the theatre of excited discussion. The
final determination was to be not that of a Territory, but of
the