rected to the question of negro slavery;
and he asserts that if the people had had a fair chance to vote on that
question there was no reasonable ground of objection in regard to minor
questions. Now, while I think that the people had not had given, or
offered, them a fair chance upon that slavery question, still, if
there had been a fair submission to a vote upon that main question, the
President's proposition would have been true to the utmost. Hence, when
hereafter I speak of popular sovereignty, I wish to be understood as
applying what I say to the question of slavery only, not to other minor
domestic matters of a Territory or a State.

Does Judge Douglas, when he says that several of the past years of his
life have been devoted to the question of "popular sovereignty," and that
all the remainder of his life shall be devoted to it, does he mean to
say that he has been devoting his life to securing to the people of the
Territories the right to exclude slavery from the Territories? If he means
so to say he means to deceive; because he and every one knows that the
decision of the Supreme Court, which he approves and makes especial ground
of attack upon me for disapproving, forbids the people of a Territory to
exclude slavery. This covers the whole ground, from the settlement of a
Territory till it reaches the degree of maturity entitling it to form a
State Constitution. So far as all that ground is concerned, the Judge
is not sustaining popular sovereignty, but absolutely opposing it.
He sustains the decision which declares that the popular will of the
Territory has no constitutional power to exclude slavery during their
territorial existence. This being so, the period of time from the first
settlement of a Territory till it reaches the point of forming a State
Constitution is not the thing that the Judge has fought for or is fighting
for, but, on the contrary, he has fought for, and is fighting for, the
thing that annihilates and crushes out that same popular sovereignty.

Well, so much being disposed of, what is left? Why, he is contending for
the right of the people, when they come to make a State Constitution,
to make it for themselves, and precisely as best suits themselves. I say
again, that is quixotic. I defy contradiction when I declare that the
Judge can find no one to oppose him on that proposition. I repeat,
there is nobody opposing that proposition on principle. Let me not be
misunderstood. I know that, wi