The principle of the non-interference of Congress with the Territories once secured, there yet stood in the way of its universal application the time-honored agreement called the Missouri Compromise. Down to the year 1820, Congress had legislated to keep Slavery out of the Territories; but at that disastrous era, a weak dread of civil convulsion led to the surrender of a single State (Missouri) to this evil,--under a solemn stipulation and warrant, however, that it should never again be introduced north of a certain line. Originating with the Slave-holders, and sustained by the Slave-holders, this compact was sacredly respected by them for thirty-three years; it was respected until they had got out of it all the advantages they could, and until Freedom was about to reap _her_ advantages,--when they began to denounce it as unconstitutional and void. A Northern Senator--whose conduct then we shall not characterize, as he seems now to be growing weary of the hard service into which he entered--was made the instrument of its overthrow. That hallowed landmark, which had lifted its awful front against the spread of Slavery for more than an entire generation, was obliterated by a quibble, and the morning sun of the 22d of May, 1854, rose for the last time "on the guarantied and certain liberties of all the unsettled and unorganized region of the American Continent." Everything there was of honor, of justice, of the love of truth and liberty, in the heart of the nation, was smitten by this painful blow; the common sense of security felt the wound; the consoling consciousness that the faith of men might be relied upon was removed by it; and to the general imagination, in fact, it seemed as if some mighty charm, which had stayed the issue of untold calamities, were suddenly and wantonly broken.