encroachments of the government."

At the time of the adoption of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, it certainly
was understood that the constitutional rights to take slaves into any
territory of the United States should thenceforth be regarded as a
judicial question; and therefore special provision was made to
facilitate the bringing of such questions before the Supreme Court of
the United States. After the decision to which reference has just been
made, the prominent advocate of the bill at the time of its enactment
should have been estopped from recurring to his "squatter sovereignty"
heresies, though the decision should have been different from his
anticipation or desire. And as much interest has been felt in relation
to his position, and some inquiry has been made as to my view of it, I
will here say, that I consider him as having recanted the better
opinions announced by him in 1854, and that I cannot be compelled to
choose between men, one of whom asserts the power of Congress to
deprive us of a constitutional right, and the other only denies the
power of Congress, in order to transfer it to the territorial
legislature. Neither the one nor the other has any authority to sit in
judgment on our rights under the Constitution.

Between such positions, Mississippi cannot have a preference, because
she cannot recognize anything tolerable in either of them.

Having called your attention to the speech made at Portland, to show
that other parts of it disprove the construction put upon the
paragraph, which was taken from it, and reported to be a part of the
speech delivered at Bangor, it may be as well on this occasion to
state the circumstances under which the speech was made at Portland.
Immediately preceding the State election, I was invited, by the