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The suggestions of compromise were at this time vain. Each party was determined. The North, by the prevailing voice of its representatives, claimed all for freedom; the South, by its potential command of the Senate, claimed all for slavery.

The report of this debate aroused the country. For the first time in our history, freedom, after an animated struggle, hand to hand, had been kept in check by slavery. The original policy of our fathers in the restriction of slavery, was suspended, and this giant wrong threatened to stalk into all the broad national domain. Men at the North were humbled and amazed. The imperious demands of slavery seemed incredible. Meanwhile, the whole subject was adjourned from Congress to the people. Through the press, and at public meetings, an earnest voice was raised against the admission of Missouri into the Union without the restriction of slavery. Judges