And what does Slavery ask for now?  Why, sir, it demands that a time-honored and sacred compact shall be rescinded—­a compact which has endured through a whole generation—­a compact which has been universally regarded as inviolable, North and South—­a compact, the constitutionality of which few have doubted, and by which all have consented to abide.

It will not answer to violate such a compact without a pretext.  Some plausible ground must be discovered or invented for such an act; and such a ground is supposed to be found in the doctrine which was advanced the other day by the Senator from Illinois, that the compromise acts of 1850 “superseded “the prohibition of slavery north of 36 deg. 30’, in the act preparatory for the admission of Missouri.  Ay,sir, “superseded” is the phrase—­“superseded by the principles of the legislation of 1850, commonly called the compromise measures.”

It is against this statement, untrue in fact, and without foundation in history, that the amendment which I have proposed is directed.

Sir, this is a novel idea.  At the time when these measures were before Congress in 1850, when the questions involved in them were discussed from day to day, from week to week, and from month to month, in this Senate chamber, who ever heard that the Missouri prohibition was to be superseded?  What man, at what time, in what speech, ever suggested the idea that the acts of that year were to affect the Missouri compromise?  The Senator from Illinois the other day invoked the authority of Henry Clay—­that departed statesman, in respect to whom, whatever may be the differences of political opinion, none question that, among the great men of this country, he stood proudly eminent.  Did he, in the report made by him as the chairman of the Committee of Thirteen, or in any speech in support of the compromise acts, or in any conversation in the committee, or out of the committee, ever even hint at this doctrine of supersedure?  Did any supporter or any opponent of the compromise acts ever vindicate or condemn them on the ground that the Missouri prohibition would be affected by them?  Well, sir, the compromise acts were passed.  They were denounced North, and they were denounced South.  Did any defender of them at the South ever justify his support of them upon the ground that the South had obtained through them the repeal of the Missouri prohibition?  Did any objector to them at the North ever even suggest as a ground of condemnation that that prohibition was swept away by them?  No, sir!  No man, North or South, during the whole of the discussion of those acts here, or in that other discussion which followed their enactment throughout the country, ever intimated any such opinion.