The address was in a somewhat egotistical vein—pardonably egotistical, considering the extraordinary circumstances. Douglas could not refrain from referring to his career since he had confronted that excited crowd in Chicago eight years before, in defense of the compromise measures. To his mind the events of those eight years had amply vindicated the great principle of popular sovereignty. Knowing that he was in a Republican stronghold, he dwelt with particular complacency upon the manful way in which the Republican party had come to the support of that principle, in the recent anti-Lecompton fight. It was this fundamental right of self-government that he had championed through good and ill report, all these years. It was this, and this alone, which had governed his action in regard to the Lecompton fraud. It was not because the Lecompton constitution was a slave constitution, but because it was not the act and deed of the people of Kansas that he had condemned it. "Whenever," said he, "you put a limitation upon the right of a people to decide what laws they want, you have destroyed the fundamental principle of self-government."

With Lincoln's house-divided-against-itself proposition, he took issue unqualifiedly. "Mr. Lincoln asserts, as a fundamental principle of this government, that there must be uniformity in the local laws and domestic institutions of each and all the States of the Union, and he therefore invites all the non-slaveholding States to band together, organize as one body, and make war upon slavery in Kentucky, upon slavery in Virginia, upon slavery in the Carolinas, upon slavery in all of the slave-holding States in this Union, and to persevere in that war until it shall be exterminated. He then notifies the slave-holding States to stand together as a unit and make an aggressive war upon the free States of this Union with a view of establishing slavery in them all; of forcing it upon Illinois, of forcing it upon New York, upon New England, and upon every other free State, and that they shall keep up the warfare until it has been formally established in them all. In other words, Mr. Lincoln advocates boldly and clearly a war of sections, a war of the North against the South, of the free States against the slave States—a war of extermination—to be continued relentlessly until the one or the other shall be subdued, and all the States shall either become free or become slave."[[686]]

But such uniformity in local institutions would be possible only by blotting out State Sovereignty, by merging all the States in one consolidated empire, and by vesting Congress with plenary power to make all the police regulations, domestic and local laws, uniform throughout the Republic. The framers of our government knew well enough that differences in soil, in products, and in interests, required different local and domestic regulations in each locality; and they organized the Federal government on this fundamental assumption.[[687]]

With Lincoln's other proposition Douglas also took issue. He refused to enter upon any crusade against the Supreme Court. "I do not choose, therefore, to go into any argument with Mr. Lincoln in reviewing the various decisions which the Supreme Court has made, either upon the Dred Scott case, or any other. I have no idea of appealing from the decision of the Supreme Court upon a constitutional question to the decision of a tumultuous town meeting."[[688]]

Neither could Douglas agree with his opponent in objecting to the decision of the Supreme Court because it deprived the negro of the rights, privileges, and immunities of citizenship, which pertained only to the white race. Our government was founded on a white basis. "It was made by the white man, for the benefit of the white man, to be administered by white men." To be sure, a negro, an Indian, or any other man of inferior race should be permitted to enjoy all the rights, privileges, and immunities consistent with the safety of society; but each State should decide for itself the nature and extent of these rights.

On the next evening, Republican Chicago greeted its protagonist with much the same demonstrations, as he took his place on the balcony from which Douglas had spoken. Lincoln found the flaw in Douglas's armor at the outset. "Popular sovereignty! Everlasting popular sovereignty! What is popular sovereignty"? How could there be such a thing in the original sense, now that the Supreme Court had decided that the people in their territorial status might not prohibit slavery? And as for the right of the people to frame a constitution, who had ever disputed that right? But Lincoln, evidently troubled by Douglas's vehement deductions from the house-divided-against-itself proposition, soon fell back upon the defensive, where he was at a great disadvantage. He was forced to explain that he did not favor a war by the North upon the South for the extinction of slavery; nor a war by the South upon the North for the nationalization of slavery. "I only said what I expected would take place. I made a prediction only,—it may have been a foolish one, perhaps. I did not even say that I desired that slavery should be put in course of ultimate extinction. I do say so now, however."[[689]] He believed that slavery had endured, because until the Nebraska Act the public mind had rested in the conviction that slavery would ultimately disappear. In affirming that the opponents of slavery would arrest its further extension, he only meant to say that they would put it where the fathers originally placed it. He was not in favor of interfering with slavery where it existed in the States. As to the charge that he was inviting people to resist the Dred Scott decision, Lincoln responded rather weakly—again laying himself open to attack—"We mean to do what we can to have the court decide the other way."[[690]]

Lincoln also betrayed his fear lest Douglas should draw Republican votes. Knowing the strong anti-slavery sentiment of the region, he asked when Douglas had shown anything but indifference on the subject of slavery. Away with this quibbling about inferior races! "Let us discard all these things and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal."[[691]]

From Chicago Douglas journeyed like a conquering hero to Bloomington. At every station crowds gathered to see his gaily decorated train and to catch a glimpse of the famous senator. A platform car bearing a twelve-pound gun was attached to the train and everywhere "popular sovereignty," as the cannon was dubbed, heralded his arrival.[[692]] On the evening of July 16th he addressed a large gathering in the open air; and again he had among his auditors, Abraham Lincoln, who was hot upon his trail.[[693]] The county and district in which Bloomington was situated had once been strongly Whig; but was now as strongly Republican. With the local conditions in mind, Douglas made an artful plea for support. He gratefully acknowledged the aid of the Republicans in the recent anti-Lecompton fight, and of that worthy successor of the immortal Clay, John J. Crittenden of Kentucky. After all, was it not a common principle for which they had been contending? "My friends," said Douglas with engaging ingenuousness, "when I am battling for a great principle, I want aid and support from whatever quarter I can get it." Pity, then, that Republican politicians, in order to defeat him, should form an alliance with Lecompton men and thus betray the cause![[694]]

Douglas called attention to Lincoln's explanation of his house-divided-against-itself argument. It still seemed to him to invite a war of sections. Mr. Lincoln had said that he had no wish to see the people enter into 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]]