It was not necessary to go further and declare that certain previous
enactments, which were incompatible with the exercise of the powers
conferred in the bills, are hereby repealed. The very act of
granting those powers and rights has the legal effect of removing all
obstructions to the exercise of them by the people, as prescribed
in those Territorial bills. Following that example, the Committee on
Territories did not consider it necessary to declare the eighth section
of the Missouri act repealed. We were content to organize Nebraska in
the precise language of the Utah and New Mexico bills. Our object was
to leave the people entirely free to form and regulate their domestic
institutions and internal concerns in their own way, under the
Constitution; and we deemed it wise to accomplish that object in the
exact terms in which the same thing had been done in Utah and New Mexico
by the acts of 1850. This was the principle upon which the committee
voted; and our bill was supposed, and is now believed, to have been in
accordance with it. When doubts were raised whether the bill did fully
carry out the principle laid down in the report, amendments were made
from time to time, in order to avoid all misconstruction, and make the
true intent of the act more explicit.
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