thin its
jurisdiction." In what cases the power of the States is so restrained by
the United States Constitution, is left an open question, precisely as the
same question, as to the restraint on the power of the Territories, was
left open in the Nebraska Act. Put this and that together, and we have
another nice little niche, which we may, ere long, see filled with another
Supreme Court decision, declaring that the Constitution of the United
States does not permit a State to exclude slavery from its limits. And
this may especially be expected if the doctrine of "care not whether
slavery be voted down or voted up" shall gain upon the public mind
sufficiently to give promise that such a decision can be maintained when
made.

Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being alike lawful in all
the States. Welcome or unwelcome, such decision is probably coming, and
will soon be upon us, unless the power of the present political dynasty
shall be met and overthrown. We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that
the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free, and
we shall awake to the reality instead that the Supreme Court has made
Illinois a slave State. To meet and overthrow the power of that dynasty is
the work now before all those who would prevent that consummation. That is
what we have to do. How can we best do it?

There are those who denounce us openly to their friends, and yet whisper
to us softly that Senator Douglas is the aptest instrument there is with
which to effect that object. They wish us to infer all, from the fact that
he now has a little quarrel with the present head of the dynasty, and that
he has regularly voted with us on a single point, upon which he and we
have never differed. They remind us that he is a great man, and that the
largest of us are very small ones. Let this be granted. But "a living dog
is better than a dead lion." Judge Douglas, if not a dead lion, for this
work is at least a caged and toothless one. How can he oppose the advances
of slavery? He don't care anything about it. His avowed mission is
impressing the "public heart" to care nothing about it. A leading Douglas
Democratic newspaper thinks Douglas's superior talent will be needed to
resist the revival of the African slave trade. Does Douglas believe an
effort to revive that trade is approaching? He has not said so. Does he
really think so? But if it is, how can he resist it? For years he has
labored to prov