pointed out in the Nebraska Bill the fact, that no appeal could be taken to the Supreme Court of the United States unless the amount of property in controversy was $2,000 in value, and hence that a negro could not appeal for his freedom, nor could the owner of a single slave appeal to the Supreme Court to establish his title, if he thought that his rights were violated. In order to obviate that objection, we amended the bill by providing that where the title to property in slaves, or any question of personal freedom was the point in issue, the right of appeal to the Supreme Court should exist without reference to the amount in controversy.

Thus the Kansas Nebraska Bill stood, granting all rightful power of legislation on all subjects whatsoever to the Territorial legislature, subject only to the Constitution of the United States, provided they should not pass any law taxing the property of non-residents higher than that of residents, nor any law interfering with the primary disposition of the soil, nor impose any tax on the property of the United States; but there was no exception made as to slavery. The intent was to confer on the Territorial legislature all the power we had on the subject of slavery, to let them wield it for or against slavery as the people of the Territory chose; and the understanding was, that we would abide by whatever laws they might make, provided they did not violate the Constitution of the United States; and the Supreme Court was the only tribunal that could decide that question.

STANDS BY THE NEBRASKA BILL.

Now, sir, I stand on the Kansas-Nebraska Bill as it was expounded and understood at the time, with this full power in the Territorial legislature, with the right of appeal to the Supreme Court to test the validity of its laws, and no right whatever to appeal to Congress to repeal them in the event of our not liking them. I am ready to answer the inquiry of the senator from Mississippi, whether, if I believed the Maine liquor law to be unconstitutional and wrong, and if a Territorial legislature should pass it, I would vote here to annul it? I tell him no. If the people of Kansas want a Maine liquor law, let them have it. If they do not want it, let them refuse to pass it. If they do pass it, and any citizen thinks that law violates the Constitution, let him make a case and appeal to the Supreme Court. If the court sustains his objection, the law is void. If it overrules the objection, the decision must stand until the people, who alone are to be affected by it, who alone have an interest in it, may choose to repeal it. So I say with reference to slavery. Let the Territorial legislature pass just such laws in regard to slavery as they think they have a right to enact under the Constitution of the United States. If I do not like those laws, I will not vote to repeal them; if you do not like them, you must not vote to

repeal them; but anybody aggrieved may appeal to the Supreme Court, and if they are constitutional, they must stand; if they are unconstitutional, they are void. That was the doctrine of non-intervention, as it was understood at the time the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was passed. That is the way it was explained and argued in the Senate, and in the House of Representatives, and before the country. It was distinctly understood that Congress was never to intervene for or against slavery, or for or against any other institution in the Territories; but leave the courts to decide all constitutional questions as they might arise, and the President to carry the decrees of the court into effect; and, in case of resistance to his authority in executing the judicial process, let him use, if necessary, the whole military force of the country, as provided by existing laws.

NON-INTERVENTION A DEMOCRATIC SHIBBOLETH.

I know that some gentlemen do not like the doctrine of non-intervention as well as they once did. It is now becoming fashionable to talk sneeringly of "your doctrine of non-intervention." Sir, that doctrine has been a fundamental article in the Democratic creed for years. It has been repeated over and over again in every national Democratic platform-non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the States and Territories. The Nebraska Bill was predicated on that idea-the Territorial legislature to have jurisdiction over all rightful subjects of legislation, not excepting slavery, with no appeal to Congress, but a right to appeal to the courts; and the legislation to be void, if the Supreme Court said it was unconstitutional; and valid, no matter how obnoxious, if the court said it was constitutional. Let me call attention to the language of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. Its fourteenth section provides:

"That the Constitution and all laws of the United States, which are not locally inapplicable, shall have the same force and effect in the said Territory of Nebraska as elsewhere within the United States, except the eighth section of the act preparatory to the admission of Missouri into the Union,' approved March 6, 1820, which, being INCONSISTENT WITH THE PRINCIPLE OF NON-INTERVENTION BY CONGRESS WITH SLAVERY in the States AND TERRITORIES, as recognized by the legislation of 1850, commonly called the Compromise measures, IS HEREBY DECLARED INOPERATIVE and VOID; it being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any State or TERRITORY, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people THEREOF perfectly FREE TO FORM AND REGULATE THEIR DOMESTIC INSTITUTIONS IN THEIR OWN WAY, SUBJECT ONLY TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES."

Thus, in the Nebraska Bill, it is declared that a Congressional enactment on the subject of slavery was inconsistent with the principle of non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the States and Territories. This same article of faith has gone into the various Democratic platforms, and especially into the Cincinnati platform. Every

Democrat, therefore, is pledged, by his platform and the organization of the party, against any legislation of Congress in the Territories for or against slavery, no matter how obnoxious the Territorial legislation may be If it is unconstitutional, you have your remedy; go to the court and test the question. If it is constitutional, you agreed that the people of a Territory may have it. I hold you to the agree

inent.

The whole legislative power possessed by Congress over a Territory was, by that act, conferred on the Territorial legislature. There were exceptions on three points; but slavery was not one of the exceptions. I say, then, the intent was to give to the Territorial legislature all the power that we possessed; all that could be given under the Constitution; and the understanding was, that Congress would not interfere with whatever legislation they might enact.

Now, the senator from Alabaina asks me whether the southern people, under the Constitution, have not the right to carry their slaves there? I answer, yes-the same right that you have to carry any other property. Then you ask, have they not a right to hold it there when they get it there? I answer, the same right that you have to hold any other property, subject to such local laws as the local legislature may constitutionally enact. Can you hold any other property without law to protect it? No. Then, can you hold slave property without law to protect it? No, is the answer. Then, will Congress pass laws to protect other property in the Territories? I answer, no. We have created Territorial legislatures for that pur

pose. We agreed that this government should not violate the principles of our Revolution, by making laws for a distant people, regulating their domestic concerns and affecting their rights of property, without giving them a representation. The doctrine that Congress is to regulate the rights of person and property, and the domestic concerns of a Territory, is the doctrine of the Tories of the Revolution. It is the doctrine of George III., and Lord North, his minister. Our fathers then said that they would not consent that the British parliament should pass laws touching the local and domestic concerns of the colonies, the rights of person and property, the family relations of the people of the colonies, without their consent. The parliament of Great Britain said they had the power. We said to them, "you may have the power, but you have not the moral right; it is violative of the great principles of civil liberty; violative of the rights of an Englishman, not to be affected in his property without his consent is given through his representatives." Because Great Britain insisted on exercising that identical power over these colonies, our fathers flew to arms, asserted the doctrine that every colony, every depen dency, every Territory, had a right in its own domestic legislature to pass just such laws as its people chose touching their local and donestic concerns, recognizing the right of the imperial parliament to regulate imperial affairs, as I do the right of Congress to regulate the national and federal concerns of the people of a Territory.

Sir, I am asserting, on behalf the people of the Territories, just these 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.