These rumors foreshadowed the report of the committee. The problem was to find a mode of overcoming the opposition of the South to the organization of a Territory which would not only add eventually to the number of free States, but also open up a northern route to the Pacific. The price of concession from the South on the latter point must be some apparent concession to the South in the matter of slavery. The report of January 4, 1854, and the bill which accompanied it, was Douglas's solution of the problem.[444] The principles of the compromise measures of 1850 were to be affirmed and carried into practical operation within the limits of the new Territory of Nebraska. "In the judgment of your committee," read the report, "those measures were intended to have a far more comprehensive and enduring effect than the mere adjustment of the difficulties arising out of the recent acquisition of Mexican territory. They were designed to establish certain great principles ... your committee have deemed it their duty to incorporate and perpetuate, in their territorial bill, the principles and spirit of those measures. If any other consideration were necessary, to render the propriety of this course imperative upon the committee, they may be found in the fact that the Nebraska country occupies the same relative position to the slavery question, as did New Mexico and Utah, when those Territories were organized."[445] Just as it was a disputed point, the report argued, whether slavery was prohibited by law in the country acquired from Mexico, so it is questioned whether slavery is prohibited in the Nebraska country by _valid_ enactment. "In the opinion of those eminent statesmen, who hold that Congress is invested with no rightful authority to legislate upon the subject of slavery in the Territories, the 8th section of the act preparatory to the admission of Missouri is null and void; while the prevailing sentiment in large portions of the Union sustains the doctrine that the Constitution of the United States secures to every citizen an inalienable right to move into any of the Territories with his property, of whatever kind and description, and to hold and enjoy the same under the sanction of law. Your committee do not feel themselves called upon to enter upon the discussion of these controverted questions. They involve the same grave issues which produced the agitation, the sectional strife, and the fearful struggle of 1850." And just as Congress deemed it wise in 1850 to refrain from deciding the matter in controversy, so "your committee are not prepared now to recommend a departure from the course pursued on that memorable occasion either by affirming or repealing the 8th section of the Missouri act, or by any act declaratory of the meaning of the Constitution in respect to the legal points in dispute." The essential features of the Compromise of 1850, which should again be carried into practical operation, were stated as follows: