Sir, I am asserting, on behalf the people of the Territories, just those rights which our fathers demanded for themselves against the claim of Great Britain. Because those rights were not granted to our fathers, they went through a bloody war of seven years. Am I now to be called upon to enforce that same odious doctrine on the people of a Territory, against their consent? I say, no. Organize a Territorial government for them; give them a legislature, to be elected by their own people; give them all the powers of legislation on all questions of a local and domestic character, subject only to the Constitution; and if they make good laws, let them enjoy their blessings; and if they make bad laws, let them suffer under them until they repeal them. If the laws are unconstitutional, let those aggrieved appeal to the court-the tribunal created by the Constitution to ascertain that fact. That is the principle on which we stood in 1854. It was on that principle and that understanding we fought the great political battle and gained the great victory of 1856. How many votes do you think Mr. Buchanan would have obtained in Pennsylvania if he had then said that the Constitution of the United States plants slavery in all the Territories, and makes it the duty of the Federal Government to keep it there and maintain it at the point of the bayonet and by federal laws, in opposition to the will of the people? How many votes would he have received in Ohio, or any other free State, on such a platform? Mr. Buchanan did not then understand the doctrines of popular sovereignty and self-government in that way.

I assert that in 1856, during the whole of that campaign, I took the same position I do now, and none other; and I will show that Mr. Buchanan pledged himself to the same doctrine when he accepted the nomination of the Cincinnati Convention. In his letter of acceptance, he says, referring to the Kansas-Nebraska Act:

"The recent legislation of Congress, respecting domestic slavery. derived, as it has been, from the original and pure fountain of legitimate political power, the will of the majority, promises ere long to allay the dangerous excitement. This legislation is founded upon principles as ancient as free government itself, and, in accordance with them, has simply declared that the people of a Territory, like those of a State, shall decide for themselves whether slavery shall or shall not exist within their limits."

This extract from Mr. Buchanan's letter, shows that he then understood that the people of a Territory, like those of a State, should decide for themselves whether slavery should or should not exist within their limits. I undertake to say, that wherever I went that year, his cause was advocated on that principle, as laid down in his letter of acceptance. The people of the North, at least, certainly understood him to hold the doctrine of self-government in Territories as well as in States, and as applicable to slave property as well as to all other species of property. I undertake to say, that he would not have carried one-half the Democratic vote in any free State. if he had not been thus understood; and I hope my friend

from Mississippi had no allusion to this letter, when he said that in the next contest he did not desire "to cheat nor be cheated." I am glad that the senator from Mississippi means to have a clear, unequiVocal, specific statement of our principles, so that there shall be no cheating on either side. I intend to use language which can be repeated in Chicago as well as in New Orleans, in Charleston the same as in Boston. We live under a common Constitution. No political creed is sound or safe which cannot be proclaimed in the same sense wherever the American flag waves over American soil. If the North and the South cannot come to a common ground on the slavery question, the sooner we know it the better. The Democracy of the North hold, at least, that the people of a Territory have the same right to legislate in respect to slavery, as to all other property; and that, practically, it results in this: if they want slavery, they will have it; and if they do not want it, it shall not be forced upon them by an act of Congress. The senator from Mississippi says that doctrine is right, unless we pass an act of Congress compelling the people of a Territory to have slavery whether they want it or not. The point he wishes to arrive at, is whether we are for or against Congressional intervention. If you repudiate the doctrine of nonintervention, and form a slave code by act of Congress, when the people of a Territory refuse it, you must step off the Democratic platform. We will let you depart in peace, as you no longer belong to us; you are no longer of us when you adopt the principle of Congressional intervention, in violation of the Democratic creed. I stand here defending the great principle of non-intervention by Congress, and self-government by the people of the Territories. That is the Democratic creed. The Democracy in the northern States have so understood it. No northern Democratic State ever would have voted for Mr. Buchanan, but for the fact that he was understood to Occupy that position.

Gentlemen of the southern States, I tell you in all candor that I do not believe a Democratic candidate can ever carry any one northern Democratic State on the platform that it is the duty of the Federal Government to force the people of a Territory to have slavery when they do not want it. But if the true principles of State rights and popular sovereignty be maintained and carried out in good faith, as set forth in the Nebraska Bill, and as understood by the people in 1856, a glorious future awaits the Democracy.

