In this state of affairs the Genius of Discord himself could scarcely have invented a way of again setting us by the ears but by turning back and destroying the peace measures of the past.  The counsels of that Genius seem to have prevailed.  The Missouri Compromise was repealed; and here we are in the midst of a new slavery agitation, such, I think, as we have never seen before.  Who is responsible for this?  Is it those who resist the measure, or those who causelessly brought it forward, and pressed it through, having reason to know, and in fact knowing, it must and would be so resisted?  It could not but be expected by its author that it would be looked upon as a measure for the extension of slavery, aggravated by a gross breach of faith.

Argue as you will and long as you will, this is the naked front and aspect of the measure.  And in this aspect it could not but produce agitation.  Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man’s nature—­opposition to it in his love of justice.  These principles are at eternal antagonism, and when brought into collision so fiercely as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.  Repeal the Missouri Compromise, repeal all compromises, repeal the Declaration of Independence, repeal all past history, you still cannot repeal human nature.  It still will be the abundance of man’s heart that slavery extension is wrong, and out of the abundance of his heart his mouth will continue to speak.

The structure, too, of the Nebraska Bill is very peculiar.  The people are to decide the question of slavery for themselves; but when they are to decide, or how they are to decide, or whether, when the question is once decided, it is to remain so or is to be subject to an indefinite succession of new trials, the law does not say.  Is it to be decided by the first dozen settlers who arrive there, or is it to await the arrival of a hundred?  Is it to be decided by a vote of the people or a vote of the Legislature, or, indeed, by a vote of any sort?  To these questions the law gives no answer.  There is a mystery about this; for when a member proposed to give the Legislature express authority to exclude slavery, it was hooted down by the friends of the bill.  This fact is worth remembering.  Some Yankees in the East are sending emigrants to Nebraska to exclude slavery from it; and, so far as I can judge, they expect the question to be decided by voting in some way or other.  But the Missourians are awake, too.  They are within a stone’s-throw of the contested ground.  They hold meetings and pass resolutions, in which not the slightest allusion to voting is made.  They resolve that slavery already exists in the Territory; that more shall go there; that they, remaining in Missouri, will protect it, and that abolitionists shall be hung or driven away.  Through all this bowie knives and six-shooters are seen plainly enough, but never a glimpse of the ballot-box.