ncoln, in the Freeport debate,
were as distasteful to the Southern mind as the position of Mr.
Lincoln himself. Lincoln advocated a positive inhibition of slavery
by the General Government. Mr. Douglas proposed to submit Southern
rights under the Constitution to the decision of the first mob or
rabble that might get possession of a Territorial legislature, and
pass a police regulation hostile to slavery. Against this construction
of the Constitution the South protested, and the protest carried
with it implacable hostility to Douglas.

The separation of the Democratic party into warring factions was,
therefore, inevitable. The line of division was the same on which
the Republican party had been founded. It was the North against
the South, the South against the North. The great mass of Northern
Democrats began to consolidate in support of Douglas as determinedly
as the mass of Northern Whigs had followed Seward. The Southern
Democrats began, at the same time, to organize their States against
Douglas. Until his break from the regular ranks in his opposition
to the Lecompton Constitution, Douglas had enjoyed boundless
popularity with his party in the South. In every slave State,
there was still a small number of his old supporters who remained
true to him. But the great host had left him. He could not be
trusted. He had failed to stand by the extreme faith; he had
refused to respond to its last requirement. Even at the risk of
permanently dissevering the Democratic party, the Southern leaders
resolved to destroy Douglas.

To this end, in the session of Congress following the debate with
Mr. Lincoln, the Democratic senators laid down, in a series of
resolutions, the true exposition of the creed of their party.
Douglas was not personally referred to, but the resolutions were
aimed so pointedly at what they regarded his heretical opinions,
that his name might as well have been incorporated. The resolutions
were adopted during the absence of Douglas from the Senate, on a
health-seeking tour, after his laborious canvass. With only the
dissenting vote of Mr. Pugh of Ohio among the Democrats, it was
declared that "neither Congress nor a territorial legislature,
whether by direct legislation, or legislation of an indirect or
unfriendly character, possesses the power to impair the right of
any citizen of the United States to take his slave property into
the common Territories, and there hold and enjoy the same whil