An overt attempt is set on foot in Mr. Douglas's Nebraska bill to override the Missouri Compromise. The plain declaration that slavery shall never exist in our North-west Territories, hustled aside — with the Compromise of 1850 made the scape-goat for the sin.
Original passage & context
"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 ↗