sustained by the elections. I believe, further, that it is just as sure
to be made as to-morrow is to come, if that party shall be sustained. I
have said, upon a former occasion, and I repeat it now, that the course
of arguement that Judge Douglas makes use of upon this subject (I charge
not his motives in this), is preparing the public mind for that new Dred
Scott decision. I have asked him again to point out to me the reasons for
his first adherence to the Dred Scott decision as it is. I have turned
his attention to the fact that General Jackson differed with him in
regard to the political obligation of a Supreme Court decision. I have
asked his attention to the fact that Jefferson differed with him in
regard to the political obligation of a Supreme Court decision. Jefferson
said that "Judges are as honest as other men, and not more so." And he
said, substantially, that whenever a free people should give up in
absolute submission to any department of government, retaining for
themselves no appeal from it, their liberties were gone. I have asked his
attention to the fact that the Cincinnati platform, upon which he says he
stands, disregards a time-honored decision of the Supreme Court, in
denying the power of Congress to establish a National Bank. I have asked
his attention to the fact that he himself was one of the most active
instruments at one time in breaking down the Supreme Court of the State
of Illinois because it had made a decision distasteful to him,--a
struggle ending in the remarkable circumstance of his sitting down as one
of the new Judges who were to overslaugh that decision; getting his title
of Judge in that very way.

So far in this controversy I can get no answer at all from Judge Douglas
upon these subjects. Not one can I get from him, except that he swells
himself up and says, "All of us who stand by the decision of the Supreme
Court are the friends of the Constitution; all you fellows that dare
question it in any way are the enemies of the Constitution." Now, in this