e
the territorial condition exists." Not satisfied with this utter
destruction of the whole doctrine of popular sovereignty, the
Democratic senators gave one more turn to the wrench, by declaring
that if "the territorial government should fail or refuse to provide
adequate protection to the rights of the slave-holder, it will be
the duty of Congress to supply such deficiency." The doctrine thus
laid down by the Democratic senators was, in plain terms, that the
territorial legislature might protect slavery, but could not prohibit
it; and that even the Congress of the United States could only
intervene on the side of bondage, and never on the side of freedom.

DOUGLAS AND THE SOUTHERN DEMOCRACY.

Anxious as Douglas was to be re-established in full relations with
his party, he had not failed to see the obstacles in his way. He
now realized that a desperate fight was to be made against him;
that he was to be humiliated and driven from the Democratic ranks.
The creed laid down by the Southern senators was such as no man
could indorse without forfeiting his political life in free States.
Douglas did not propose to rush on self-destruction to oblige the
Democracy of the slave States; nor was he of the type of men who,
when the right cheek is smitten, will meekly turn the other for a
second blow. When his Democratic associates in the Senate proceeded
to read him out of the party, they apparently failed to see that
they were reading the Northern Democracy out with him. Jefferson
Davis and Judah P. Benjamin might construct resolutions adapted to
the latitude of the Gulf, and dragoon them through the Senate, with
aid and pressure from Buchanan's administration; but Douglas
commanded the votes of the Northern Democracy, and to the edict of
a pro-slavery caucus he defiantly opposed the solid millions who
followed his lead in the free States.

Without wrangling over the resolutions in the Senate, Douglas made
answer to the whole series in a public letter of June 22, 1859, in
which he said that "if it shall become the policy of the Democratic
party to repudiate their time-honored principles, and interpolate
such new issues as the revival of the African slave-trade, or the
doctrine that the Constitution carries slavery into the Territories
beyond the power of the people to legally control it as other
property," he would not "accept a nomination for the Presidency if
tendered him." The a