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repealed; that nearly all the members of Congress voted for it, beginning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 absolutely
nothing in the whole law upon the subject--in fact, nothing to lead a
reader to think of the subject. To my judgment it is equally free from
everything from which repeal can be legally implied; but, however this
may be, are men now to be entrapped by a legal implication, extracted from
covert language, introduced perhaps for the very purpose of entrapping
them? I sincerely wish every man could read this law quite through,
carefully watching every sentence and every line for a repeal of the
Ordinance of '87, or anything equivalent to it.

Another point on the Washington act: If it was intended to be modeled
after the Utah and New Mexico acts, as Judge Douglas insists, why was it
not inserted in it, as in them, that Washington was to come in with or
without slavery as she may choose at the adoption of her constitution?
It has no such provision in it; and I defy the ingenuity of man to give a
reason for the omission, other than that it was not intended to follow the
Utah and New Mexico laws in regard to the question of slavery.

The Washington act not only differs vitally from the Utah and New Mexico
acts, but the Nebraska act differs vitally from both. By the latter
act the people are left "perfectly free" to regulate their own domestic
concerns, etc.; but in all the former, all their laws are to be submitted
to Congress, and if disapproved are to be null. The Washington act goes
even further; it absolutely prohibits the territorial Legislature, by very