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nable us to "continue at peace with one another." In the same connection he endeavored to silver-coat for Northern palates the bitter pill of the Dred Scott decision, by declaring that the people of any State or Territory might withhold that protecting legislation, those "friendly police regulations," without which slavery could not exist. But this was, indeed, a "lame, illogical, evasive answer," which enabled Lincoln to "secure an advantage in the national relations of the contest which he held to the end." Lincoln, in replying, agreed that "all the States have the right to do exactly as they please about all their domestic relations, including that of slavery." But he said that the proposition that slavery could not enter a new country without police regulations was historically false; and that the facts of the Dred Scott case itself showed that there was "vigor enough in slavery to plant itself in a new country even against unfriendly legislation." Beyond this issue of historical fact, Douglas had already taken and still dared to maintain a position which proved to be singularly ill chosen. The right to hold slaves as property in the Territories had lately, to the infinite joy of the South, been declared by the Supreme Court to be guaranteed by the Constitution; and now Douglas had the audacity to repeat that notion of his, so abhorrent to all friends of slavery,--that this invaluable right could be made practically worthless by unfriendly local legislation, or even by the negative hostility of withholding friendly legislation! From the moment when this deadly suggestion fell from his ingenious lips, the Southern Democracy turned upon him with vindictive hate and marked him for destruction. He had also given himself into the hands of his avowed and natural enemies. The doctrine, said Mr. Lincoln, is "no less than that a thing may lawfully be driven away from a place where it has a lawful right to be." "If you were elected members of the legislature, what would be the first thing you would have to do, before entering upon your duties? _Swear to support the Constitution of the United States_. Suppose you believe, as Judge Douglas does, that the Constitution of the United States guarantees to your neighbor the right to hold slaves in that Territory,--that they are his property,--how can you clear your oaths, unless you give him such legislation as is necessary to enable him to enjoy that property? What do you understan
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