ht to move
to a Territory and there own the land by virtue of the Constitution
and the laws of the State of his former residence as to claim under
them the right to own and sell his slave in a Territory. The
difficulty is, while the emigrant might take with him his human
chattel, he could not take with him the law permitting him to hold
it.)

The report did not, however, as presented, propose to repeal the
Missouri Compromise line that had stood thirty-four years with the
approval of the first statesmen of all parties in the Union.

It assumed simply to interpret for the dead Clay and Webster their
only four-year-old work, and ran thus:

"The Compromise Measures of 1850 affirm and rest upon the following
propositions:

"First--That all questions pertaining to slavery in the Territories,
and the new States to be formed therefrom, are to be left to the
decision of the people residing therein.

"Second--That 'all cases involving the title to slaves' and 'questions
of personal freedom' are to be referred to the jurisdiction of the
local tribunals, with the right to appeal to the Supreme Court of
the United States.

"Third--That the provisions of the Constitution, in respect to
fugitives from service, are to be carried into faithful execution
in all 'the organized Territories,' the same as in the States."

The first of these propositions, in another form, announced the
new doctrine of popular sovereignty, soon thereafter popularly
called "Squatter Sovereignty," in derision of the rights thus to
be vested in the territorial _squatter_, however temporary his stay
might be. It was opposed to the principle of Congressional right
(expressly granted by the Constitution (80)) to provide rules (laws)
and regulations for United States territory until it became clothed
with statehood.

The second proposition announced nothing new, as cases involving
titles to slaves, or questions of personal freedom, must necessarily
go for final determination to the courts, with a right of appeal.

The third proposition, like the second, was a mere platitude.

The bill accompanying the report, as first presented, required that
any part of Nebraska Territory admitted as a state (as provided in
the New Mexico and Utah Acts of 1850) "shall be received into the
Union with or without slavery, as its Constitution may prescribe
at the time of admission." This, too, was not new in any sense,
as new States had ever been thus received. The an