Bill the people of a State as well as Territory were to be left "perfectly free," "subject only to the Constitution." Why mention a State? They were gislating for Territories, and not for or about States. Certainly the people of a State are and ught to be subject to the Constitution of the United States; but why is mention of this lugged into this merely Territorial law? Why are the people of a Territory and the people of a State therein lumped together, and their relation to the Constitution therein treated as being precisely the same? While the opinion of the court, by Chief Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott case, and the separate opinions of all the concurring Judges, expressly declare that the Constitution of the United States neither permits Congress nor a Territorial Legislature to exclude slavery from any United States Territory, they all omit to declare whether or not the same Consitution permits a State, or the people of a State, to Exclude it. Possibly, this is a mere omission; but ho can be quite sure, if McLean or Curtis had ught to get into the opinion a declaration of unmited power in the people of a State to exclude Lavery from their limits, just as Chase and Mace sought to get such declaration, in behalf of the people of a Territory, into the Nebraska Bill,-I ask, Tho can be quite sure that it would not have been voted down in the one case as it had been in the other? The nearest approach to the point of declarng the power of a State over slavery is made by Judge Nelson. He approaches it more than once, Using the precise idea, and almost the language, too, of the Nebraska Act. On one occasion, his exact language is, "Except in cases where the power is restrained by the Constitution of the United States the law of the State is supreme over the subject o slavery within its jurisdiction." In what cases the power of the States is so restrained by the Unite States Constitution, is left an open question, pre cisely as the same question, as to the restraint on th power of the Territories, was left open in the Ne braska Act. Put this and that together, and w have another nice little niche, which we may, er long, see filled with another Supreme Court decision declaring that the Constitution of the United State does not permit a State to exclude slavery from it limits. And this may especially be expected if th doctrine of "care not whether slavery be vote down or voted up" shall gain upon the public min sufficiently to give promise that such a decision ca be maintained when made. Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks being alike lawful in all the States. Welcome unwelcome, such decision is probably coming, an will soon be upon us, unless the power of the preser political dynasty shall be met and overthrow We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that th people of Missouri are on the verge of making the State free, and we shall awake to the reality instea that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slay State. To meet and overthrow the power of th dynasty is the work now before all those who wou prevent that consummation. That is what we hay to do. How can we best do it? There are those who denounce us openly to their cwn friends, and yet whisper us softly that Senator Douglas is the aptest instrument there is with which 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 ing is better than a dead lion." Judge Douglas, if not a dead lion, for this work is at least a caged and oothless one. How can he oppose the advances of slavery? He don't care anything about it. His rowed mission is impressing the "public heart” care nothing about it. A leading Douglas Demoatic newspaper thinks Douglas's superior talent ill be needed to resist the revival of the African save trade. Does Douglas believe an effort to vive that trade is approaching? He has not said 5. Does he really think so? But if it is, how can he resist it? For years he has labored to prove it a Sacred right of white men to take negro slaves into the new Territories. Can he possibly show that it less a sacred right to buy them where they can be bought cheapest? And unquestionably they can be bought cheaper in Africa than in Virginia. He has dine all in his power to reduce the whole question of savery to one of a mere right of property; and, as such, how can he oppose the foreign slave trade,how can he refuse that trade in that "property" stall be "perfectly free,"-unless he does it as a protection to the home production? And as the home producers will probably not ask the pro tection, he will be wholly without a ground o opposition. Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may rightfully be wiser to-day than he was yesterday that he may rightfully change when he finds himsel wrong. But can we, for that reason, run ahead, and infer that he will make any particular change, o which he himself has given no intimation? Can w safely base our action upon any such vague infer ence? Now, as ever, I wish not to misrepresen Judge Douglas's position, question his motives, o do aught that can be personally offensive to him Whenever, if ever, he and we can come together o principle so that our cause may have assistance from his great ability, I hope to have interposed no ad ventitious obstacles. But clearly he is not now wit us; he does not pretend to be, he does not promis ever to be. - Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and con ducted by, its own undoubted friends,—those whos hands are free, whose hearts are in the work, who care for the result. Two years ago the Republica of the nation mustered over thirteen hundred tho sand strong. We did this under the single impul of resistance to a common danger, with every e ternal circumstance against us. Of strange, di cordant, and even hostile elements we gathered fro the four winds, and formed and fought the batt through, under the constant hot fire of a discipline proud, and pampered enemy. Did we brave a |