progress, upon those questions which are common to us all, and which
belong to the memories of our fathers, and are linked with the hopes
of our children. [Applause.] If; then, without preparation, I do it in
unvarnished phrase, if I cannot carry you along with me because of the
want of that flowing diction which might catch the ear, still I ask
you to hear me for my cause, for it is the cause of our country, it is
the cause of democracy, it is the cause of human liberty. [Applause.]

Who now stand arrayed against the democratic party? The relations of
parties and the issues upon which we have been divided have changed.
What now is the basis of opposition to the democratic party? It is
twofold--interference with the negroes of other people, and
interference with the rights now secured to foreigners who expatriate
themselves and come to our land. ["Hear, hear," and applause.] To each
community belongs the right to decide for itself what institutions it
will have. To each people sovereign within their own sphere, belongs,
and to them only belongs, the right to decide what shall be property.
You have decided it for yourselves. Who shall gainsay your decision?
Mississippi has decided it for herself; who has the right to gainsay
her decision? The power of each people to rule over their domestic
affairs lies at the foundation of that Declaration of Independence to
which you owe your existence among the nations of the earth; that
declaration which led your fathers into and through the war of the
revolution. _It is that which constitutes to-day the doctrine of
State-rights, upon which it is my pride and pleasure to stand._
[Applause.] Congress has no power to determine what shall be property
anywhere. Congress has only such grants as are contained in the
Constitution. And the Constitution confers upon it no power to rule
with despotic hand over the inhabitants of the Territories. Within the
limits of those Territories, the common property of the Union, you and