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Here again, sir, there is an edifying inconsistency between
the argument and the measure which it professes to vindicate. By the
argument it is maintained that Missouri cannot have a republican form of
government, and at the same time tolerate negro slavery. By the measure
it is admitted that Missouri may tolerate slavery, as to persons already
in bondage there, and be nevertheless fit to be received into the Union.
What sort of constitutional mandate is this which can thus be made
to bend and truckle and compromise as if it were a simple rule of
expediency that might admit of exceptions upon motives of countervailing
expediency. There can be no such pliancy in the peremptory provisions of
the Constitution. They cannot be obeyed by moieties and violated in the
same ratio. They must be followed out to their full extent, or treated
with that decent neglect which has at least the merit of forbearing to
render contumacy obtrusive by an ostentatious display of the very duty
which we in part abandon.


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