code by act of Congress, when the people of a Territory refuse it, you
must step off the Democratic platform.... I tell you, gentlemen of the
South, in all candor, I do not believe a Democratic candidate can ever
carry any one Democratic State of the North on the platform that it is
the duty of the Federal government to force the people of a Territory
to have slavery when they do not want it."[784]

What Brown had asserted with his wonted impulsiveness, was then
reaffirmed more soberly by his colleague, Jefferson Davis, upon whom
more than any other Southerner the mantle of Calhoun had fallen. State
sovereignty was also his major premise. The Constitution was a
compact. The Territories were common property of the States. The
territorial legislatures were mere instruments through which the
Congress of the United States "executed its trust in relation to the
Territories." If, as the Senator from Illinois insisted, Congress had
granted full power to the inhabitants of the Territories to legislate
on all subjects not inconsistent with the Constitution, then Congress
had exceeded its authority. Turning to Douglas, Davis said, "Now, the
senator asks, will you make a discrimination in the Territories? I
say, yes, I would discriminate in the Territories wherever it is
needful to assert the right of citizens.... I have heard many a
siren's song on this doctrine of non-intervention; a thing shadowy and
fleeting, changing its color as often as the chameleon."[785]

When Douglas could again get the floor, he retorted sharply, "The
senator from Mississippi says, if I am not willing to stand in the
party on his platform, I can go out. Allow me to inform him that I
stand on the platform, and those that jump off must go out of the
party."

Hot words now passed between them. Davis spoke disdainfully of men who
seek to build up a political reputation by catering to the prejudice
of a majority, to exclude the property of the minority. And Douglas
retorted, "I despise to see men from other sections of the Union
pandering to a public sentiment against what I conceive to be common
rights under the Constitution." "Holding the views that you do," said
Davis, "you would have no chance of getting the vote of Mississippi
to-day." The senator has "confirmed me in the belief that he is now as
full of heresy as he once was of adherence to the doctrine of popular
sovereignty, correctly construed; that he has gone back to his first
love of squatte