e admitted as a State, and the South has all it wants in
taking slavery into and planting it in all the Territories that we now
have or hereafter may have. In a word, the whole thing, at a dash of the
pen, is at last put in the power of Congress; for if they do not have this
popular sovereignty until Congress organizes them, I ask if it at last
does not come from Congress? If, at last, it amounts to anything at all,
Congress gives it to them. I submit this rather for your reflection
than for comment. After all that is said, at last, by a dash of the pen,
everything that has gone before is undone, and he puts the whole question
under the control of Congress. After fighting through more than three
hours, if you undertake to read it, he at last places the whole matter
under the control of that power which he has been contending against, and
arrives at a result directly contrary to what he had been laboring to do.
He at last leaves the whole matter to the control of Congress.

There are two main objects, as I understand it, of this Harper's Magazine
essay. One was to show, if possible, that the men of our Revolutionary
times were in favor of his popular sovereignty, and the other was to show
that the Dred Scott decision had not entirely squelched out this popular
sovereignty. I do not propose, in regard to this argument drawn from
the history of former times, to enter into a detailed examination of the
historical statements he has made. I have the impression that they are
inaccurate in a great many instances,--sometimes in positive statement,
but very much more inaccurate by the suppression of statements that really
belong to the history. But I do not propose to affirm that this is so to
any very great extent, or to enter into a very minute examination of his
historical statements. I avoid doing so upon this principle,--that if it
were important for me to pass out of this lot in the least period of time
possible, and I came to that fence, and saw by a calculation of my known
strength and agility that I could clear it at a bound, it would be folly
for me to stop and consider whether I could or not crawl through a crack.
So I say of the whole history contained in his essay where he endeavored
to link the men of the Revolution to popular sovereignty. It only requires
an effort to leap out of it, a single bound to be entirely successful.
If you read it over, you will find that he quotes here and there from
documents of the Revolu