dge of this fact that has given them the name of "compromises," so
expressive of that true character.

I had asked: "If, in carrying the Utah and New Mexico laws to Nebraska,
you could clear away other objection, how could you leave Nebraska
'perfectly free' to introduce slavery before she forms a constitution,
during her territorial government, while the Utah and New Mexico laws
only authorize it when they form constitutions and are admitted into the
Union?" To this Judge Douglas answered that the Utah and New Mexico laws
also authorized it before; and to prove this he read from one of their
laws, as follows: "That the legislative power of said Territory shall
extend to all rightful subjects of legislation, consistent with the
Constitution of the United States and the provisions of this act."

Now it is perceived from the reading of this that there is nothing express
upon the subject, but that the authority is sought to be implied merely
for the general provision of "all rightful subjects of legislation." In
reply to this I insist, as a legal rule of construction, as well as the
plain, popular view of the matter, that the express provision for Utah and
New Mexico coming in with slavery, if they choose, when they shall form
constitutions, is an exclusion of all implied authority on the same
subject; that Congress having the subject distinctly in their minds
when they made the express provision, they therein expressed their whole
meaning on that subject.

The Judge rather insinuated that I had found it convenient to forget the
Washington territorial law passed in 1853. This was a division of Oregon,
organizing the northern part as the Territory of Washington. He asserted
that by this act the Ordinance of '87, theretofore existing in Oregon, was
repealed; that nearly all the members of Congress voted for it, beginning
in the House of Representatives with Charles Allen of Massachusetts, and
ending with Richard Yates of Illinois; and that he could not understand
how those who now opposed the Nebraska Bill so voted there, unless it was
because it was then too soon after both the great political parties had
ratified the compromises of 1850, and the ratification therefore was too
fresh to be then repudiated.

Now I had seen the Washington act before, and I have carefully examined it
since; and I aver that there is no repeal of the Ordinance of '87, or of
any prohibition of slavery, in it. In express terms, there is absolutel