l it shall
become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well
as South. Now, I believe if we could arrest the spread, and place it where
Washington and Jefferson and Madison placed it, it would be in the course
of ultimate extinction, and the public mind would, as for eighty years
past, believe that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. The crisis
would be past, and the institution might be let alone for a hundred years,
if it should live so long, in the States where it exists; yet it would be
going out of existence in the way best for both the black and the white
races.

[A voice: "Then do you repudiate popular sovereignty?"]

Well, then, let us talk about popular sovereignty! what is popular
sovereignty? Is it the right of the people to have slavery or not have it,
as they see fit, in the Territories? I will state--and I have an able man
to watch me--my understanding is that popular sovereignty, as now applied
to the question of slavery, does allow the people of a Territory to have
slavery if they want to, but does not allow them not to have it if they do
not want it. I do not mean that if this vast concourse of people were in a
Territory of the United States, any one of them would be obliged to have a
slave if he did not want one; but I do say that, as I understand the Dred
Scott decision, if any one man wants slaves, all the rest have no way of
keeping that one man from holding them.

When I made my speech at Springfield, of which the Judge complains, and
from which he quotes, I really was not thinking of the things which he
ascribes to me at all. I had no thought in the world that I was doing
anything to bring about a war between the free and slave states. I had no
thought in the world that I was doing anything to bring about a political
and social equality of the black and white races. It never occurred to
me that I was doing anything or favoring anything to reduce to a dead
uniformity all the local institutions of the various States. But I must
say, in all fairness to him, if he thinks I am doing something which leads
to these bad results, it is none the better that I did not mean it. It
is just as fatal to the country, if I have any influence in producing
it, whether I intend it or not. But can it be true that placing this
institution upon the original basis--the basis upon which our fathers
placed it--can have any tendency to set the Northern and the Southern
States at war with on