r the organization of a territorial government,--first
of one, then of two Territories north of that line. When he did so, it
ended in his inserting a provision substantially repealing the Missouri
Compromise. That was because the Compromise of 1850 had not repealed it.
And now I ask why he could not have let that Compromise alone? We were
quiet from the agitation of the slavery question. We were making no fuss
about it. All had acquiesced in the Compromise measures of 1850. We
never had been seriously disturbed by any Abolition agitation before that
period. When he came to form governments for the Territories north of the
line of 36 degrees 30 minutes, why could he not have let that matter stand
as it was standing? Was it necessary to the organization of a Territory?
Not at all. Iowa lay north of the line, and had been organized as a
Territory and come into the Union as a State without disturbing that
Compromise. There was no sort of necessity for destroying it to organize
these Territories. But, gentlemen, it would take up all my time to meet
all the little quibbling arguments of Judge Douglas to show that the
Missouri Compromise was repealed by the Compromise of 1850. My own opinion
is, that a careful investigation of all the arguments to sustain the
position that that Compromise was virtually repealed by the Compromise of
1850 would show that they are the merest fallacies. I have the report that
Judge Douglas first brought into Congress at the time of the introduction
of the Nebraska Bill, which in its original form did not repeal the
Missouri Compromise, and he there expressly stated that he had forborne to
do so because it had not been done by the Compromise of 1850. I close this
part of the discussion on my part by asking him the question again, "Why,
when we had peace under the Missouri Compromise, could you not have let it
alone?"

In complaining of what I said in my speech at Springfield, in which he
says I accepted my nomination for the senatorship (where, by the way, he
is at fault, for if he will examine it, he will find no acceptance in it),
he again quotes that portion in which I said that "a house divided against
itself cannot stand." Let me say a word in regard to that matter.

He tries to persuade us that there must be a variety in the different
institutions of the States of the Union; that that variety necessarily
proceeds from the variety of soil, climate, of the face of the country,
and the differen