me at Freeport, he spoke of it, so far,
again, as I can comprehend it, as a thing that had not yet been decided.
Now, I hold that if the Judge does entertain that view, I think that he
is not mistaken in so far as it can be said that the court has not
decided anything save the mere question of jurisdiction. I know the legal
arguments that can be made,--that after a court has decided that it cannot
take jurisdiction in a case, it then has decided all that is before it,
and that is the end of it. A plausible argument can be made in favor of
that proposition; but I know that Judge Douglas has said in one of his
speeches that the court went forward, like honest men as they were,
and decided all the points in the case. If any points are really
extra-judicially decided, because not necessarily before them, then this
one as to the power of the Territorial Legislature, to exclude slavery
is one of them, as also the one that the Missouri Compromise was null and
void. They are both extra-judicial, or neither is, according as the
court held that they had no jurisdiction in the case between the parties,
because of want of capacity of one party to maintain a suit in that court.
I want, if I have sufficient time, to show that the court did pass its
opinion; but that is the only thing actually done in the case. If they did
not decide, they showed what they were ready to decide whenever the matter
was before them. What is that opinion? After having argued that Congress
had no power to pass a law excluding slavery from a United States
Territory, they then used language to this effect: That inasmuch as
Congress itself could not exercise such a power, it followed as a matter
of course that it could not authorize a Territorial government to exercise
it; for the Territorial Legislature can do no more than Congress could
do. Thus it expressed its opinion emphatically against the power of a
Territorial Legislature to exclude slavery, leaving us in just as little
doubt on that point as upon any other point they really decided.

Now, my fellow-citizens, I will detain you only a little while longer; my
time is nearly out. I find a report of a speech made by Judge Douglas
at Joliet, since we last met at Freeport,--published, I believe, in the
Missouri Republican, on the 9th of this month, in which Judge Douglas
says:

"You know at Ottawa I read this platform, and asked him if he concurred in
each and all of the principles set forth in it. He woul