But, Mr. President, this is not so. The Senator is not right. Slavery is not the key-stone of this arch; it would not fall if it were removed. It may better be compared to an unsteady, rolling cobble-stone admitted into the structure, which causes it sometimes to tremble; but which, skillfully removed, or secured in its place, the whole may stand securely.

Let not, then, the image be broken. Let it rise into its place. Let it surmount the dome of this Capitol. Let it bear the sword and shield. Let the free man look to it with gratitude and mingled shame and admiration; the bondman with hope and faith; and let it symbolize that higher state of civilization and equal self-government, when all nations and all races, each in its proper place, but all free, shall form one mighty, well-adjusted temple, whose crowning glory shall be "equal and exact justice to all men."

On May 7, 1860, a week following the Charleston [S. C.] Democratic convention (for an account of which see the following chapter), Senator Jefferson Davis [Miss.] said:

"It is well known to those who have been associated with me in the two Houses of Congress that, from the commencement of the question, I have been the determined opponent of what is called squatter sovereignty. I never gave it countenance, and I am now least of all disposed to give it quarter. In 1848 it made its appearance for good purposes. It was ushered in by a great and good man [Lewis Cass]. He brought it forward because of that distrust which he had in the capacity of the Government to bear the rude shock to which it was exposed. His conviction, no doubt, to some extent sharpened and directed his patriotism, and his apprehension led him to a conclusion to which, I doubt not, to-day he adheres as tenaciously as ever; but from which it was my fortune, good or ill, to dissent when his letter [the Nicholson letter] was read to me in manuscript; I being, together with some other persons, asked whether or not it should be sent. At the first blush I believed it to be a fallacy -a fallacy fraught with mischief; that it escaped an issue which was upon us which it was our duty to meet; that it escaped it by a side path, which led to danger. I thought it a fallacy which would surely be exploded. I doubted then, and still more for some time afterward, when held to a dread responsibility for the position which I occupied-I doubted whether I should live to see that fallacy exploded. It has been. Let Kansas speak

-the first great field on which the trial was made. What was the consequence? The Federal Government withdrawing control, leaving the contending sections, excited to the highest point upon this question, each to send forth its army. Kansas became the battlefield, and Kansas the cry which well-nigh led to civil war. This was the first fruit. More deadly than the fatal upas, its effect was not limited to the mere spot of ground on which the dew fell from its leaves, but it spread throughout the United States; it kindled all which had been collected for years of inflammable material. It was owing to the strength of our Government and the good sense of the quiet masses of the people that it did not wrap our country in one widespread conflagration.

"What right had Congress then, or what right has it now, to abdicate any power conferred upon it as trustee of the States? "In 1850, following the promulgation of this notion of squatter sovereignty, we had the idea of non-intervention introduced into the Senate of the United States, and it is strange to me how that idea has expanded. It seems to have been more malleable than gold, to have been hammered out to an extent that covers boundless regions undiscovered by those who proclaimed the doctrine. Non-intervention then meant, as the debates show, that Congress should neither prohibit nor establish slavery in the Territories. That I hold to now. Will any one suppose that Congress then meant by non-intervention that Congress should legislate in no regard in respect to property in slaves? Why, sir, the very acts which they passed at the time refute it. There is the Fugitive Slave Law, and that abomination of law which assumed to confiscate the property of a citizen who should attempt to bring it into this District with intent to remove it at some other time to some other place, and there to sell it. gress acted then upon the subject, acted beyond the limits of its authority as I believed, confidently believed; and if ever that act comes before the Supreme Court I feel satisfied that they will declare it null and void.

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"By what species of legerdemain this doctrine of non-intervention has come to extend to a paralysis of the Government on the whole subject, to exclude the Congress from any kind of legislation whatever, I am at a loss to conceive. Certain it is, it was not the theory of that period, and it was not contended for in all the controversies we had then. I had no faith in it then; I considered it a sham; I considered that the duty of Congress ought to be performed; that the issue was before us, and ought to be met, the sooner the better; that truth would prevail if pre

sented to the people; borne down to-day, it would rise up tomorrow; and I stood then on the same general plea which I am making now. The Senator from Illinois [Mr. Douglas] and myself differed at that time, as we do now."

On May 15 and 16 Senator Douglas replied as follows to Senator Davis:

The facts stated in the speech of the Senator from Mississippi conclusively show that the doctrine of squatter sovereignty, or popular sovereignty, or non-intervention, as the Senator has indifferently styled it in different parts of his speech, did not originate with me in its application to the Territories of the United States; that it was distinctly proclaimed by General Cass in what is known as his Nicholson letter; that the issue was then distinctly presented to the country in the contest of 1848; that General Cass became the nominee of the Democratic party with a full knowledge of his opinions upon the question of non-intervention; that he was supported by the party on that issue; that the same doctrine of non-intervention was incorporated into the compromise measures of 1850, in opposition to the views and efforts of the Senator from Mississippi, and in harmony with the views and efforts of myself; that it was reaffirmed by the Democratic party in the Baltimore convention of 1852; that General Pierce was elected President of the United States upon this same doctrine of non-intervention; that it was again affirmed by the Congress of the United States in the Kansas-Nebraska bill of 1854; and that it had its first trial, and yielded its first fruits, upon the plains of Kansas in 1855 and 1856.

These facts conclusively disprove and refute the charges so often made in the Senate Chamber within the last year, so erroneously and so unjustly made against me, that I have changed my opinions in regard to this question since 1856. The Senator from Mississippi has done me a service: he has searched the records with a view to my condemnation, and the result of his researches is to produce the most conclusive and incontestable evidence that this charge of having changed my opinions on this question, which was made the pretext for my removal from the Committee on Territories, was not true. He tells you

frankly, what the world knew before, that he had always opposed this doctrine of non-intervention; that he and I always differed upon that point. He always regarded it as a fallacy; I as a sound principle. He claims that, after it has yielded its