_ the Southern States and interfere with
slavery: for his part, he was equally opposed to a sectional agitation
to control the institutions of other States.[695] Again, Mr. Lincoln
had said that he proposed, so far as in him lay, to secure a reversal
of the Dred Scott decision. How, asked Douglas, will he accomplish
this? There can be but one way: elect a Republican President who will
pack the bench with Republican justices. Would a court so constituted
command respect?[696]

As to the effect of the Dred Scott decision upon slavery in the
Territories, Douglas had only this to say: "With or without that
decision, slavery will go just where the people want it, and not one
inch further." "Hence, if the people of a Territory want slavery, they
will encourage it by passing affirmatory laws, and the necessary
police regulations, patrol laws, and slave code; if they do not want
it they will withhold that legislation, and by withholding it slavery
is as dead as if it was prohibited by a constitutional prohibition,
especially if, in addition, their legislation is unfriendly, as it
would be if they were opposed to it. 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, so far as the
principle of popular sovereignty is concerned, in its practical
operation, it matters not how the Dred Scott case may be decided with
reference to the Territories."[697]

The closing words of the speech approached dangerously near to bathos.
Douglas pictured himself standing beside the deathbed of Clay and
pledging his life to the advocacy of the great principle expressed in
the compromise measures of 1850, and later in the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
Strangely enough he had given the same pledge to "the god-like
Webster."[698] This filial reverence for Clay and Webster, whom
Douglas had fought with all the weapons of partisan warfare, must have
puzzled those Whigs in his audience who were guileless enough to
accept such statements at their face value.

Devoted partisans accompanied Douglas to Springfield, on the following
day. In spite of the frequent downpours of rain and the sultry
atmosphere, their enthusiasm never once flagged. On board the same
train, surrounded by good-natured enemies, was Lincoln, who was also
to speak at the capital.[699] Douglas again found a crowd awaiting
him. He