legislate on the subject, and this has been one of the causes by which
you have been disturbed. You have been called upon to make war against
a law which would never have been enacted, if each State had
faithfully discharged the obligation imposed by the compact of the
Constitution. [Cheers.]

There is another question connected with this negro agitation. It is
in relation to the right to hold slaves in the Territories. What power
has Congress to declare what shall be property? None, in the territory
or elsewhere. Have the States by separate legislation the power to
prescribe the condition upon which a citizen may enter on and enjoy
the common property of the United States? Clearly not. Shall those who
first go into the territory, deprive any citizen of the United States
subsequently emigrating thither, of those rights which belong to him
as an equal owner of the soil? Certainly not. Sovereignty jurisdiction
can only pass to these inhabitants when the States, the owners of that
territory, shall recognize the inhabitants as an independent
community, and admit it to become an equal State of the Union. Until
then the Constitution and laws of the United States must be the rules
governing within the limits of a territory. The Constitution
recognizes all property gives equal privileges to every citizen of the
States; and it would be a violation of its fundamental principles to
attempt any discrimination. [Applause.] Viewed in any of its phases,
political, moral, social, general, or local, what is there to sustain
this agitation in relation to other people's negroes, unless it be a
bridge over which to pass into office--a ready capital in politics
available to missionaries staving at home-reformers of things which
they do not go to learn--preachers without and audience--overseers
without laborers and without wages--war-horses who snuff the battle
afar off, and cry: " Aha! aha! I am afar off from the battle." [Great