Horace Greeley, The American Conflict: A History of the Great Rebellion in the United States of America, 1860-65: its Causes, Incidents, and Results: Intended to exhibit especially its moral and political phases with the drift and progress of American opinion respecting human slavery from 1776 to the close of the War for the Union. Volume I.

[197] or so far as our possessions might extend. The House voted down Gen. Burt's proposition: Yeas 82; Nays 114--every member from the Slave States, with four¹ Democrats from Free States, voting in the affirmative; while every Whig from the Free States, with every Democrat from those States but the four aforesaid, voted in the negative. The bill thereupon passed the House by 134 Yeas to 35 Nays — all from Slave States; but, on reaching the Senate, it was referred, reported, sent back again, and finally, on the last day of the session, laid on the table — Yeas 26; Nays 18--there to sleep the sleep of death.

In the next (XXXth) Congress, Mr. Caleb B. Smith (Whig), of Indiana (since Secretary of the Interior, under President Lincoln), was chairman of the Committee on Territories; and a bill creating a Territorial Government for Oregon, and prohibiting Slavery therein, was reported by him on the 9th of February, 1848. This bill was made a special order five weeks thereafter, but was so pertinaciously resisted by the Slavery Extensionists that it could not be got out of Committee till August 1; when an amendment made in Committee, striking out that clause of the original bill whereby the provisions of the Ordinance of ‘87 were extended to this Territory — in other words, Slavery was prohibited therein — was negatived; Yeas 88; Nays 114. On this division, Mr. John W. Houston (Whig), of Delaware, voted with the majority, which was otherwise entirely composed of members from Free States; eight² Democrats from Free States voted in the minority, otherwise composed of all the members from Slave States present, Mr. Houston, of Delaware, excepted. The bill then passed the House by a “sectional” vote — Yeas 128; Nays 71.

In the Senate, Mr. Douglas³ promptly (August 5th) reported this bill with amendments, and a proposition from Mr. Foote, of Mississippi, that it “do lie on the table,” was defeated by 15 (ultra Southern) Yeas to 36 Nays. Among the amendments reported by Mr. Douglas was a reproduction in substance of Gen. Burt's, defeated the year before in the House, which now received but two votes — those of Messrs. Bright and Douglas. Mr. Douglas thereupon moved to amend the bill, by inserting as follows:

That the line of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes of north latitude, known as the Missouri Compromise line, as defined in the eighth section of an act entitled, “An Act to authorize the people of the Missouri Territory to form a Constitution and State Government, and for the admission of such State into the Union, on an equal footing with the original States, and to prohibit Slavery in certain Territories, approved March 6, 1820,” be, and the same is hereby, declared to extend to the Pacific Ocean; and the said eighth section, together with the compromise therein effected, is hereby revived, and declared to be in full force, and binding, for the future organization of the Territories of the United States, in the same sense, and with the same understanding, with which it was generally adopted.

This was carried by 33 Yeas — including