rolling it as other
property the same thing as destroying it, or driving it away? I should
think not. I should think the controlling of it as other property would be
just about what you in Kentucky should want. I understand the controlling
of property means the controlling of it for the benefit of the owner of
it. While I have no doubt the Supreme Court of the United States would
say "God speed" to any of the Territorial Legislatures that should thus
control slave property, they would sing quite a different tune if, by
the pretence of controlling it, they were to undertake to pass laws which
virtually excluded it,--and that upon a very well known principle to
all lawyers, that what a Legislature cannot directly do, it cannot do by
indirection; that as the Legislature has not the power to drive slaves
out, they have no power, by indirection, by tax, or by imposing burdens in
any way on that property, to effect the same end, and that any attempt to
do so would be held by the Dred Scott court unconstitutional.

Douglas is not willing to stand by his first proposition that they can
exclude it, because we have seen that that proposition amounts to nothing
more nor less than the naked absurdity that you may lawfully drive out
that which has a lawful right to remain. He admitted at first that the
slave might be lawfully taken into the Territories under the Constitution
of the United States, and yet asserted that he might be lawfully driven
out. That being the proposition, it is the absurdity I have stated. He
is not willing to stand in the face of that direct, naked, and impudent
absurdity; he has, therefore, modified his language into that of being
"controlled as other property."

The Kentuckians don't like this in Douglas! I will tell you where it will
go. He now swears by the court. He was once a leading man in Illinois to
break down a court, because it had made a decision he did not like. But
he now not only swears by the court, the courts having got to working
for you, but he denounces all men that do not swear by the courts,
as unpatriotic, as bad citizens. When one of these acts of unfriendly
legislation shall impose such heavy burdens as to, in effect, destroy
property in slaves in a Territory, and show plainly enough that there
can be no mistake in the purpose of the Legislature to make them
so burdensome, this same Supreme Court will decide that law to be
unconstitutional, and he will be ready to say for your benefit