eaks from the cloudless
firmament. The storm bursts forth in fury. Warring winds rush into
conflict.

"_Eurus, Notusque ruunt, creberque procellis Africus_."

Yes, sir, "_creber procellis Africus_"--the South wind thick with storm.
And now we find ourselves in the midst of an agitation, the end and
issue of which no man can foresee.

Now, sir, who is responsible for this renewal of strife and controversy?
Not we, for we have introduced no question of territorial slavery into
Congress--not we who are denounced as agitators and factionists. No,
sir: the quietists and the finalists have become agitators; they who
told us that all agitation was quieted, and that the resolutions of the
political conventions put a final period to the discussion of slavery.

This will not escape the observation of the country. It is Slavery that
renews the strife. It is Slavery that again wants room. It is Slavery,
with its insatiate demands for more slave territory and more slave
States.

And what does Slavery ask for now? Why, sir, it demands that a
time-honored and sacred compact shall be rescinded--a compact which has
endured through a whole generation--a compact which has been
universally regarded as inviolable, North and South--a compact, the
constitutionality of which few have doubted, and by which all have
consented to abide.

It will not answer to violate such a compact without a pretext. Some
plausible ground must be discovered or invented for such an act; and
such a ground is supposed to be found in the doctrine which was advanced
the other day by the Senator from Illinois, that the compromise acts of
1850 "superseded "the prohibition of slavery north of 36 deg. 30', in the
act preparatory for the admission of Missouri. Ay,sir, "superseded" is
the phrase--"superseded by the principles of the legislation of 1850,
commonly called the compromise measures."

It is against this statement, untrue in fact, and without foundation in
history, that the amendment which I have proposed is directed.

Sir, this is a novel idea. At the time when these measures were before
Congress in 1850, when the questions involved in them were discussed
from day to day, from week to week, and from month to month, in this
Senate chamber, who ever heard that the Missouri prohibition was to be
superseded? What man, at what time, in what speech, ever suggested the
idea that the acts of that year were to affect the Missouri compromise?
The Senator fro