These bills proposed to leave the people of Utah and New
Mexico free to decide the slavery question for themselves, in the
precise language of the Nebraska bill now under discussion. A few weeks
afterward the committee of thirteen took those two bills and put a wafer
between them, and reported them back to the Senate as one bill,
with some slight amendments. One of these amendments was, that the
Territorial Legislatures should not legislate upon the subject of
African slavery. I objected to that provision upon the ground that it
subverted the great principle of self-government upon which the bill had
been originally framed by the Territorial Committee. On the first trial,
the Senate refused to strike it out, but subsequently did so, after full
debate, in order to establish that principle as the rule of action in
Territorial organizations. * * * But my accusers attempt to raise up a
false issue, and thereby divert public attention from the real one, by
the cry that the Missouri compromise is to be repealed or violated by
the passage of this bill. Well, if the eighth section of the Missouri
act, which attempted to fix the destinies of future generations in those
Territories for all time to come, in utter disregard of the rights and
wishes of the people when they should be received into the Union as
States, be inconsistent with the great principles of self-government
and the Constitution of the United States.
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