geographical, spending its force north
of the Missouri restriction. They talked far more eloquently about
the duty of keeping covenants, and the wickedness of reviving
sectional agitation, than the evils of slavery, and the cold-blooded
conspiracy to spread it over an empire of free soil. Their watch-
word and rallying cry was "the restoration of the Missouri compromise";
but this demand was not made merely as a preliminary to other
measures, which would restore the free States to the complete
assertion of their constitutional rights, but as a means of
propitiating the _spirit_ of compromise, and a convenient retreat
to the adjustment acts of 1850 and the "finality" platforms of
1852. In some States and localities the anti-slavery position of
these parties was somewhat broader; but as a general rule the ground
on which they marshaled their forces was substantially what I have
stated.

The position of the Free Soilers was radically different. They
opposed slavery upon principle, and irrespective of any compact or
compromise. They did not demand the restoration of the Missouri
compromise; and although they rejoiced at the popular condemnation
of the perfidy which had repealed it, they regarded it as a false
issue. It was an instrument on which different tunes could be
played. To restore this compromise would prevent the spread of
slavery over soil that was free; but it would re-affirm the binding
obligation of a compact that should never have been made, and from
which we were now offered a favorable opportunity of deliverance.
It would be to recognize slavery as an equal and honorable contracting
party, waiving its violated faith, and thus precluding us from
pleading its perfidy in discharge of all compromises. It would
degrade our cause to the level of those who washed their hands of
all taint of abolitionism, and only waged war against the Administration
because it broke up the blessed reign of peace which descended upon
the country in the year 1850. These Free Soilers insisted that
the breach of this compact was only a single link in a great chain
of measures aiming at the absolute supremacy of slavery in the
Government, and thus inviting a resistance commensurate with that
policy; and that this breach should be made the exodus of the people
from the bondage of all compromises. They argued that to cut down
the issue between slavery and freedom to so narrow, equivocal, and
half-hearted a measure, at a time w