ic land, in violation of law? And if so treated
and driven out, at what point of time would there ever be ten thousand?
If they were not driven out, but remained there as trespassers upon the
public land in violation of the law, can they establish slavery there? No;
the judge says popular sovereignty don't pertain to them then. Can they
exclude it then? No; popular sovereignty don't pertain to them then. I
would like to know, in the case covered by the essay, what condition
the people of the Territory are in before they reach the number of ten
thousand?

But the main point I wish to ask attention to is, that the question as
to when they shall have reached a sufficient number to be formed into a
regular organized community is to be decided "by Congress." Judge Douglas
says so. Well, gentlemen, that is about all we want. No, that is all the
Southerners want. That is what all those who are for slavery want. They
do not want Congress to prohibit slavery from coming into the new
Territories, and they do not want popular sovereignty to hinder it; and as
Congress is to say when they are ready to be organized, all that the South
has to do is to get Congress to hold off. Let Congress hold off until they
are ready to be admitted as a State, and the South has all it wants in
taking slavery into and planting it in all the Territories that we now
have or hereafter may have. In a word, the whole thing, at a dash of the
pen, is at last put in the power of Congress; for if they do not have this
popular sovereignty until Congress organizes them, I ask if it at last
does not come from Congress? If, at last, it amounts to anything at all,
Congress gives it to them. I submit this rather for your reflection
than for comment. After all that is said, at last, by a dash of the pen,
everything that has gone before is undone, and he puts the whole question
under the control of Congress. After fighting through more than three
hours, if you undertake to read it, he at last places the whole matter
under the control of that power which he has been contending against, and
arrives at a result directly contrary to what he had been laboring to do.
He at last leaves the whole matter to the control of Congress.

There are two main objects, as I understand it, of this Harper's Magazine
essay. One was to show, if possible, that the men of our Revolutionary
times were in favor of his popular sovereignty, and the other was to show
that the Dred Scott decision