ry; the other arraigned
the bill as "a gross violation of a sacred pledge; as a criminal
betrayal of precious rights." In ominous words, fellow citizens were
besought to observe how the blight of slavery would settle upon all
this land, if this bill should become a law. Christians and Christian
ministers were implored to interpose. "Let all protest, earnestly and
emphatically, by correspondence, through the press, by memorials, by
resolutions of public meetings and legislative bodies, and in whatever
other mode may seem expedient, against this enormous crime." In the
postscript Douglas received personal mention. "Not a man in Congress
or out of Congress, in 1850, pretended that the compromise measures
would repeal the Missouri prohibition. Mr. Douglas himself never
advanced such a pretence until this session. His own Nebraska bill, of
last session, rejected it. It is a sheer afterthought. To declare the
prohibition inoperative, may, indeed, have effect in law as a repeal,
but it is a most discreditable way of reaching the object. Will the
people permit their dearest interests to be thus made the mere hazards
of a presidential game, and destroyed by false facts and false
inferences?"[466]

This attack roused the tiger in the Senator from Illinois. When he
addressed the Senate on January 30th, he labored under ill-repressed
anger. Even in the expurgated columns of the _Congressional Globe_
enough stinging personalities appeared to make his friends regretful.
What excited his wrath particularly was that Chase and Sumner had
asked for a postponement of discussion, in order to examine the bill,
and then, in the interval, had sent out their indictment of the
author. It was certainly unworthy of him to taunt them with having
desecrated the Sabbath day by writing their plea. The charge was not
only puerile but amusing, when one considers how Douglas himself was
observing that particular Sabbath.

It was comparatively easy to question and disprove the unqualified
statement of the _Appeal_, that "the original settled policy of the
United States was non-extension of slavery." Less convincing was
Douglas's attempt to prove that the Missouri Compromise was expressly
annulled in 1850, when portions of Texas and of the former Spanish
province of Louisiana were added to New Mexico, and also a part of the
province of Louisiana was joined to Utah. Douglas was in the main
correct as to geographical data; but he could not, and did not, p