I undertake, in the first place, to expose the CRIME AGAINST KANSAS, in origin and extent. Logically this is the beginning of the argument. I say Crime, and deliberately adopt this strongest term, as better than any other denoting the consummate transgression. I would go further, if language could further go. It is the _Crime of Crimes_,--surpassing far the old _Crimen Majestatis_, pursued with vengeance by the laws of Rome, and containing all other crimes, as the greater contains the less. I do not go too far, when I call it the _Crime against Nature_, from which the soul recoils, and which language refuses to describe. To lay bare this enormity I now proceed. The whole subject has become a twice-told tale, and its renewed recital will be a renewal of sorrow and shame; but I shall not hesitate. The occasion requires it from the beginning. It is well remarked by a distinguished historian of our country, that, “at the Ithuriel touch of the Missouri discussion, the Slave Interest, hitherto hardly recognized as a distinct element in our system, started up portentous and dilated,”[66] with threats and assumptions which are the origin of our existing national politics. This was in 1820. The debate ended with the admission of Missouri as a Slaveholding State, and the prohibition of Slavery in all the remaining territory west of the Mississippi and north of 36° 30´, leaving the condition of other territory south of this line, or subsequently acquired, untouched by the arrangement. Here was a solemn act of legislation, called at the time compromise, covenant, compact, first brought forward in this body by a slaveholder, vindicated in debate by slaveholders, finally sanctioned by slaveholding votes,--also upheld at the time by the essential approbation of a slaveholding President, James Monroe, and his Cabinet, of whom a majority were slaveholders, including Mr. Calhoun himself; and this compromise was made the condition of the admission of Missouri, without which that State could not have been received into the Union. The bargain was simple, and was applicable, of course, only to the territory named. Leaving all other territory to await the judgment of another generation, the South said to the North, Conquer your prejudices so far as to admit Missouri as a Slave State, and, in consideration of this much coveted boon, Slavery shall be prohibited “forever” (mark here the word “_forever_”)[67] in all the remaining Louisiana Territory above 36° 30´; and the North yielded.