was to devise a compromise that would do three things: lay the Southern
dread of an inundation of sectional Northern influence; silence the
slave profiteers; meet the objections that had induced Lincoln to
wreck the Crittenden Compromise. They felt that the first and second
objectives would be reached easily enough by reviving the line of the
Missouri Compromise. But something more was needed, or again, Lincoln
would refuse to negotiate. They met their crucial difficulty by boldly
appealing to the South to be satisfied with the conservation of its
present life and renounce the dream of unlimited Southern expansion.
Their Compromise proposed a death blow to the filibuster and all he
stood for. It provided that no new territory other than naval stations
should be acquired by the United States on either side the Missouri Line
without consent of a majority of the Senators from the States on the
opposite side of that line.(16)

As a solution of the sectional quarrel, to the extent that it had been
definitely put into words, what could have been more astute? Lincoln
himself had said in the inaugural, "One section of our country believes
slavery is right and ought to be extended; while the other believes
it is wrong and ought not to be extended. That is the only substantial
dispute." In the same inaugural, he had pledged himself not to
"interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it now
exists;" and also had urged a vigorous enforcement of the Fugitive
Slave Law. He never had approved of any sort of emancipation other than
purchase or the gradual operation of economic conditions. It was well
known that slavery could flourish only on fresh land amid prodigal
agricultural methods suited to the most ignorant labor. The Virginia
Compromise, by giving to slavery a fixed area and abolishing its hopes
of continual extensions into fresh land, was the virtual fulfillment of
Lincoln's demand.