sachusetts. To this list may be added the familiar names of Thompson
of Mississippi, Bayard of Delaware, Toucey of Connecticut, Slidell of
Louisiana, Achison of Missouri, Bell of Tennessee, and Cass of Michigan.

The third great sectional fight on the Territories came up on the report
to organize a government for that tract of public domain lying in the
Louisiana cession, known as Kansas and Nebraska. In doing this, Mr.
Douglas, as chairman of the Committee on Territories, adopted the same
principle on the slavery question as had been settled in the Utah and
New Mexico bills of 1850.

The words of the Nebraska bill were that "said Territory, or any portion
of the same, shall be received into the Union with or without slavery as
their constitutions may prescribe at the time of their admission." Mr.
Douglas claimed that the question of congressional interference was an
"exploded doctrine"; that the Missouri Compromise bill had been ignored
by North and South; that the Wilmot Proviso had been rejected
altogether; and that the principles of 1850 had superseded the
principles of 1820. The committee sought to avoid the perils of slavery
agitation for all time, they claimed, by withdrawing the question of
slavery from the halls of Congress and from national politics. "Let the
new States and Territories," they said, "settle this matter for
themselves." Mr. Sumner of Massachusetts took the lead in opposing the
Kansas-Nebraska bill. He declared that the bill violated the principles
of the Missouri Compromise, which prohibited slavery in all that
territory ceded by France and lying north of 36 deg. 30'. He and his friends
held that this was a "sacred compact," and this territory could not be
controlled by the same principles as the land secured from Mexico.

The second bill drawn by Mr. Douglas, which provided for the
establishment of two territorial governments in Kansas and Nebraska,
instead of one, expressly repealed the Missouri Compromise as being
inconsistent with the principles of non-intervention by Congress. Here,
then, the contest waged anew.

One of the first speeches made by Senator Toombs was on the 23d of
February, 1854, on the Kansas-Nebraska bill.

Douglas was in charge of the Territorial bills, and his readiness in
debate, his sinewy intellect, his tact and shrewdness, had gained for
him the name of "Little Giant." Seward, Chase, and Sumner had been
elected from their States as "independent Democrats" by the