ath. Choose ye between
Jefferson and Douglas as to what is the true view of this element among
us.

There is another little difficulty about this matter of treating the
Territories and States alike in all things, to which I ask your attention,
and I shall leave this branch of the case. If there is no difference
between them, why not make the Territories States at once? What is
the reason that Kansas was not fit to come into the Union when it was
organized into a Territory, in Judge Douglas's view? Can any of you tell
any reason why it should not have come into the Union at once? They are
fit, as he thinks, to decide upon the slavery question,--the largest and
most important with which they could possibly deal: what could they do by
coming into the Union that they are not fit to do, according to his view,
by staying out of it? Oh, they are not fit to sit in Congress and decide
upon the rates of postage, or questions of ad valorem or specific duties
on foreign goods, or live-oak timber contracts, they are not fit to decide
these vastly important matters, which are national in their import, but
they are fit, "from the jump," to decide this little negro question. But,
gentlemen, the case is too plain; I occupy too much time on this head, and
I pass on.

Near the close of the copyright essay, the judge, I think, comes very near
kicking his own fat into the fire. I did not think, when I commenced these
remarks, that I would read that article, but I now believe I will:

"This exposition of the history of these measures shows conclusively that
the authors of the Compromise measures of 1850 and of the Kansas-Nebraska
Act of 1854, as well as the members of the Continental Congress of 1774.,
and the founders of our system of government subsequent to the Revolution,
regarded the people of the Territories and Colonies as political
communities which were entitled to a free and exclusive power of
legislation in their provisional legislatures, where their representation
could alone be preserved, in all cases of taxation and internal polity."

When the judge saw that putting in the word "slavery" would contradict
his own history, he put in what he knew would pass synonymous with it,
"internal polity." Whenever we find that in one of his speeches, the
substitute is used in this manner; and I can tell you the reason. It would
be too bald a contradiction to say slavery; but "internal polity" is a
general phrase, which would pass in some