nal bill.[253] Hoping to
make this more palatable, he suggested an amendment to the
objectionable prohibitory clause: "inasmuch as the said territory is
north of the parallel of 36 deg. 30' of north latitude, usually known as
the Missouri Compromise." It was the wish of his committee, he told
the Senate, that "no Senator's vote on the bill should be understood
as committing him on the great question."[254] In other words, he
invited the Senate to act without creating a precedent; to extend the
Missouri Compromise line without raising troublesome constitutional
questions in the rest of the public domain; to legislate for a special
case on the basis of an old agreement, without predicating anything
about the future. When this amendment came to vote, only Douglas and
Bright supported it.[255]

Douglas then proposed to extend the Missouri Compromised line to the
Pacific, by an amendment which declared the old agreement "revived ...
and in full force and binding for the future organization of the
Territories of the United States, in the same sense and with the same
understanding with which it was originally adopted."[256] This was
President Polk's solution of the question. It commended itself to
Douglas less on grounds of equity than of expediency. It was a
compromise which then cost him no sacrifice of principle; but though
the Senate agreed to the proposal, the House would have none of
it.[257] In the end, after an exhausting session, the Senate gave
way,[258] and the Territory of Oregon was organized with the
restrictive clause borrowed from the Ordinance of 1787. All this
turmoil had effected nothing except ill-feeling, for the final act was
identical with the bill which Douglas had originally introduced in the
House.

In the meantime, national party conventions for the nomination of
presidential candidates had been held. The choice of the Democrats
fell upon Cass; but his nomination could not be interpreted as an
indorsement of his doctrine of squatter sovereignty. By a decisive
vote, the convention rejected Yancey's resolution favoring
"non-interference with the rights of property of any portion of the
people of this confederation, be it in the States or in the
Territories, by any other than the parties interested in them."[259]
The action of the convention made it clear that traditional principles
and habitual modes of political thought and action alone held the
party together. The Whig party had no greater organic