were to kill him and let the worms devour him;
but neither of these things is the same as "controlling him as other
property." That would be to feed him, to pamper him, to ride him, to use
and abuse him, to make the most money out of him, "as other property";
but, please you, what do the men who are in favor of slavery want more
than this? What do they really want, other than that slavery, being in the
Territories, shall be controlled as other property? If they want anything
else, I do not comprehend it. I ask your attention to this, first, for the
purpose of pointing out the change of ground the judge has made; and, in
the second place, the importance of the change,--that that change is not
such as to give you gentlemen who want his popular sovereignty the power
to exclude the institution or drive it out at all. I know the judge
sometimes squints at the argument that in controlling it as other property
by unfriendly legislation they may control it to death; as you might, in
the case of a horse, perhaps, feed him so lightly and ride him so much
that he would die. But when you come to legislative control, there is
something more to be attended to. I have no doubt, myself, that if the
Territories should undertake to control slave property as other property
that is, control it in such a way that it would be the most valuable as
property, and make it bear its just proportion in the way of burdens
as property, really deal with it as property,--the Supreme Court of the
United States will say, "God speed you, and amen." But I undertake to
give the opinion, at least, that if the Territories attempt by any direct
legislation to drive the man with his slave out of the Territory, or to
decide that his slave is free because of his being taken in there, or to
tax him to such an extent that he cannot keep him there, the Supreme Court
will unhesitatingly decide all such legislation unconstitutional, as long
as that Supreme Court is constructed as the Dred Scott Supreme Court is.
The first two things they have already decided, except that there is a
little quibble among lawyers between the words "dicta" and "decision."
They have already decided a negro cannot be made free by Territorial
legislation.

What is the Dred Scott decision? Judge Douglas labors to show that it is
one thing, while I think it is altogether different. It is a long opinion,
but it is all embodied in this short statement: "The Constitution of the
United States forbi