The reputed author of the Nebraska bill finds an early occasion to make
a speech at this capital indorseing the Dred Scott decision, and
vehemently denouncing all opposition to it. The new President, too,
seizes the early occasion of the Silliman letter to indorse and
strongly construe that decision, and to express his astonishment that
any different view had ever been entertained!

At length a squabble springs up between the President and the author of
the Nebraska bill, on the mere question of _fact_, whether the
Lecompton Constitution was or was not, in any just sense, made by the
people of Kansas; and in that quarrel the latter declares that all he
wants is a fair vote for the people, and that he cares not whether
slavery be voted _down_ or voted _up_. I do not understand his
declaration that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up
to be intended by him other than as an apt definition of the policy he
would impress upon the public mind--the principle for which he declares
he has suffered so much, and is ready to suffer to the end. And well
may he cling to that principle. If he has any parental feeling, well
may he cling to it. That principle is the only shred left of his
original Nebraska doctrine. Under the Dred Scott decision "squatter
sovereignty" squatted out of existence, tumbled down like temporary
scaffolding--like the mould at the foundry served through one blast and
fell back into loose sand,--helped to carry an election, and then was
kicked to the winds. His late joint struggle with the Republicans
against the Lecompton Constitution involves nothing of the original
Nebraska doctrine. That struggle was made on a point--the right of a
people to make their own constitution--upon which he and the
Republicans have never differed.