some time in New York maturing the
plan of the campaign, as his friends heralded for him. I have been
able, by noting his movements since his arrival in Illinois, to discover
evidences confirmatory of that allegation. I think I have been able to see
what are the material points of that plan. I will, for a little while, ask
your attention to some of them. What I shall point out, though not showing
the whole plan, are, nevertheless, the main points, as I suppose.

They are not very numerous. The first is popular sovereignty. The second
and third are attacks upon my speech made on the 16th of June. Out of
these three points--drawing within the range of popular sovereignty the
question of the Lecompton Constitution--he makes his principal assault.
Upon these his successive speeches are substantially one and the same.
On this matter of popular sovereignty I wish to be a little careful.
Auxiliary to these main points, to be sure, are their thunderings of
cannon, their marching and music, their fizzlegigs and fireworks; but I
will not waste time with them. They are but the little trappings of the
campaign.

Coming to the substance,--the first point, "popular sovereignty." It is to
be labeled upon the cars in which he travels; put upon the hacks he rides
in; to be flaunted upon the arches he passes under, and the banners which
wave over him. It is to be dished up in as many varieties as a French cook
can produce soups from potatoes. Now, as this is so great a staple of the
plan of the campaign, it is worth while to examine it carefully; and if
we examine only a very little, and do not allow ourselves to be misled,
we shall be able to see that the whole thing is the most arrant Quixotism
that was ever enacted before a community. What is the matter of popular
sovereignty? The first thing, in order to understand it, is to get a good
definition of what it is, and after that to see how it is applied.

I suppose almost every one knows that, in this controversy, whatever has
been said has had reference to the question of negro slavery. We have not
been in a controversy about the right of the people to govern themselves
in the ordinary matters of domestic concern in the States and Territories.
Mr. Buchanan, in one of his late messages (I think when he sent up the
Lecompton Constitution) urged that the main point to which the public
attention had been directed was not in regard to the great variety of
small domestic matters, but was di