d States neither permits Congress nor a Territorial Legislature to
exclude slavery from any United States Territory, they all omit to
declare whether or not the same Constitution permits a State, or the
people of a State, to exclude it. _Possibly_, this is a mere omission;
but who can be quite sure, if McLean or Curtis had sought to get into
the opinion a declaration of unlimited power in the people of a State to
exclude slavery from their limits, just as Chase and Mace sought to get
such declaration, in behalf of the people of a Territory, into the
Nebraska Bill--I ask, who can be quite sure that it would not have been
voted down in the one case as it had been in the other?

The nearest approach to the point of declaring the power of a State over
slavery, is made by Judge Nelson. He approaches it more than once, using
the precise idea, and almost the language, too, of the Nebraska Act. On
one occasion, his exact language is, "Except in cases where the power is
restrained by the Constitution of the United States, the law of the
State is supreme over the subject of slavery within its jurisdiction."
In what cases the power of the States is so restrained by the United
States Constitution is left an open question, precisely as the same
question, as to the restraint on the power of the Territories, was left
open in the Nebraska Act. Put this and that together, and we have
another nice little niche, which we may, ere long, see filled with
another Supreme Court decision, declaring that the Constitution of the
United States does not permit a _State_ to exclude slavery from its
limits. And this may especially be expected if the doctrine of "care not
whether slavery be voted down or voted up" shall gain upon the public
mind sufficiently to give promise that such a decision can be maintained
when made.

Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being alike lawful in
all the States. Welcome or unwelcome, such decision is probably coming,
and will soon be upon us, unless the power of the present political
dynasty shall be met and overthrown. We shall lie down pleasantly
dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their
State free, and we shall awake to the reality instead that the Supreme
Court has made Illinois a slave State. To meet and overthrow the power
of that dynasty is the work now before all who would prevent that
consummation. That is what we have to do. How can we best do it?

There are those