But this was, indeed, a "lame, illogical, evasive answer," which enabled
Lincoln to "secure an advantage in the national relations of the contest
which he held to the end."
Lincoln, in replying, agreed that "all the States have the right to do
exactly as they please about all their domestic relations, including
that of slavery." But he said that the proposition that slavery could
not enter a new country without police regulations was historically
false; and that the facts of the Dred Scott case itself showed that
there was "vigor enough in slavery to plant itself in a new country even
against unfriendly legislation." Beyond this issue of historical fact,
Douglas had already taken and still dared to maintain a position which
proved to be singularly ill chosen. The right to hold slaves as property
in the Territories had lately, to the infinite joy of the South, been
declared by the Supreme Court to be guaranteed by the Constitution; and
now Douglas had the audacity to repeat that notion of his, so abhorrent
to all friends of slavery,--that this invaluable right could be made
practically worthless by unfriendly local legislation, or even by the
negative hostility of withholding friendly legislation! From the moment
when this deadly suggestion fell from his ingenious lips, the Southern
Democracy turned upon him with vindictive hate and marked him for
destruction. He had also given himself into the hands of his avowed and
natural enemies.
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