Pacification had been the fruit borne by the tree, and it should not
have been recklessly hewed down and cast into the fire. The frequent
assertion then made was that all discrimination was unjust, and that the
popular will should be left untrammeled in the formation of new States.
This theory was good enough in itself, and as an abstract proposition
could not be gainsaid; but its practical operation has but poorly
sustained the expectations of its advocates, as will be seen when we
come to consider the events that occurred a few years later in Kansas
and elsewhere. Retrospectively viewed under the mellowing light of time,
and with the calm consideration we can usually give to the irremediable
past, the compromise legislation of 1850 bears the impress of that
sectional spirit so widely at variance with the general purposes of the
Union, and so destructive of the harmony and mutual benefit which the
Constitution was intended to secure.
The refusal to divide the territory acquired from Mexico by an extension
of the line of the Missouri Compromise to the Pacific was a consequence
of the purpose to admit California as a State of the Union before it had
acquired the requisite population, and while it was mainly under the
control of a military organization sent from New York during the war
with Mexico and disbanded in California upon the restoration of peace.
The inconsistency of the argument against the extension of the line was
exhibited in the division of the Territory of Texas by that parallel,
and payment to the State of money to secure her consent to the partition
of her domain.
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