Both the law itself, and
the history of the times, are a blank as to any principle of extension;
and by neither the known rules of construing statutes and contracts, nor
by common sense, can any such principle be inferred.
Another fact showing the specific character of the Missouri law--showing
that it intended no more than it expressed, showing that the line was not
intended as a universal dividing line between Free and Slave territory,
present and prospective, north of which slavery could never go--is the
fact that by that very law Missouri came in as a slave State, north of
the line. If that law contained any prospective principle, the whole law
must be looked to in order to ascertain what the principle was. And by
this rule the South could fairly contend that, inasmuch as they got one
slave State north of the line at the inception of the law, they have the
right to have another given them north of it occasionally, now and then,
in the indefinite westward extension of the line. This demonstrates the
absurdity of attempting to deduce a prospective principle from the
Missouri Compromise line.
When we voted for the Wilmot Proviso we were voting to keep slavery out
of the whole Mexican acquisition, and little did we think we were thereby
voting to let it into Nebraska lying several hundred miles distant.
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