north of the line at the inception of the law, they have the right
to have another given them north of it occasionally, now and then, in the
indefinite westward extension of the line. This demonstrates the absurdity
of attempting to deduce a prospective principle from the Missouri
Compromise line.

When we voted for the Wilmot Proviso we were voting to keep slavery out
of the whole Mexican acquisition, and little did we think we were thereby
voting to let it into Nebraska lying several hundred miles distant. When
we voted against extending the Missouri line, little did we think we were
voting to destroy the old line, then of near thirty years' standing.

To argue that we thus repudiated the Missouri Compromise is no less absurd
than it would be to argue that because we have so far forborne to acquire
Cuba, we have thereby, in principle, repudiated our former acquisitions
and determined to throw them out of the Union. No less absurd than it
would be to say that because I may have refused to build an addition to
my house, I thereby have decided to destroy the existing house! And if
I catch you setting fire to my house, you will turn upon me and say I
instructed you to do it!

The most conclusive argument, however, that while for the Wilmot Proviso,
and while voting against the extension of the Missouri line, we never
thought of disturbing the original Missouri Compromise, is found in the
fact that there was then, and still is, an unorganized tract of fine
country, nearly as large as the State of Missouri, lying immediately west
of Arkansas and south of the Missouri Compromise line, and that we never
attempted to prohibit slavery as to it. I wish particular attention to
this. It adjoins the original Missouri Compromise line by its northern
boundary, and consequently is part of the country into which by
implication slavery was permitted to go by that compromise. There it has
lain open ever s, and there it still lies, and yet no effort has been made
at any time to wrest it from the South. In all our struggles to prohibit
slavery within our Mexican acquisitions, we never so much as lifted a
finger to prohibit it as to this tract. Is not this entirely conclusive
that at all times we have held the Missouri Compromise as a sacred thing,
even when against ourselves as well as when for us?

Senator Douglas sometimes says the Missouri line itself was in principle
only an extension of the line of the Ordinance of '87--that is to s