Nebraska Bill

“ Douglas was a despotic party leader, and President Pierce had made the Nebraska bill an Administration question. Above all, in Illinois, as elsewhere, the people at once took up the discussion, and reluctant politicians were compelled to avow themselves. The Nebraska bill with its repealing clause had been before the country some three weeks and was yet pending in Congress when a member of the Illinois Legislature introduced resolutions indorsing it. ”

“ Instead of the quiet and good feeling which were promised us by the self-styled author of Popular Sovereignty, we have had nothing but ill-feeling and agitation. According to Judge Douglas, the passage of the Nebraska bill would tranquilize the whole country—there would be no more slavery agitation in or out of Congress, and the vexed question would be left entirely to the people of the Territories. ”

“ From early in January, 1854, until late in May, Douglas's Nebraska bill held the attention of Congress and of the entire country. At first the measure simply assumed that the Missouri Compromise had been superseded by the Act of 1850. Later the bill was amended in such a way as to repeal distinctly that time-honored act. At first the plan was to organize Nebraska as a single Territory extending from Texas to Canada. Later it was proposed to organize separate Territories, one west of Missouri under the name of Kansas, the other west of Iowa under the name of Nebraska. ”

“ It is quite true that of the senators who passed the Nebraska Bill a majority of the whole Senate will retain their seats in spite of the elections of this and the next year. But if at these elections their several constituencies shall clearly express their will against Nebraska, will these senators disregard their will? Will they neither obey nor make room for those who will?
But even if we fail to technically restore the compromise, it is still a great point to carry a popular vote in favor of the restoration. The moral weight of such a vote cannot be estimated too highly. ”

“ Kansas–Nebraska bill.—In January, 1854, Senator Douglas, of Illinois, reported a bill to organize the territory of Nebraska, afterwards divided into Kansas and Nebraska, with a provision for the abrogation of the Missouri Compromise. The citizens of the territories, if they wished slavery, could “vote it up;” if not, they could “vote it down.” The bill was advocated by the Democratic party, which, being, in the ascendency in both Houses, carried the measure without difficulty. The Free-Soil party and the Anti-Slavery Whigs contested the movement at every step. ”

“ The bill was promptly referred to the Committee on Territories, and the Nebraska question entered upon its last phase. Within a week, Douglas's friends of the Illinois State Register were sufficiently well informed of the thoughts and intents of his mind to hazard this conjecture: "We believe they [the people of Nebraska] may be safely left to act for themselves.... The territories should be admitted to exercise, as nearly as practicable, all the rights claimed by the States, and to adopt all such political regulations and institutions as their wisdom may suggest." ”

“ Let the minions of the Administration and of the Slavocracy harm one hair of your head, and they will raise a whirlwind that will sweep them to destruction. I have read your closing remarks on the Nebraska Bill with the greatest admiration, and most heartily indorse every word and sentiment. You never made a better speech. What higher praise could I offer? Many persons not of the Free-Soil party have spoken of it in terms of the highest commendation. ”

“ In the course of my main argument, Judge Douglas interrupted me to say that the principle of the Nebraska Bill was very old; that it originated when God made man, and placed good and evil before him, allowing him to choose for himself, being responsible for the choice he should make. At the time I thought this was merely playful, and I answered it accordingly. But in his reply to me he renewed it as a serious argument. In seriousness, then, the facts of this proposition are not true as stated. God did not place good and evil before man, telling him to make his choice. ”

“ Tenth—That in the recent vetoes by their federal governors of the acts of the Legislature of Kansas and Nebraska, prohibiting slavery in those territories, we find a practical illustration of the boasted Democratic principle of non-intervention and popular sovereignty, embodied in the Kansas and Nebraska bill, and a denunciation of the deception and fraud involved therein.
Eleventh—That Kansas should of right be immediately admitted as a State under the constitution recently formed and adopted by her people, and accepted by the House of Representatives. ”

“ The men who aided in the passage of the Nebraska Bill of 1854, and sustained it against an unreasoning and infatuated opposition, will, by this decision, be placed in an enviable attitude before the country, and will have a good position assigned them in history. ”

“ I have always hated slavery, I think, as much as any Abolitionist,—I have been an old-line Whig,—I have always hated it, but I have always been quiet about it until this new era of the introduction of the Nebraska bill began. ”

