popular
sovereignty," the right of the people to have slaves if they wanted
them, and to exclude slavery if they did not want them. "But," said,
in substance, a Senator from Ohio (Mr. Chase, I believe), "we more than
suspect that you do not mean to allow the people to exclude slavery if
they wish to; and if you do mean it, accept an amendment which I propose,
expressly authorizing the people to exclude slavery."

I believe I have the amendment here before me, which was offered, and
under which the people of the Territory, through their representatives,
might, if they saw fit, prohibit the existence of slavery therein. And now
I state it as a fact, to be taken back if there is any mistake about it,
that Judge Douglas and those acting with him voted that amendment down. I
now think that those men who voted it down had a real reason for doing
so. They know what that reason was. It looks to us, since we have seen the
Dred Scott decision pronounced, holding that "under the Constitution" the
people cannot exclude slavery, I say it looks to outsiders, poor, simple,
"amiable, intelligent gentlemen," as though the niche was left as a place
to put that Dred Scott decision in,--a niche which would have been spoiled
by adopting the amendment. And now, I say again, if this was not the
reason, it will avail the Judge much more to calmly and good-humoredly
point out to these people what that other reason was for voting the
amendment down, than, swelling himself up, to vociferate that he may be
provoked to call somebody a liar.

Again: There is in that same quotation from the Nebraska Bill this clause:
"It being the true intent and meaning of this bill not to legislate
slavery into any Territory or State." I have always been puzzled to know
what business the word "State" had in that connection. Judge Douglas
knows. He put it there. He knows what he put it there for. We outsiders
cannot say what he put it there for. The law they were passing was not
about States, and was not making provisions for States. What was it placed
there for? After seeing the Dred Scott decision, which holds that the
people cannot exclude slavery from a Territory, if another Dred Scott
decision shall come, holding that they cannot exclude it from a State, we
shall discover that when the word was originally put there, it was in view
of something which was to come in due time, we shall see that it was the
other half of something. I now say again, if there is any d