Disunion Feed

"An overt attempt is set on foot in Mr. Douglas's Nebraska bill to override the Missouri Compromise. [...] This plain and unequivocal declaration that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in our North-west Territories is unceremoniously hustled aside by Mr. Douglas, who makes the Compromise measures of 1850 the scape-goat for his sin in doing it."

Same day as the Detroit Free Press card. The Tribune has already read the bill closely enough to quote the eighth section of the Missouri act back at Douglas, and to identify the mechanism — that the Compromise of 1850 is being used as the instrument of repeal. The word "overt" is doing work: the paper is claiming this is not an accident of drafting.

Read it in the original — Furman Secession Era Editorials transcription ↗

"He plants himself resolutely upon the Compromise of 1850, as a final settlement -- not final merely as to the Territories then in dispute, but final as to all future legislation for territorial governments. [...] We may then gladly proclaim the democratic organization a unit, and repose confidently on the conviction that the federal Union is safe."

A Northern Democratic paper reading Douglas's report the week it appeared, and treating party unity and the safety of the Union as the same question. The test it proposes — whether Northern and Southern Democrats vote together — is the one the bill went on to fail in the North.

Read it in the original — Furman Secession Era Editorials transcription ↗