SPEECH OF SENATOR DOUGLAS,

ON THE OCCASION OF HIS PUBLIC RECEPTION AT CHICAGO, FRIDA EVENING, JULY 9, 1858. (MR. LINCOLN Was Present.)

Mr. DOUGLAS said,

MR. CHAIRMAN AND FELLOW-CITIZENS: I can find no language which can adequately express my pro found gratitude for the magnificent welcome which you have extended to me on this occasion. Thi vast sea of human faces indicates how deep a interest is felt by our people in the great question which agitate the public mind, and which underli the foundations of our free institutions. A reception like this, so great in numbers that no human voice can be heard to its countless thousands,--so enthu siastic that no one individual can be the object o such enthusiasm,-clearly shows that there is som great principle which sinks deep in the heart of the masses, and involves the rights and the liberties of whole people, that has brought you together with a unanimity and a cordiality never before excelled if, indeed, equalled, on any occasion. I have not the vanity to believe that it is any personal complimen

to me.

It is an expression of your devotion to that grea principle of self-government, to which my life for many years past has been, and in the future will be devoted. If there is any one principle dearer and more sacred than all others in free governments, it i

that which asserts the exclusive right of a free people to form and adopt their own fundamental law, and o manage and regulate their own internal affairs and domestic institutions.

When I found an effort being made during the recent session of Congress to force a constitution upon the people of Kansas against their will, and to force that State into the Union with a constitution which her people had rejected by more than ten thousand, I felt bound as a man of honor and a representative of Illinois, bound by every consideration of duty, of idelity, and of patriotism, to resist to the utmost of my power the consummation of that fraud. With others, I did resist it, and resisted it successfully until the attempt was abandoned. We forced them to refer that constitution back to the people of Kansas, to be accepted or rejected as they shall decide at an election which is fixed for the first Monday in August next. It is true that the mode of reference, and the form of the submission, was not such as I could sanction with my vote, for the reason that it discriminated between free States and slave States; providing that if Kansas consented to come

under the Lecompton Constitution it should be received with a population of thirty-five thousand; but that if she demanded another constitution, more consistent with the sentiments of her people and their feelings, that it should not be received into the Union until she had 93,420 inhabitants. I did not consider that mode of submission fair, for the reason that any election is a mockery which is not tree, that any election is a fraud upon the rights of

the people which holds out inducements for affirma tive votes, and threatens penalties for negative votes But whilst I was not satisfied with the mode of sub mission, whilst I resisted it to the last, demanding a fair, a just, a free mode of submission, still, wher the law passed placing it within the power of the people of Kansas at that election to reject the Lecompton Constitution, and then make another in harmony with their principles and their opinions, did not believe that either the penalties on the on hand, or the inducements on the other, would forc that people to accept a constitution to which they are irreconcilably opposed. All I can say is, tha if their votes can be controlled by such consideration all the sympathy which has been expended upor them has been misplaced, and all the efforts that have been made in defence of their right to self-govern ment have been made in an unworthy cause.

Hence, my friends, I regard the Lecompton battl as having been fought, and the victory won, becaus the arrogant demand for the admission of Kansa under the Lecompton Constitution unconditionally whether her people wanted it or not, has bee abandoned, and the principle which recognizes th right of the people to decide for themselves has bee submitted in its place.

Fellow-citizens, while I devoted my best energie --all my energies, mental and physical-to th vindication of the great principle, and whilst th result has been such as will enable the people c Kansas to come into the Union with such a constitu tion as they desire, yet the credit of this great mora

victory is to be divided among a large number of men of various and different political creeds. I was rejoiced when I found in this great contest the Republican party coming up manfully and sustaining the principle that the people of each Territory, when coming into the Union, have the right to decide for themselves whether slavery shall or shall not exist within their limits. I have seen the time when that principle was controverted. I have seen the time when all parties did not recognize the right of a people to have slavery or freedom, to tolerate or prohibit slavery as they deemed best, but claimed that power for the Congress of the United States, regardless of the wishes of the people to be affected by it; and when I found upon the Crittenden-Montgomery bill the Republicans and Americans of the North, and I may say, too, some glorious Americans and old-line Whigs from the South, like Crittenden and is patriotic associates, joined with a portion of the Democracy to carry out and vindicate the right of the people to decide whether slavery should or should not exist within the limits of Kansas, I was rejoiced within my secret soul, for I saw an indication that the American people, when they came to understand the principle, would give it their cordial support.

The Crittenden-Montgomery bill was as fair and as perfect an exposition of the doctrine of popular Sovereignty as could be carried out by any bill that man ever devised. It proposed to refer the Lecompton Constitution back to the people of Kansas, and give them the right to accept or reject it as they pleased, at a fair election, held in pursuance of law,

and in the event of their rejecting it, and forming another in its stead, to permit them to come into th Union on an equal footing with the original States It was fair and just in all of its provisions. I gav it my cordial support, and was rejoiced when I foun that it passed the House of Representatives, and a one time I entertained high hope that it would pas the Senate.

I regard the great principle of popular sovereignt as having been vindicated and made triumphan in this land as a permanent rule of public policy i the organization of Territories and the admission o new States. Illinois took her position upon thi principle many years ago. You all recollect that i 1850, after the passage of the Compromise measure of that year, when I returned to my home there wa great dissatisfaction expressed at my course in sup porting those measures. I appeared before th people of Chicago at a mass meeting, and vindicate each and every one of those measures; and b reference to my speech on that occasion, whic was printed and circulated broadcast throughou the State at the time, you will find that I then an there said that those measures were all founded upo the great principle that every people ought t possess the right to form and regulate their ow domestic institutions in their own way, and tha that right being possessed by the people of the State I saw no reason why the same principle shoul not be extended to all of the Territories of th United States. A general election was held in th State a few months afterwards, for members of th