in the North.[457] Still, if he could unite the party on the principle of non-intervention with slavery in the Territories, the risk of temporary unpopularity would be worth taking.  No doubt personal ambition played its part in forming his purpose, but party considerations swayed him most powerfully.[458] He witnessed with no little apprehension the divergence between the Northern and Southern wings of the party; he had commented in private upon “the distracted condition” of the party and the need of perpetuating its principles and consolidating its power.  Might this not be his opportunity?

On Sunday morning, January 22d, just before the hour for church, Douglas, with several of his colleagues, called upon the Secretary of War, Davis, stating that the Committees on Territories of the Senate and House had agreed upon a bill, for which the President’s approval was desired.  They pressed for an immediate interview inasmuch as they desired to report the bill on the morrow.  Somewhat reluctantly, Davis arranged an interview for them, though the President was not in the habit of receiving visitors on Sunday.  Yielding to their request, President Pierce took the proposed bill under consideration, giving careful heed to all explanations; and when they were done, both he and his influential secretary promised their support.[459]

What was this momentous bill to which the President thus pledged himself?  The title indicated the most striking feature.  There were now to be two Territories:  Kansas and Nebraska.  Bedded in the heart of Section 14, however, was a still more important provision which announced that the prohibition of slavery in the Act of 1820 had been “superseded by the principles of the legislation of eighteen hundred and fifty, commonly called the compromise measures,” and was therefore “inoperative.”

It has been commonly believed that Douglas contemplated making one free and one slave State out of the Nebraska region.  His own simple explanation is far more credible:  the two Johnsons had petitioned for a division of the Territory along the fortieth parallel, and both the Iowa and Missouri delegations believed that their local interests would be better served by two Territories.[460]

Again Pacific railroad interests seem to have crossed the path of the Nebraska bill.  The suspicions of Delegate-elect Hadley Johnson had been aroused by the neglect of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to extinguish the claims of the Omaha Indians, whose lands lay directly west of Iowa.  At the last session, an appropriation had been made for the purpose of extinguishing the Indian title to lands west of both Missouri and Iowa; and everyone knew that this was a preliminary step to settlement by whites.  The appropriation had been zealously advocated by representatives from Missouri, who frankly admitted that the possession of these lands would make the Pacific railroad route available.  Now as the Indian Commissioner, who had before shown himself