e
thereafter; that it is one of those little things that is so trivial in
its nature that it has nor effect upon anybody save the few men who first
plant upon the soil; that it is not a thing which in any way affects the
family of communities composing these States, nor any way endangers the
General Government. Judge Douglas ignores altogether the very well known
fact that we have never had a serious menace to our political existence,
except it sprang from this thing, which he chooses to regard as only upon
a par with onions and potatoes.

Turn it, and contemplate it in another view. He says that, according
to his popular sovereignty, the General Government may give to the
Territories governors, judges, marshals, secretaries, and all the other
chief men to govern them, but they, must not touch upon this other
question. Why? The question of who shall be governor of a Territory for a
year or two, and pass away, without his track being left upon the soil, or
an act which he did for good or for evil being left behind, is a question
of vast national magnitude; it is so much opposed in its nature to
locality that the nation itself must decide it: while this other matter
of planting slavery upon a soil,--a thing which, once planted, cannot be
eradicated by the succeeding millions who have as much right there as the
first comers, or, if eradicated, not without infinite difficulty and
a long struggle, he considers the power to prohibit it as one of these
little local, trivial things that the nation ought not to say a word
about; that it affects nobody save the few men who are there.

Take these two things and consider them together, present the question of
planting a State with the institution of slavery by the side of a question
who shall be Governor of Kansas for a year or two, and is there a man
here, is there a man on earth, who would not say the governor question
is the little one, and the slavery question is the great one? I ask any
honest Democrat if the small, the local, and the trivial and temporary
question is not, Who shall be governor? while the durable, the important,
and the mischievous one is, Shall this soil be planted with slavery?

This is an idea, I suppose, which has arisen in Judge Douglas's mind from
his peculiar structure. I suppose the institution of slavery really looks
small to him. He is so put up by nature that a lash upon his back would
hurt him, but a lash upon anybody else's back does not hurt him