“Let me ask you where you have succeeded in excluding slavery by an act of Congress from one inch of American soil?  You may tell me that you did it in the northwest territory by the ordinance of 1787.  I will show you by the history of the country that you did not accomplish any such thing.  You prohibited slavery there by law, but you did not exclude it in fact....  I know of but one territory of the United States where slavery does exist, and that one is where you have prohibited it by law, and it is in this very Nebraska Territory.  In defiance of the eighth section of the act of 1820, in defiance of Congressional dictation, there have been, not many, but a few slaves introduced....  I have no doubt that whether you organize the territory of Nebraska or not this will continue for some time to come....  But when settlers rush in—­when labor becomes plenty, and therefore cheap, in that climate, with its productions, it is worse than folly to think of its being a slave-holding country....  I do not like, I never did like, the system of legislation on our part, by which a geographical line, in violation of the laws of nature, and climate, and soil, and of the laws of God, should be run to establish institutions for a people."[467]

The fate of the bill was determined behind closed doors.  After all, the Senate chamber was only a public clearing-house, where senators elucidated, or per-chance befogged, the issues.  The real arena was the Democratic caucus.  Under the leadership of Douglas, those high in the party conclaves met, morning after morning, in the endeavor to compose the sharp differences between the Northern and the Southern wings of the party.[468] On both sides, there was a disposition to agree on the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, though grave misgivings were felt.  There were Southern men who believed that the repeal would be “an unavailing boon”; and there were Northern politicians who foresaw the storm of popular indignation that would break upon their heads.[469] Southern Democrats were disposed to follow the South Carolina theory to its logical extreme:  as joint owners of the Territories the citizens of all the States might carry their property into the Territories without let or hindrance; only the people of the Territory in the act of framing a State constitution might exclude slavery.  Neither Congress nor a territorial legislature might take away property in slaves.  With equal pertinacity, Douglas and his supporters advocated the right of the people in their territorial status, to mould their institutions as they chose.  Was there any middle ground?