ate and
nature and the necessary pursuits of the people who are to occupy the
territories," added the writer complacently, "will settle the
question--and these will effectually exclude slavery."[443]

These rumors foreshadowed the report of the committee. The problem was
to find a mode of overcoming the opposition of the South to the
organization of a Territory which would not only add eventually to the
number of free States, but also open up a northern route to the
Pacific. The price of concession from the South on the latter point
must be some apparent concession to the South in the matter of
slavery. The report of January 4, 1854, and the bill which accompanied
it, was Douglas's solution of the problem.[444] The principles of the
compromise measures of 1850 were to be affirmed and carried into
practical operation within the limits of the new Territory of
Nebraska. "In the judgment of your committee," read the report, "those
measures were intended to have a far more comprehensive and enduring
effect than the mere adjustment of the difficulties arising out of the
recent acquisition of Mexican territory. They were designed to
establish certain great principles ... your committee have deemed it
their duty to incorporate and perpetuate, in their territorial bill,
the principles and spirit of those measures. If any other
consideration were necessary, to render the propriety of this course
imperative upon the committee, they may be found in the fact that the
Nebraska country occupies the same relative position to the slavery
question, as did New Mexico and Utah, when those Territories were
organized."[445]

Just as it was a disputed point, the report argued, whether slavery
was prohibited by law in the country acquired from Mexico, so it is
questioned whether slavery is prohibited in the Nebraska country by
_valid_ enactment. "In the opinion of those eminent statesmen, who
hold that Congress is invested with no rightful authority to legislate
upon the subject of slavery in the Territories, the 8th section of the
act preparatory to the admission of Missouri is null and void; while
the prevailing sentiment in large portions of the Union sustains the
doctrine that the Constitution of the United States secures to every
citizen an inalienable right to move into any of the Territories with
his property, of whatever kind and description, and to hold and enjoy
the same under the sanction of law. Your committee do not feel
themse