breasts of these Texans. Finally, Hall retorted that Texas had for
years been trying to drive the wild tribes from her borders, so as to
make the northern routes unsafe and thus to force the tide of
emigration through Texas.[428] "Why, everybody is talking about a
railroad to the Pacific. In the name of God, how is the railroad to be
made, if you will never let people live on the lands through which the
road passes?"[429]

In other words, the concern of the Missourians was less for the
unprotected emigrant than for the great central railroad; while the
South cared less for the Indian than for a southern railroad route.
The Nebraska bill passed the House by a vote which suggests the
sectional differences involved in it.[430]

It was most significant that, while a bill to organize the Territory
of Washington passed at once to a third reading in the Senate, the
Nebraska bill hung fire. Douglas made repeated efforts to gain
consideration for it; but the opposition seems to have been motived
here as it was in the House.[431] On the last day of the session, the
Senate entered upon an irregular, desultory debate, without a quorum.
Douglas took an unwilling part. He repeated that the measure was "very
dear to his heart," that it involved "a matter of immense
importance," that the object in view was "to form a line of
territorial governments extending from the Mississippi valley to the
Pacific ocean." The very existence of the Union seemed to him to
depend upon this policy. For eight years he had advocated the
organization of Nebraska; he trusted that the favorable moment had
come.[432] But his trust was misplaced. The Senate refused to consider
the bill, the South voting almost solidly against it, though Atchison,
who had opposed the bill in the earlier part of the session, announced