legislating to cut off its source by the abrogation of the slave trade,
thus putting the seal of legislation against its spread. The public mind
did rest in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction.
But lately, I think--and in this I charge nothing on the Judge's
motives--lately, I think that he, and those acting with him, have placed
that institution on a new basis, which looks to the perpetuity and
nationalization of slavery. And while it is placed upon this new basis, I
say, and I have said, that I believe we shall not have peace upon the
question until the opponents of slavery arrest the further spread of it,
and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in
the course of ultimate extinction; or, on the other hand, that its
advocates will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all
the States, old as well as new, North as well as South. Now, I believe if
we could arrest the spread, and place it where Washington and Jefferson
and Madison placed it, it would be in the course of ultimate extinction,
and the public mind would, as for eighty years past, believe that it was
in the course of ultimate extinction. The crisis would be past, and the
institution might be let alone for a hundred years, if it should live so
long, in the States where it exists; yet it would be going out of
existence in the way best for both the black and the white races.

[A voice: "Then do you repudiate popular sovereignty?"]

Well, then, let us talk about popular sovereignty! what is popular
sovereignty? Is it the right of the people to have slavery or not have
it, as they see fit, in the Territories? I will state--and I have an able
man to watch me--my understanding is that popular sovereignty, as now
applied to the question of slavery, does allow the people of a Territory
to have slavery if they want to, but does not allow them not to have it
if they do not want it. I do not mean that if this vast concourse of