Had either side been insincere there would have been voluntary yielding or enforced adjustment.

But each felt itself to be altogether in the right and its opponent altogether in the wrong.

Thus they stood confronting each other at the close of the year 1854.
It was soon perceived by all, as the sagacious had seen from the first, that the Missouri Compromise had not been repealed merely to exhibit unity in the scope of the United-States statutes respecting slavery in the Territories.

This was the euphuistic plea of those Northern senators and representatives who had given dire offense to their constituents by voting for it.

It was the clever artifice of Douglas which suggested that construction.