further and declare that certain previous enactments, which were incompatible with the exercise of the powers conferred in the bills, are hereby repealed.  The very act of granting those powers and rights has the legal effect of removing all obstructions to the exercise of them by the people, as prescribed in those Territorial bills.  Following that example, the Committee on Territories did not consider it necessary to declare the eighth section of the Missouri act repealed.  We were content to organize Nebraska in the precise language of the Utah and New Mexico bills.  Our object was to leave the people entirely free to form and regulate their domestic institutions and internal concerns in their own way, under the Constitution; and we deemed it wise to accomplish that object in the exact terms in which the same thing had been done in Utah and New Mexico by the acts of 1850.  This was the principle upon which the committee voted; and our bill was supposed, and is now believed, to have been in accordance with it.  When doubts were raised whether the bill did fully carry out the principle laid down in the report, amendments were made from time to time, in order to avoid all misconstruction, and make the true intent of the act more explicit.  The last of these amendments was adopted yesterday, on the motion of the distinguished Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Badger), in regard to the revival of any laws or regulations which may have existed prior to 1820.  That amendment was not intended to change the legal effect of the bill.  Its object was to repel the slander which had been propagated by the enemies of the measure in the North—­that the Southern supporters of the bill desired to legislate slavery into these Territories.  The South denies the right of Congress either to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, or out of any Territory or State.  Non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the States or Territories is the doctrine of the bill, and all the amendments which have been agreed to have been made with the view of removing all doubt and cavil as to the true meaning and object of the measure. * * *

Well, sir, what is this Missouri compromise, of which we have heard so much of late?  It has been read so often that it is not necessary to occupy the time of the Senate in reading it again.  It was an act of Congress, passed on the 6th of March, 1820, to authorize the people of Missouri to form a constitution and a State government, preparatory to the admission of such State into the Union.  The first section provided that Missouri should be received into the Union “on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatsoever.”  The last and eighth section provided that slavery should be “forever prohibited” in all the territory which had been acquired from France north of 36 deg. 30’, and not included within the limits of the State of Missouri.  There is nothing in the terms of the law that purports to be a compact, or indicates that it was any thing more than an ordinary act of legislation.  To prove that it was more than it purports to be on its face, gentlemen must produce other evidence, and prove that there was such an understanding as to create a moral obligation in the nature of a compact.  Have they shown it?