The vote was so close in the House that but for a frank and persuasive statement made by Mr.Rice of Maine, from the Committee on Territories, it would have been defeated.

He pictured the many evils that would come to the people of Nebraska, now more than sixty thousand in number, if they could not do for themselves, as a State, many things which the National Government would not do for them as a Territory.

Under the influence of his speech a majority of ten was found for the bill, but Congress adjourned the day after it was finally passed by both branches, and the President quietly "pocketed" the bill; and thus the earnest and prolonged effort to create two new States came to naught for the time.
Nothing daunted by the President's veto of the bill admitting Colorado, and his pocketing the bill admitting Nebraska, Mr.Wade promptly introduced both bills anew, at the beginning of the second session of the Thirty-ninth Congress.

The case of Nebraska was, in popular judgment, stronger than the case of Colorado.

The population was larger, and being devoted to agriculture, was naturally regarded as more stable than that of Colorado, which was based principally upon the somewhat fortuitous discovery of mines of the precious metals.