all Territories of the United States. In turn he propounded four
questions to Douglas, the second of which was:

"Can the people of a United States Territory in any lawful way, against
the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its
limits prior to the formation of a State constitution?"

Mr. Lincoln had long and carefully studied the import and effect of this
interrogatory, and nearly a month before, in a private letter,
accurately foreshadowed Douglas's course upon it:

"You shall have hard work," he wrote, "to get him directly to the point
whether a territorial legislature has or has not the power to exclude
slavery. But if you succeed in bringing him to it--though he will be
compelled to say it possesses no such power--he will instantly take
ground that slavery cannot actually exist in the Territories unless the
people desire it and so give it protection by territorial legislation.
If this offends the South, he will let it offend them, as at all events
he means to hold on to his chances in Illinois."

On the night before the Freeport debate the question had also been
considered in a hurried caucus of Lincoln's party friends. They all
advised against propounding it, saying, "If you do, you can never be
senator." "Gentlemen," replied Lincoln, "I am killing larger game; if
Douglas answers, he can never be President, and the battle of 1860 is
worth a hundred of this."

As Lincoln had predicted, Douglas had no resource but to repeat the
sophism he had hastily invented in his Springfield speech of the
previous year.

"It matters not," replied he, "what way the Supreme Court may hereafter
decide as to the abstract question whether slavery may or may not go
into a Territory under the Constitution, the people have the lawful
means to introduce it or exclude it, as they please, for the reason that
slavery cannot exist a day or an hour anywhere unless it is supported by
local police regulations. Those police regulations can only be
established by the local legislature, and if the people are opposed to
slavery they will elect representatives to that body who will by
unfriendly legislation effectually prevent the introduction of it into
their midst. If, on the contrary, they are for it, their legislation
will favor its extension. Hence, no matter what the decision of the
Supreme Court may be on that abstract question, still the right of the
people to make a slave Territory or a free Territory is per