ht ought to accrue to
the people at the moment they have enough to constitute a
government.... Your bill concedes that a representative government is
necessary--a government founded upon the principles of popular
sovereignty, and the right of the people to enact their own laws; and
for this reason you give them a legislature constituted of two
branches, like the legislatures of the different States and
Territories of the Union; you confer upon them the right to legislate
upon all rightful subjects of legislation, except negroes. Why except
negroes?"[356] Forced to a further explanation, he added, "I am not,
therefore, prepared to say that under the constitution, we have not
the power to pass laws excluding negro slaves from the territories....
But I do say that, if left to myself to carry out my own opinions, I
would leave the whole subject to the people of the territories
themselves.... I believe it is one of those rights to be conceded to
the territories the moment they have governments and legislatures
established for them."[357] In short, this was a policy dictated by
expediency, and not--as yet--by any constitutional necessity. Douglas
was not yet ready to abandon the high national ground of supreme,
Federal control over the Territories.

But the restrictive clause in the territorial bills satisfied the
radical Southerners as little as it pleased Douglas. Berrien wished to
make the clause more precise by forbidding the territorial
legislatures "to establish or prohibit African slavery"; but Hale,
with his preternatural keenness for the supposed intrigues of the
slave power, believed that even with these restrictions the
legislatures might still recognize slavery as an already established
institution; and he therefore moved to add the word "allow." Douglas
voted consistently; first against Berrien's amendment, and then, when
it carried, for Hale's, hoping thereby to discredit the former.[358]
Douglas's own amendment removing all restrictions, was voted
down.[359] True to his instructions, he voted for Seward's proposition
to impose the Wilmot Proviso upon the Territories, but he was happy to
find himself in the minority.[360] And so the battle went on,
threatening to end in a draw.

A motion to abolish and prohibit peon slavery elicited an apparently
spontaneous and sincere expression of detestation from Douglas of
"this revolting system." Black slavery was not abhorrent to him; but a
species of slavery not confi