Letters to Dorr and Peyton-Speeches in Ohio, and Cincinnati PlatformCharleston Convention-Presidental Aspirants-The Harper ArticleBlack's Reply-Appendix of Attorney General-Rejoinder of Senator Douglas-The Chase and Trumbull Amendments-Consistency of Senator Douglas.

DURING the spring and summer of 1859, Mr. Douglas received many letters from his personal friends, soliciting the use of his name as a candidate for the Presidency before the Charleston Convention, to one of which he replied as follows:

WASHINGTON, Wednesday, June 22, 1859.

MY DEAR SIR: I have received your letter inquiring whether my friends are at liberty to present my name in the Charleston Convention for the Presidential nomination.

Before the question can be finally determined, it will be necessary to understand distinctiy upon what issue the canvass is to be condected. If, as I have full faith they will, the Democratic party shall determine, in the Presidential election of 1860, to adhere to the principles embodied in the Compromise measures of 1850, and ratified by the people in the Presidential election of 1852, and re-affirmed in the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, and incorporated into the Cincinnati platform in 1856, as expounded by Mr. Buchanan in his letter accepting the nomination, and approved by the people—in that event my friends will be at liberty to present my name to the Convention, if they see proper to do so. If, on the contrary, it shall become the policy of the Democratic party-which I cannot anticipate to repudiate these, their time-honored principles, on which we have achieved so many patriotic triumphs, and if, in lieu of them, the Convention shall interpolate into the creed of the party such new issues

as the revival of the African slave-trade, or a Congressional slave code for the Territories, or the doctrine that the Constitution of the United States either establishes or prohibits slavery in the Territories, beyond the power of the people legally to control it as other property, it is due to candor to say that, in such an event, I could not accept the nomination if tendered to me. Trusting that this answer will be deemed sufficiently explicit, I am, very respectfully, your friend,

To J. B. DORK, Esq., Dubuque, Iowa.

S. A. DOUGLAS.

and

The publication of this letter produced immense enthusiasm among Mr. Douglas' friends all over the country, particularly throughout the Northwest, and was followed by a pressing invitation from the Democratic State Central Committee of Ohio to visit that State and address the people in their pending canvass. In consequence of the ill-health of Mr. Douglas and his family, he was only able to make three speeches in Ohio-at Columbus, Cincinnati and Wooster, in each of which places the Democracy made immense gains at the fall election, averaging one thousand votes in each county. He was met in Cincinnati by large numbers of Democrats from Kentucky, Indiana, and other adjacent States, and wherever he went was greeted with the wildest enthusiasm.

We omit to insert extracts from these speeches, which are among the ablest and best of his political life, for the reason that they relate chiefly to the line of argument which has been so fully illustrated in the previous pages of this work. These speeches appeared in the columns of the New York press the morning after their delivery, having been deemed of sufficient consequence to be telegraphed entire. A marked feature of these addresses was his solemn protest against the incorporation of any new tests of faith into the Democratic creed which would tend to divide and defeat the party, insisting upon "the re-adoption of the Cincinnati platform without the addition of a word or the subtraction of a letter."

THE HARPER ARTICLE.

In the September (1859) number of "Harper's Magazine,” Mr. Douglas published over his own name, an article entitled "Popular Sovereignty in the Territories: The Dividing Line between Federal and Local Authority." This article was read with avidity by the public, and for some days after its appearance, nothing else was talked of in political circles. It is a clear elucidation of the line that divides the authority of the Federal Government from that of local authorities; and of the great principle that every distinct political community, loyal to the Constitution and the Union, is entitled to all the rights, privileges, and immunities of self-government in respect to their local concerns and internal polity, subject only to the Constitution of the United States. He exposes the erroneous views entertained by the "Republican" party on these points: shows that the courts in a Territory derive all their powers from the Territorial legislature: that all powers conferred on Congress by the Constitution, must be exercised by Congress in the manner prescribed in the Constitution; but that Congress may establish local governments, and invest them with powers which Congress itself cannot constitutionally exercise.

He shows by the records of the provincial legislature of Virginia, that in 1772, the Virginians were unwilling to have slavery forced upon them: that in 1776, the inhuman use of the royal negative, in refusing the colony of Virginia permission to exclude slavery from her limits by law, was one of the reasons for separating from Great Britain: and that in all the thirteen colonies, slavery was regarded as a domestic question, to be considered and determined by each colony to suit itself, without the intervention of the British parliament. He proves that the principle of popular sovereignty was at