of law, and that which might once be theoretically doubtful
became forever practically valid and legitimate.

[Footnote A: Works, Vol. V. p. 306.]

[Footnote B: See his late pamphlet on the Dred Scott decision, which
we may say, without adopting its conclusions, every statesman ought to
read.]

It was not till within the last few years that the right of Congress
over the Territories was questioned. Certain classes of politicians then
discovered that the whole of our past statesmanship had been a mistake,
and that the time had come to propound a new doctrine. No! they said, it
is not Congress, not the Federal Government, which is entitled to govern
the Territories, but the Territories themselves,--which means the
handful of their original occupants. The real sovereignty resides in
the squatters, and Squatter Sovereignty is the charm which dispels
all difficulties. Alas! it was rather like the ingredients mingled by
Macbeth's hags, only "a charm of powerful trouble." Overlooking the fact
that the Territories were Territories precisely because they were not
States, this absurd theory proposed to confer the highest character of
an organized political existence upon a society wholly inchoate. As
_land_, the Territories were the property of the United States, to be
disposed of and regulated by the will of Congress; as _collections of
men_, they were yet immature communities, having in reality no social
being, and in that light also wisely and benevolently subjected to the
will of Congress; but Squatter Sovereignty elevated them, _willy nilly_,
to an independent self-subsistence. They were declared full-formed and
fledged before they were out of the shell. A mere conglomeration of
emigrants, Indian traders, and half-breeds was invested with all the
functions of a mature and ripened civilization. Long ere there were
people enough in any Territory to furnish the officers of a regular
government,--before they possessed any of the apparatus of court-houses,
jails, legislative chambers, etc., essential to a regular
government,--before they lived near enough to each other, in fact,
to constitute a respectable town-meeting,--before they could pay the
expenses or gather the means of their own defence from the Indians,
these wonderful entities were held to be endowed with the right of
entering into the most complicated relations and of forming the most
important institutions for themselves,--and not only for themselves, but
for the