lidating its power. Might this not be his opportunity?

On Sunday morning, January 22d, just before the hour for church,
Douglas, with several of his colleagues, called upon the Secretary of
War, Davis, stating that the Committees on Territories of the Senate
and House had agreed upon a bill, for which the President's approval
was desired. They pressed for an immediate interview inasmuch as they
desired to report the bill on the morrow. Somewhat reluctantly, Davis
arranged an interview for them, though the President was not in the
habit of receiving visitors on Sunday. Yielding to their request,
President Pierce took the proposed bill under consideration, giving
careful heed to all explanations; and when they were done, both he
and his influential secretary promised their support.[459]

What was this momentous bill to which the President thus pledged
himself? The title indicated the most striking feature. There were now
to be two Territories: Kansas and Nebraska. Bedded in the heart of
Section 14, however, was a still more important provision which
announced that the prohibition of slavery in the Act of 1820 had been
"superseded by the principles of the legislation of eighteen hundred
and fifty, commonly called the compromise measures," and was therefore
"inoperative."

It has been commonly believed that Douglas contemplated making one
free and one slave State out of the Nebraska region. His own simple
explanation is far more credible: the two Johnsons had petitioned for
a division of the Territory along the fortieth parallel, and both the
Iowa and Missouri delegations believed that their local interests
would be better served by two Territories.[460]

Again Pacific railroad interests seem to have crossed the path of the
Nebraska bill. The suspicions of Delegate-elect Hadley Johnson had
been aroused by the neglect of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to
extinguish the claims of the Omaha Indians, whose lands lay directly
west of Iowa. At the last session, an appropriation had been made for
the purpose of extinguishing the Indian title to lands west of both
Missouri and Iowa; and everyone knew that this was a preliminary step
to settlement by whites. The appropriation had been zealously
advocated by representatives from Missouri, who frankly admitted that
the possession of these lands would make the Pacific railroad route
available. Now as the Indian Commissioner, who had before shown
himself an active partisan of S