bition. They could pass such local laws and
police regulations as would drive slavery out in one day or one
hour if they were opposed to it, and therefore, so far as the
question of slavery in the Territories is concerned in its practical
operation, it matters not how the Dred Scott case may be decided
with reference to the Territories. My own opinion on that point
is well known. It is shown by my vote and speeches in Congress."

Recurring again to the Freeport debate, in reply to the first
interrogatory, Douglas declared that in reference to Kansas it was
his opinion that if it had population enough to constitute a slave
State, it had people enough for a free State; that he would not
make Kansas an exceptional case to the other States of the Union; that
he held it to be a sound rule of universal application to require a
Territory to contain the requisite population for a member of
Congress before its admission as a State into the Union; that it
having been decided that Kansas has people enough for a slave State,
"I hold it has enough for a free State."

As to the third interrogatory, he said that only one man in the
United States, an editor of a paper in Washington, had held such
view, and that he, Douglas, had at the time denounced it on the
floor of the Senate; that Mr. Lincoln cast an imputation upon
the Supreme Court by supposing that it would violate the Constitution;
that it would be an act of moral treason that no man on the
bench could ever descend to. To the fourth--which he said was very
"ingeniously and cunningly put"--he answered that, whenever it
became necessary in our growth and progress to acquire more territory
he was in favor of it without reference to the question of slavery,
and when we had acquired it, he would leave the people to do as they
pleased, either to make it free, or slave territory as they
preferred.

The answer to the second interrogatory--of which much has been
written--was given without hesitation. Language could hardly be
more clear or effective. He said:

"To the next question propounded to me I answer emphatically, as
Mr. Lincoln has heard me answer a hundred times, that in my opinion
the people of a Territory can by lawful means exclude slavery from
their limits prior to the formation of a State Constitution. It
matters not what way the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as
to the abstract question whether slavery may or may not go into
a Territory under the Constitut