son and others to secure the repeal of the Missouri Compromise,
though he hoped that they would acquiesce in his mode of doing it. He
was evidently not prepared for the bold move which certain of the
senators from slave States were contemplating.[451] He was therefore
startled by an amendment which Dixon of Kentucky offered on January
16th, to the effect that the restrictive clause of the Act of 1820
should not be so construed as to apply to Nebraska or any other
Territory; "but that the citizens of the several States or territories
shall be at liberty to take and hold their slaves within any of the
territories of the United States or of the States to be formed
therefrom," as if the Missouri Act had never been passed. Douglas at
once left his seat to remonstrate with Dixon, who was on the Whig side
of the Senate chamber. He disliked the amendment, not so much because
it wiped out the Missouri Compromise as because it seemed
"affirmatively to legislate slavery into the Territory."[452] Knowing
Dixon to be a supporter of the compromise measures of 1850, Douglas
begged him not to thwart the work of his committee, which was trying
in good faith to apply the cardinal features of those measures to
Nebraska. The latter part of Dixon's amendment could hardly be
harmonized with the principle of congressional non-intervention.[453]

There seems to be no reason to doubt that Dixon moved in this matter on
his own initiative;[454] but he was a friend to Atchison and he could
not have been wholly ignorant of the Missouri factional quarrel.[455]
To be sure, Dixon was a Whig, but Southern Whigs and Democrats were at
one in desiring expansion for the peculiar institution of their
section. Pressure was now brought to bear upon Douglas to incorporate
the direct repeal of the compromise in the Nebraska bill.[456] He
objected strongly, foreseeing no doubt the storm of protest which would
burst over his head in the North.[457] Still, if he could unite the
party on the principle of non-intervention with slavery in the
Territories, the risk of temporary unpopularity would be worth taking.
No doubt personal ambition played its part in forming his purpose, but
party considerations swayed him most powerfully.[458] He witnessed with
no little apprehension the divergence between the Northern and Southern
wings of the party; he had commented in private upon "the distracted
condition" of the party and the need of perpetuating its principles and
conso