To argue that we thus repudiated the Missouri Compromise is no less absurd than it would be to argue that because we have so far forborne to acquire Cuba, we have thereby, in principle, repudiated our former acquisitions and determined to throw them out of the Union.  No less absurd than it would be to say that because I may have refused to build an addition to my house, I thereby have decided to destroy the existing house!  And if I catch you setting fire to my house, you will turn upon me and say I instructed you to do it!

The most conclusive argument, however, that while for the Wilmot Proviso, and while voting against the extension of the Missouri line, we never thought of disturbing the original Missouri Compromise, is found in the fact that there was then, and still is, an unorganized tract of fine country, nearly as large as the State of Missouri, lying immediately west of Arkansas and south of the Missouri Compromise line, and that we never attempted to prohibit slavery as to it.  I wish particular attention to this.  It adjoins the original Missouri Compromise line by its northern boundary, and consequently is part of the country into which by implication slavery was permitted to go by that compromise.  There it has lain open ever s, and there it still lies, and yet no effort has been made at any time to wrest it from the South.  In all our struggles to prohibit slavery within our Mexican acquisitions, we never so much as lifted a finger to prohibit it as to this tract.  Is not this entirely conclusive that at all times we have held the Missouri Compromise as a sacred thing, even when against ourselves as well as when for us?

Senator Douglas sometimes says the Missouri line itself was in principle only an extension of the line of the Ordinance of ’87—­that is to say, an extension of the Ohio River.  I think this is weak enough on its face.  I will remark, however, that, as a glance at the map will show, the Missouri line is a long way farther south than the Ohio, and that if our Senator in proposing his extension had stuck to the principle of jogging southward, perhaps it might not have been voted down so readily.

But next it is said that the compromises of ’50, and the ratification of them by both political parties in ’52, established a new principle which required the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.  This again I deny.  I deny it, and demand the proof.  I have already stated fully what the compromises of ’50 are.  That particular part of those measures from which the virtual repeal of the Missouri Compromise is sought to be inferred (for it is admitted they contain nothing about it in express terms) is the provision in the Utah and New Mexico laws which permits them when they seek admission into the Union as States to come in with or without slavery, as they shall then see fit.  Now I insist this provision was made for Utah and New Mexico, and for no other place whatever.  It had no more direct reference to Nebraska than it had to the territories of the moon.  But, say they, it had reference to Nebraska in principle.  Let us see.  The North consented to this provision, not because they considered it right in itself, but because they were compensated—­paid for it.