Among the interrogatories that Judge Douglas propounded to me at
Freeport, there was one in about this language:

"Are you opposed to the acquisition of any further territory to the
United States, unless slavery shall first be prohibited therein?"

I answered, as I thought, in this way: that I am not generally opposed to
the acquisition of additional territory, and that I would support a
proposition for the acquisition of additional territory according as my
supporting it was or was not calculated to aggravate this slavery
question amongst us. I then proposed to Judge Douglas another
interrogatory, which was correlative to that: "Are you in favor of
acquiring additional territory, in disregard of how it may affect us upon
the slavery question?" Judge Douglas answered,--that is, in his own way
he answered it. I believe that, although he took a good many words to
answer it, it was a little more fully answered than any other. The
substance of his answer was that this country would continue to expand;
that it would need additional territory; that it was as absurd to suppose
that we could continue upon our present territory, enlarging in
population as we are, as it would be to hoop a boy twelve years of age,
and expect him to grow to man's size without bursting the hoops. I
believe it was something like that. Consequently, he was in favor of the
acquisition of further territory as fast as we might need it, in
disregard of how it might affect the slavery question. I do not say this
as giving his exact language, but he said so substantially; and he would
leave the question of slavery, where the territory was acquired, to be
settled by the people of the acquired territory. ["That's the doctrine."]
May be it is; let us consider that for a while. This will probably, in
the run of things, become one of the concrete manifestations of this