His original bill did
not abrogate the Missouri compromise, and there seems to have been no
general Southern demand that it should do so. But Douglas had become
intoxicated by the unexpected success of his "popular sovereignty"
make-shift in regard to the Territories of 1850; and a notice of an
amendment to be offered by a southern senator, abrogating the Missouri
compromise, was threat or excuse sufficient to bring him to withdraw the
bill. A week later, it was re-introduced with the addition of "popular
sovereignty": all questions pertaining to slavery in these Territories,
and in the States to be formed from them, were to be left to the
decision of the people, through their representatives; and the Missouri
compromise of 1820 was declared "inoperative and void," as inconsistent
with the principles of the territorial legislation of 1850. It must
be remembered that the "non-intervention" of 1850 had been confessedly
based on no constitutional principle whatever, but was purely a matter
of expediency; and that "non-intervention" in Utah and New Mexico was no
more inconsistent with the prohibition of slavery in Kansas and Nebraska
than "non-intervention" in the Southwest Territory, sixty years before,
had been inconsistent with the prohibition of slavery in the Northwest
Territory.
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