constitution with slavery,
strongly resembling the constitutions of our slave States. By still
another rapid move, Texas, claiming a boundary much farther west than when
we parted with her in 1819, was brought back to the United States, and
admitted into the Union as a slave State. Then there was little or no
settlement in the northern part of Texas, a considerable portion of which
lay north of the Missouri line; and in the resolutions admitting her into
the Union, the Missouri restriction was expressly extended westward across
her territory. This was in 1845, only nine years ago.

Thus originated the Missouri Compromise; and thus has it been respected
down to 1845. And even four years later, in 1849, our distinguished
Senator, in a public address, held the following language in relation to
it:

"The Missouri Compromise has been in practical operation for about a
quarter of a century, and has received the sanction and approbation of men
of all parties in every section of the Union. It has allayed all sectional
jealousies and irritations growing out of this vexed question, and
harmonized and tranquillized the whole country. It has given to Henry
Clay, as its prominent champion, the proud sobriquet of the 'Great
Pacificator,' and by that title, and for that service, his political
friends had repeatedly appealed to the people to rally under his standard
as a Presidential candidate, as the man who had exhibited the patriotism
and power to suppress an unholy and treasonable agitation, and preserve
the Union. He was not aware that any man or any party, from any section
of the Union, had ever urged as an objection to Mr. Clay that he was the
great champion of the Missouri Compromise. On the contrary, the effort was
made by the opponents of Mr. Clay to prove that he was not entitled to the
exclusive merit of that great patriotic measure, and that the honor was
equally due to others, as well as to him, for securing its adoption;
that it had its origin in the hearts of all patriotic men, who desired
to preserve and perpetuate the blessings of our glorious Union--an origin
akin to that of the Constitution of the United States, conceived in the
same spirit of fraternal affection, and calculated to remove forever the
only danger which seemed to threaten, at some distant day, to sever the
social bond of union. All the evidences of public opinion at that day
seemed to indicate that this compromise had been canonized in the hearts
of