of again setting us by the ears but by turning back and
destroying the peace measures of the past. The counsels of that Genius
seem to have prevailed. The Missouri Compromise was repealed; and here
we are in the midst of a new slavery agitation, such, I think, as we have
never seen before. Who is responsible for this? Is it those who resist
the measure, or those who causelessly brought it forward, and pressed it
through, having reason to know, and in fact knowing, it must and would be
so resisted? It could not but be expected by its author that it would be
looked upon as a measure for the extension of slavery, aggravated by a
gross breach of faith.

Argue as you will and long as you will, this is the naked front and aspect
of the measure. And in this aspect it could not but produce agitation.
Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature--opposition to it in
his love of justice. These principles are at eternal antagonism, and
when brought into collision so fiercely as slavery extension brings them,
shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow. Repeal the
Missouri Compromise, repeal all compromises, repeal the Declaration of
Independence, repeal all past history, you still cannot repeal human
nature. It still will be the abundance of man's heart that slavery
extension is wrong, and out of the abundance of his heart his mouth will
continue to speak.

The structure, too, of the Nebraska Bill is very peculiar. The people are
to decide the question of slavery for themselves; but when they are to
decide, or how they are to decide, or whether, when the question is
once decided, it is to remain so or is to be subject to an indefinite
succession of new trials, the law does not say. Is it to be decided by the
first dozen settlers who arrive there, or is it to await the arrival of
a hundred? Is it to be decided by a vote of the people or a vote of the
Legislature, or, indeed, by a vote of any sort? To these questions the law
gives no answer. There is a mystery about this; for when a member proposed
to give the Legislature express authority to exclude slavery, it was
hooted down by the friends of the bill. This fact is worth remembering.
Some Yankees in the East are sending emigrants to Nebraska to exclude
slavery from it; and, so far as I can judge, they expect the question to
be decided by voting in some way or other. But the Missourians are awake,
too. They are within a stone's-throw of the contested ground.