“ Those police regulations can only be established by the local Legislature, and if the people are opposed to slavery they will elect representatives to that body who will by unfriendly legislation effectually prevent the introduction of it into their midst. If, on the contrary, they are for it, their legislation will favor its extension. Hence, no matter what the decision of the Supreme Court may be on that abstract question, still the right of the people to make a slave Territory or a free Territory is perfect and complete under the Nebraska bill. ”

“ I believe his original Nebraska Bill was right in the abstract, but it was wrong in the time that it was brought forward. It was wrong in the application to a Territory in regard to which the question had been settled; it was brought forward at a time when nobody asked him; it was tendered to the South when the South had not asked for it, but when they could not well refuse it; and for this same reason he forced that question upon our party. It has sunk the best men all over the nation, everywhere ”

“ But my purpose is with the Crime against Kansas, and I shall not stop to expose the conspiracy beyond.
Mr. President, men are wisely presumed to intend the natural consequences of their conduct, and to seek what their acts seem to promote. Now the Nebraska Bill, on its very face, openly clears the way for Slavery, and it is not wrong to presume that its originators intended the natural consequences of such an act, and sought in this way to extend Slavery. ”

“ No objection is made to either of the statutes relied on, on the ground that the constitution of Nebraska of 1867 forbade retroactive legislation. The twelfth section of article 1 of that instrument declares that 'no bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or any law impairing the obligation of contracts, shall ever be passed.' This prohibition would not include legislation of the class now in question. They are attacked, however, on other grounds. ”

“ The Kansas-Nebraska Bill is chiefly significant in American history from its having caused a renewal of the contest between the North and the South over the slavery question, which had been regarded as settled, for many years at least, by the compromise measures of 1820 and 1850. ”

“ Congress, however, in passing the bill in the shape in which it has been submitted for my approval, does not merely reject the application of the people of Nebraska for present admission as a State into the Union, on the ground that the constitution which they have submitted restricts the exercise of the elective franchise to the white population, but imposes conditions which, if accepted by the legislature, may, without the consent of the people, so change the organic law as to make electors of all persons within the State without distinction of race or color. ”

“ Both senators and representatives are apportioned according to population, and are elected by districts in November of each even-numbered year for a term of two years. They are paid at the rate of five dollars a day during 60 days of a regular session and not exceeding 100 days during their entire term. No bill or joint resolution may be introduced at a regular session after its fortieth day except at the request of the governor. Special legislation of various kinds is expressly prohibited, and in the bill of rights it is declared that “all powers not herein delegated remain with the people.” ”

“ It is admitted by every one that want of time only defeated the passage of the bill through the Council. The citizens of Nebraska are ready to make a trial of its provisions, which speaks volumes for the intelligence of the free and independent squatters of this beautiful territory.
Mrs. Bloomer says that assurance was given by members of the Council that the bill would have passed that body triumphantly had more time been allowed, or had it been introduced earlier in the session. ”

“ The president was deprived of the command of the army by a “rider” to the army appropriation bill, which provided that his orders should only be given through the general, who was not to be removed without the previous consent of the senate. The bill admitting Nebraska provided that no law should ever be passed in that state denying the right of suffrage to any person because of his color or race. This was vetoed, and passed over the veto. ”

“ The Indians, who foresaw the inevitable extension of white settlement, wished for a Territorial government in order to sell lands to better advantage. The Wyandots, led by their half and quarter bloods, in 1851-52 petitioned Congress to establish a Territory, with no success. A Territorial Delegate, Abelard Guthrie, was chosen in October, 1852. A bill to organize Nebraska Territory passed the House February 2, 1853, but did not reach a vote in the Senate. ”

“ The enacting clause of a law shall be, "Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Nebraska," and no law shall be enacted except by bill. No bill shall be passed unless by assent of a majority of all the members elected to each House of the Legislature. And the question upon the final passage shall be taken immediately upon its last reading, and the yeas and nays shall be entered upon the journal. ”

“ Douglas, of Illinois, who had been an unsuccessful candidate for the Presidential nomination in the preceding year, took the occasion presented by a bill for organizing a new Western Territory, Nebraska (which included the two now existing States [Pg 190] of Nebraska and of Kansas) , to propose a repeal of the old “Missouri Compromise,” to which I have more than once alluded. By this measure—a “Federalist,” not a Democratic measure—adopted in 1820, it was provided that slavery should never be carried into any Territory north of the fixed line of 36° 30 ́ north latitude. ”