f terror."

"I have read about it too, ever since I have been in America. I have
applied my philosophically exercised faculties to it. I have talked with
Mr. Williams about it many times and with Douglas. I have had dozens of
conversations on all these things. It seems to me that I could advance
some new arguments myself."

"What new arguments could you advance?" asked Reverdy.

"Well," I said, "suppose I wanted to take a definite stand that slavery
is wrong, which these Whigs won't. They only play with the question.
They want to limit it perhaps. But why? Is it wrong? Or is it against
northern interests? What? But suppose I took such a stand and needed a
legal foundation. Couldn't I say that Congress could prohibit slavery in
the territories under the power it has to regulate commerce between
them? I put this question to Mr. Williams and he hadn't thought of it;
but he told me that Judge Marshall held that commerce was traffic. Very
well? Isn't slavery traffic? It's buying and selling. It impresses
things that are bought and sold--cotton. And slaves are the subject of
traffic. Therefore to regulate it--keep the slaves out of the
territories where they might be bought and sold after getting into the
territories, as well as where they might be sold into the
territories--is the regulation of commerce, isn't it? Well now, isn't
that better than calling the territories property and subject to the
arbitrary rule of Congress as merely inert matter? If you can rule the
territories arbitrarily as to slavery, why not as to anything else?
Suppose we annex Cuba; under this doctrine we could rule Cuba
arbitrarily, just as England ruled the Colonies here arbitrarily. Then
take the assumption that Congress has the power to keep slavery out of
the territories; just the power, not the express duty; well, it follows
that Congress has the power to let it in the territories. If it can put
it in or out of the territories it can leave the territories to put it
in or out. And why isn't that best? Right here is the point of my
adherence to Douglas. For I see a growing central power in this country
not acting on its lawful authority, but upon its own will, dictated by
theories of morality or trade or monopoly. If this matter is left to the
territories it is left to the source of sovereign power and to local
interests; if it is controlled by Congress it means an increasing
centralization. What I really mean is that this mere assumption that