Excerpt from Speech of Senator Douglas, at a Public Dinner: Given Him by His Personal and Political Friends, at Chicago, November 9, 1854 Territory of Oregon, and that Oregon was organ ized on the 14th ofaugust, 1848, with a provision declaring the ordinance of 1787, for the prohibition of slavery, to be in force in the whole of that Ter ritory. When the bill was presented to President Polk for his signature, he hesitated about signing it, upon the ground of that slavery prohibition; but when he concluded to do so, he accompanied his approval with a message to the House of Rep resentatives, where the bill originated, in which he declared, in substance, that he signed the bill with the understanding that the Missouri line was to be extended to the Pacific, and because a prohib ition of slavery in Oregon would be consistent with the Missouri compromise, if thus extended, the whole of that Territory being north of 360 But he also said, in the same message, that he never would have approved of the bill contain ing that prohibition under any other circum stances than the confident expectation that the Missouri line was to be adhered to and carried out in the mode suggested. When, however, the Missouri line was abandoned, and the great prin ciple of self-government substituted for it by the compromise of 1850, the question naturally arose upon what plan the Territory of Washington should be organized. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.