t, under the Constitution,
may not do in a State what it may not do in a Territory, and what it must
do in a State it must do in a Territory. Gentlemen, is that a true view of
the case? It is necessary for this squatter sovereignty, but is it true?

Let us consider. What does it depend upon? It depends altogether upon the
proposition that the States must, without the interference of the
General Government, do all those things that pertain exclusively to
themselves,--that are local in their nature, that have no connection
with the General Government. After Judge Douglas has established this
proposition, which nobody disputes or ever has disputed, he proceeds
to assume, without proving it, that slavery is one of those little,
unimportant, trivial matters which are of just about as much consequence
as the question would be to me whether my neighbor should raise horned
cattle or plant tobacco; that there is no moral question about it, but
that it is altogether a matter of dollars and cents; that when a new
Territory is opened for settlement, the first man who goes into it may
plant there a thing which, like the Canada thistle or some other of those
pests of the soil, cannot be dug out by the millions of men who will come
thereafter; that it is one of those little things that is so trivial in
its nature that it has nor effect upon anybody save the few men who first
plant upon the soil; that it is not a thing which in any way affects the
family of communities composing these States, nor any way endangers the
General Government. Judge Douglas ignores altogether the very well known
fact that we have never had a serious menace to our political existence,
except it sprang from this thing, which he chooses to regard as only upon
a par with onions and potatoes.

Turn it, and contemplate it in another view. He says that, according
to his popular sovereignty, the General Government may give to the
Territories governors, judges, marshals, secretaries, and all the other
chief men to govern them, but they, must not touch upon this other
question. Why? The question of who shall be governor of a Territory for a
year or two, and pass away, without his track being left upon the soil, or
an act which he did for good or for evil being left behind, is a question
of vast national magnitude; it is so much opposed in its nature to
locality that the nation itself must decide it: while this other matter
of planting slavery upon a soil,--a thing whi