the repeal establishes a principle which is
intrinsically right.

I will attempt an answer to each of them in its turn.

First, then: If that country was in need of a territorial organization,
could it not have had it as well without as with a repeal? Iowa and
Minnesota, to both of which the Missouri restriction applied, had, without
its repeal, each in succession, territorial organizations. And even the
year before, a bill for Nebraska itself was within an ace of passing
without the repealing clause, and this in the hands of the same men who
are now the champions of repeal. Why no necessity then for repeal? But
still later, when this very bill was first brought in, it contained
no repeal. But, say they, because the people had demanded, or rather
commanded, the repeal, the repeal was to accompany the organization
whenever that should occur.

Now, I deny that the public ever demanded any such thing--ever repudiated
the Missouri Compromise, ever commanded its repeal. I deny it, and call
for the proof. It is not contended, I believe, that any such command has
ever been given in express terms. It is only said that it was done in
principle. The support of the Wilmot Proviso is the first fact mentioned
to prove that the Missouri restriction was repudiated in principle, and
the second is the refusal to extend the Missouri line over the country
acquired from Mexico. These are near enough alike to be treated together.
The one was to exclude the chances of slavery from the whole new
acquisition by the lump, and the other was to reject a division of it, by
which one half was to be given up to those chances. Now, whether this was
a repudiation of the Missouri line in principle depends upon whether the
Missouri law contained any principle requiring the line to be extended
over the country acquired from Mexico. I contend it did not. I insist
that it contained no general principle, but that it was, in every sense,
specific. That its terms limit it to the country purchased from France is
undenied and undeniable. It could have no principle beyond the intention
of those who made it. They did not intend to extend the line to country
which they did not own. If they intended to extend it in the event of
acquiring additional territory, why did they not say so? It was just as
easy to say that "in all the country west of the Mississippi which we now
own, or may hereafter acquire, there shall never be slavery," as to say
what they did say; a