"boys" he felt himself one of the most renowned statesmen of his time,
and would frequently meet his opponents with an overbearing haughtiness,
as persons more to be pitied than to be feared. In his speech opening
the campaign of 1858, he spoke of Lincoln, whom the Republicans had dared
to advance as their candidate for "his" place in the Senate, with an air
of patronizing if not contemptuous condescension, as "a kind, amiable,
and intelligent gentleman and a good citizen." The Little Giant would
have been pleased to pass off his antagonist as a tall dwarf. He knew
Lincoln too well, however, to indulge himself seriously in such a
delusion. But the political situation was at that moment in a curious
tangle, and Douglas could expect to derive from the confusion great
advantage over his opponent.

By the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, opening the Territories to the
ingress of slavery, Douglas had pleased the South, but greatly alarmed
the North. He had sought to conciliate Northern sentiment by appending
to his Kansas-Nebraska Bill the declaration that its intent was "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 institutions in their own way, subject only to the
Constitution of the United States." This he called "the great principle
of popular sovereignty." When asked whether, under this act, the people
of a Territory, before its admission as a State, would have the right to
exclude slavery, he answered, "That is a question for the courts to
decide." Then came the famous "Dred Scott decision," in which the
Supreme Court held substantially that the right to hold slaves as
property existed in the Territories by virtue of the Federal
Constitution, and that this right could not be denied by any act of a
territorial government. This, of course, denied the right of the people
of any Territory to exclude slavery while they were in a territorial