Some of the States to be formed from it would be free, by the same laws of climate and resources which determined that the entire West would remain free.

Before the Mexican War the Senator had become convinced that the extension of slavery had reached its limit; that the Missouri Compromise was a dead letter except as a psychological palliative; that Nature had already ordained that slave labor should be forever excluded from all Western territory both north and south of that line.

His reply to Calhoun's contention that a balance must be maintained between slave and free States was that he had plans for forming seventeen new States out of the vast Western domains, every one of which would be free.

And besides, said he, "we all look forward with confidence to the time when Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, and probably North Carolina and Tennessee will adopt a gradual system of emancipation." Douglas was one of the first to favor the admission of California as a free State.

According to the Missouri Compromise law and the laws of Mexico, all Western territory was free, and he was opposed to interference with existing conditions.