South had not
asked for it, but when they could not well refuse it; and for this same
reason he forced that question upon our party. It has sunk the best men
all over the nation, everywhere; and now, when our President, struggling
with the difficulties of this man's getting up, has reached the very
hardest point to turn in the case, he deserts him and I am for putting him
where he will trouble us no more."

Now, gentlemen, that is not my argument; that is not my argument at all.
I have only been stating to you the argument of a Buchanan man. You will
judge if there is any force in it.

Popular sovereignty! Everlasting popular sovereignty! Let us for a moment
inquire into this vast matter of popular sovereignty. What is popular
sovereignty? We recollect that at an early period in the history of
this struggle there was another name for the same thing,--"squatter
sovereignty." It was not exactly popular sovereignty, but squatter
sovereignty. What do those terms mean? What do those terms mean when used
now? And vast credit is taken by our friend the Judge in regard to his
support of it, when he declares the last years of his life have been,
and all the future years of his life shall be, devoted to this matter of
popular sovereignty. What is it? Why, it is the sovereignty of the people!
What was squatter sovereignty? I suppose, if it had any significance at
all, it was the right of the people to govern themselves, to be sovereign
in their own affairs while they were squatted down in a country not their
own, while they had squatted on a Territory that did not belong to them,
in the sense that a State belongs to the people who inhabit it, when
it belonged to the nation; such right to govern themselves was called
"squatter sovereignty."

Now, I wish you to mark: What has become of that squatter sovereignty?
what has become of it? Can you get anybody to tell you now that the people
of a Territory have any authority to govern themselves, in regard to this
mooted question of slavery, before they form a State constitution? No such
thing at all; although there is a general running fire, and although there
has been a hurrah made in every speech on that side, assuming that policy
had given the people of a Territory the right to govern themselves upon
this question, yet the point is dodged. To-day it has been decided--no
more than a year ago it was decided--by the Supreme Court of the United
States, and is insisted upon to-day that t