Then, at New Orleans, after his election to the Senate was secured, he says: “The Democracy of Illinois accept the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Dred Scott as an authoritative interpretation of the Constitution. In accordance with that decision, we hold that slaves are property, and hence on an equality with all other kinds of property, and that the owner of a slave has the same right to move into a Territory and carry his slave property with him as the owner of any other property has to go there and carry his property.” Here is the extreme dogma of Slavery in full feather. Let him follow this to its natural conclusion, and no Breckinridge man could ask more.
At another time we find him declaring that “sovereign States have the right to make their own constitutions and establish their own governments, but that he has never claimed these powers for the Territories, nor has he ever failed to resist such claims, when set up by others.” How, then, under this theory, can Popular Sovereignty have any foothold in the Territories? It is clear that all Territorial legislation against Slavery must be invalid.
And then again, in another place, by roundabout language, he admits, that, according to the Dred Scott decision, which he declares that he “approves,” the people of a Territory cannot, by any legislation, confiscate slave property, or impair the “Constitutional right” of the master to this property in the Territory. With this limitation, pray, where, again, is Popular Sovereignty?
But elsewhere, as if to furnish something for the other side, he intimates a policy of inaction by the Territorial Legislature with regard to Slavery, and asks, “Would not the inaction of the local Legislature, its refusal to provide a Slave Code, or to punish offences against that species of property, exclude Slavery just as effectually as a Constitutional prohibition?” And here is an end of the matter.
Changing forms as often as Proteus, we yet find him admitting, first, that Slavery goes into the Territories under the Constitution; secondly, that the right of property in a slave cannot be destroyed by the Territorial Legislature; and all that this Legislature can do, by way of opposition, is to fold its hands and to seal its tongue in inaction. What, then, is this wonderful doctrine? So far as it means anything, it is simply this: that the people of a Territory have a right to introduce Slavery, but not to prohibit it. And such is Popular Sovereignty! Verily, between this and the Breckinridge dogma there is about the same difference as between the much-vexed doctrines of Transubstantiation and Consubstantiation, where there was only the difference of a single syllable, and both involved the same thing.
Nor is even this all. The Convention at Baltimore which nominated Mr. Douglas has declared by formal resolution, that “the measure of restriction, whatever it may be, imposed by the Federal Constitution on the power of the Territorial Legislature over the subject of the domestic relations, as the same has been or shall hereafter be finally determined by the Supreme Court of the United States, should be respected by all good citizens, and enforced with promptness and fidelity by every branch of the General Government.” And Mr. Douglas, in accepting his nomination, has expressly recognized this doctrine, thus in advance delivering over his bantling Popular Sovereignty to the tender mercies of the Supreme Court.
Far different is the position of Mr. Lincoln, who has openly said, in his debate with Mr. Douglas, “If I were in Congress, and a vote should come up on a question whether Slavery should be prohibited in a new Territory, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, I would vote that it should. That is what I would do.”[171] And allow me to add, that this doctrine of Mr. Lincoln is the doctrine of the Republican party. Any doctrine short of this betrays the trick of Mr. Douglas.
The tree is known by its fruits, and if anything further were needed to expose this cheat of Popular Sovereignty, it might be found in its fruits as boasted by Mr. Douglas. A slave code most revolting in character had been adopted by the Territorial Legislature of New Mexico, not only establishing Slavery there, including the serfdom of whites, but prohibiting Emancipation. Through the generous activity of the Republicans, and in the exercise of a just Congressional intervention, a bill passed the House of Representatives annulling this slave code. While the bill was on the table of the Senate, attesting at once the disposition of the House of Representatives to interfere against Slavery, and also the signal necessity of such interference, Mr. Douglas took occasion to make his boasts. Surrounded by the chiefs of Proslavery Democracy, the juggler of Popular Sovereignty thus showed what the trick had done for Slavery. Here are his words:—
“It is part of the history of the country, that, under this doctrine of Non-Intervention, this doctrine that you delight to call Squatter Sovereignty, the people of New Mexico have introduced and protected Slavery in the whole of that Territory. Under this doctrine, they have converted a tract of Free Territory into Slave Territory more than five times the size of the State of New York. Under this doctrine, Slavery has been extended from the Rio Grande to the Gulf of California, and from the line of the Republic of Mexico, not only up to 36° 30´, but up to 38°, giving you a degree and a half more Slave Territory than you ever claimed.”[172]
As the tree is known by its fruits, so also is the man known by the company he keeps. At first associated with Mr. Douglas on the same ticket, as candidate for the Vice-Presidency, was Mr. Fitzpatrick, of Alabama, belonging to the school of Slave Propagandists, and fresh from voting in the Senate against Popular Sovereignty; and when he declined, his place was supplied by Mr. Johnson, of Georgia, also belonging to the school of Slave Propagandists, who from the beginning has denounced Popular Sovereignty, and insisted that “it is the right of the South to demand, and the duty of Congress to extend, protection to Slavery in the Territories during the Territorial state,” and who, at Philadelphia, in a public speech, did not hesitate to insult the mechanics and working-men of the country by the insolent declaration that “Capital should own Labor.” Such is the associate of Mr. Douglas, with whom he is so united as candidate that you cannot vote for one without voting for the other. One of his earnest supporters in the Convention at Baltimore, Mr. Gaulden, of Georgia, pressed the opening of the slave-trade with Africa on the very grounds of Popular Sovereignty and Non-Intervention. After declaring, that, “if it be right to go to Virginia and buy a negro and pay two thousand dollars for him, it is equally right to go to Africa, where we can get them for fifty dollars,” he said, that, “if the Southern men had the spunk and spirit to come right up and face the North, he believed the Northern Democracy, at least, would come to the true doctrine of Popular Sovereignty and Non-Intervention.” This barbarous utterance was received by the Douglas Convention with “applause and laughter.” Such are the men with whom this candidate is associated.