tories; Douglas worked up from a position, which scarcely denied
the power, but rather shrank from its use, to the position that
sovereignty abode in the people of the territory; and that as Congress
has no express grant of power to legislate upon slavery as to a
territory, the territorial sovereignty had the only power to do so. He
attacked Lincoln's position that a territory is a creature of Congress
as a property, to be clothed with powers or denied powers; and
particularly with powers not possessed by Congress itself. This doctrine
led to imperialism. Douglas held that Congress had the power to organize
territories under the clause providing for the admission of new states;
but when they were organized they assumed an organic sovereignty out of
an inchoate sovereignty, and had the right to legislate as they chose to
the same extent as a state. It was the old fight between implied powers
and strict construction.

What in the Constitution forbade slaves from being taken into the
territories? Not a thing. Moreover the territories were the commons of
all the states, won by their common valor and blood. Could not a liquor
dealer from Chicago take his stock to Kansas? Assuredly. Why then could
not a planter from Louisiana take his slaves to Nebraska? Liquor and
slaves were property. Who said so? The fugitive-slave clause of the
Constitution, and the fugitive-slave law of 1850 which Lincoln admitted
he would not alter.

But after the liquor was in Kansas or the slave in Nebraska could they
flourish? That depended on the territorial law, the attitude of the
people. Did Congress have to pass favorable legislation? From what
clause flowed the duty and the power? Did a territorial legislature have
power to pass favorable legislation? It was not called upon to do so by
anything in the Federal Constitution. Therefore, the mere right to take
a slave into free territory under the Dred Scott decision, take it as
property, was a naked right without local support. "This popular
sovereignty is as thin as soup made from the shadow of a starved
pigeon," said Lincoln. Nevertheless, it was what it was and no more. And
Lincoln's catch question on the legal right to keep slavery out of the
territories did not catch Douglas. The mere right to take a slave into
free territory could coexist with no protective legislation after the
slave was there. It could coexist with unfavorable legislation and
social opposition. Let natural processes rule.