f consistency by
an ingenious evasion. In the month of June following the decision, he
made a speech at Springfield, Illinois, in which he tentatively
announced what in the next year became widely celebrated as his Freeport
doctrine, and was immediately denounced by his political confreres of
the South as serious party heterodoxy. First lauding the Supreme Court
as "the highest judicial tribunal on earth," and declaring that violent
resistance to its decrees must be put down by the strong arm of the
government, he went on thus to define a master's right to his slave in
Kansas:

"While the right continues in full force under the guarantees of the
Constitution, and cannot be divested or alienated by an act of Congress,
it necessarily remains a barren and a worthless right unless sustained,
protected, and enforced by appropriate police regulations and local
legislation prescribing adequate remedies for its violation. These
regulations and remedies must necessarily depend entirely upon the will
and wishes of the people of the Territory, as they can only be
prescribed by the local legislatures. Hence, the great principle of
popular sovereignty and self-government is sustained and firmly
established by the authority of this decision."

Both the legal and political aspects of the new question immediately
engaged the earnest attention of Mr. Lincoln; and his splendid power of
analysis set its ominous portent in a strong light. He made a speech in
reply to Douglas about two weeks after, subjecting the Dred Scott
decision to a searching and eloquent criticism. He said:

"That decision declares two propositions--first, that a negro cannot sue
in the United States courts; and secondly, that Congress cannot prohibit
slavery in the Territories. It was made by a divided court--dividing
differently on the different points. Judge Douglas does not discuss the
merits of the decision, and in that respect I shall follow his example,
believing I could no more improve on McLean and Curtis than he could on
Taney.... We think the Dred Scott decision was erroneous. We know the
court that made it has often overruled its own decisions, and we shall
do what we can to have it overrule this. We offer no resistance to
it.... If this important decision had been made by the unanimous
concurrence of the judges, and without any apparent partizan bias, and
in accordance with legal public expectation and with the steady practice
of the departments throug