The Senate had a large Democratic majority, and there was probably not one among them all who had not in the Presidential contest of 1852 publicly and solemnly vowed that the Compromise measures of 1850 were a final settlement of the slavery question, not in any event, nor upon any pretext, to be disturbed. It was specially embarrassing and perilous for Northern senators to violate pledges so recently made, so frequently repeated. It much resembled the breaking of a personal promise, and seemed to the mass of people in the free State to be a gross breach of national honor. To escape the sharp edge of condemnation, sure to follow such a transaction, a pretense was put forth that the Compromise of 1820 was in conflict with the Compromise of 1850, and that it was necessary to repeal the former in order that the doctrine of non-intervention with slavery in the Territories should become the recognized policy for all the public domain of the United States. Mr. Douglas was the first to adopt this construction. Indeed, to him may fairly be ascribed the credit or the discredit of inventing it. He had a strong hold on the South, and in his Congressional life had steadily voted on the pro-slavery side of all public questions. But he instinctively foresaw that his political future would be endangered by advocating the repeal of the Missouri Compromise on the basis and for the reason announced by Mr. Dixon. Hence the resort to the doctrine of non-intervention under which the South should get all they wished by having the right to carry their slaves into the territory, and the North could be conciliated by the presentation of another final settlement of all issues which threatened the perpetuity of the Union.