But to return to the argument I was making. I said that Congress had
no power to legislate upon what should be property anywhere; that
Congress had no power to discriminate between the citizens of the
different States who should go into the Territories, the common
property of all the States, but that those Territories of right
remained open to every citizen, and every species of property
recognized in the Constitution, until the inhabitants should become a
people, form a fundamental law for themselves, and, as authorized by
the Constitution, assume the powers, duties, and obligations of a
State. And now, my friends, I would ask you, further, of what value
would a congressional decision upon that subject be? If it be a
constitutional right, as I contend it is, then it is a matter for
judicial decision. If Congress should assert that such is not the
right of each of our citizens, and the courts appointed as an arbiter
in such cases should decide that it is their right, the enactment
would, therefore, be void. It, on the other hand, it is not a right,
but Congress should assert it to be one, and the courts should declare
that no such right exists under the Constitution, then, Congress has
no power to create it; and it is in this sense that Congress has not
the power to establish or prohibit slavery anywhere. [Applause.]

What, then, has been the foundation of all this controversy? Your
candidate has justly pointed out to you that unpatriotic struggle for
sectional aggrandizement which has brought about this contest--a
contest, as it were, between two contending powers for national
predominance--a contest upon the one side to enlarge the majority it
now possesses, and a contest upon the other side to recover the power
it has lost, and become the majority. This is the attitude of hostile
nations, and not of States bound together in fraternal unity. This is
the feeling that one by one is cutting the strands which originally