determine by a vote whether it is the wish of the people of the proposed State to be admitted into the Union at that time; and, if so, shall proceed to form a constitution, and take all necessary steps for the establishment of a State government, in conformity with the Federal Constitution, subject to such limitations and restrictions as to the mode and manner of its approval or ratification by the people of the proposed State as they may have prescribed by law, and shall be entitled to admission into the Union as a State under such constitution, thus fairly and legally made, with or without slavery, as said constitution may prescribe.

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That for the purpose of insuring, as far as possible, that the elections authorized by this act may be fair and free, the Governor, United States District Attorney, and Secretary of the Territory of Kansas, and the presiding officers of the two branches of its legislature,.. are hereby constituted a board of commissioners to carry into effect the provisions of this act, and to use all the means necessary and proper to that end... The election hereby authorized shall continue one day only, and shall not be continued later than sundown on that day...

SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That in the election hereby authorized, all white male inhabitants of said Territory, over the age of twenty-one years, who possess the qualifications which were required by the laws of said Territory for a legal voter at the last general election for the members of the territorial legislature, and none others, shall be allowed to vote; and this shall be the only qualification required to entitle the voter to the right of suffrage in said election...

APPROVED, May 4, 1858.

159. THE FREEPORT HERESY

August 27, 1858 at Freeport, Illinois in answer to a question of Lincoln's, Douglas announced the so-called "unfriendly legislation theory to demonstrate the ability of the people in a territory to exclude slavery if they wished. Douglas had previously taken similar ground, but to this utterance was attached the name of " The Freeport Heresy. To the pro-slave group the doctrine branded Douglas as a deserter from the cause of slavery in the territories; thenceforth he had no chance of their support.

Illinois Historical Collections, Lincoln Series, Vol. 1, pp. 148, 152, 161. Springfield, 1908.

MR. LINCOLN'S SPEECH.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: On Saturday last, Judge Douglas and myself first met in public discussion... In the course of that opening argument Judge Douglas proposed to me seven distinct interrogatories. In my speech of an hour and a half, I attended to some other parts of his speech, and incidentally, as I thought, answered one of the interrogatories then. I then distinctly intimated to him that I would answer the rest of his interrogatories... I now propose that I will answer any of the interrogatories upon condition that he will answer questions from me not exceeding the same number...

I now proceed to propound to the Judge the interrogatories, ..

Q. 2. Can the people of a United States Territory, in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a State constitution?

MR. DOUGLAS'S REPLY.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:..

The next question propounded to me by Mr. Lincoln is, Can the people of a Territory in any lawful way, against the wishes of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from their limits prior to the formation of a State constitution? I answer emphatically, as Mr. Lincoln has heard me answer a hundred times from every stump in Illinois, that in my opinion the people of a Territory can, by lawful means, exclude slavery from their limits prior to the formation of a State constitution... It matters not what way the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to the abstract question whether slavery may or may not go into a Territory under the Constitution, the people have the lawful means to introduce it or exclude it as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist a day or an hour anywhere, unless it is supported by local police regulations. Those police regulations can only be established by the local legislature; and if the people are opposed to slavery, they will elect representatives to that body who will by unfriendly legislation effectually prevent the introduction of it into their midst. If, on the contrary, they are for it, their legislation will favor its

extension. Hence, no matter what the decision of the Supreme Court may be on that abstract question, still the right of the people to make a slave Territory or a free Territory is perfect and complete under the Nebraska bill...

160. SEWARD'S "IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT" SPEECH

This speech of Seward's delivered at Rochester, October 25, 1858 is important as showing the conviction of an old, sane, nationally known and trusted political leader as to the lengths to which the slavery controversy would go. Utterances of this sort by men of Seward's type were convincing the South that disunion was inevitable.

In George E. Baker, The Works of William H. Seward, pp. 289302, Boston, 1884.

THE main subject, then, is, whether the democratic party deserves to retain the confidence of the American people. In attempting to prove it unworthy, I think that I am not actuated by prejudices against that party, or by prepossessions in favor of its adversary; for I have learned, by some experience, that virtue and patriotism, vice and selfishness, are found in all parties, and that they differ less in their motives than in the policies they pursue.

Our country is a theatre, which exhibits, in full operation, two radically different political systems; the one resting on the basis of servile or slave labor, the other on the basis of voluntary labor of freemen.

The laborers who are enslaved are all negroes, or persons more or less purely of African derivation. But this is only accidental. The principle of the system is, that labor in every society, by whomsoever performed, is necessarily unintellectual, groveling and base; and that the laborer, equally for his own good and for the welfare of the state, ought to be enslaved. The white laboring man, whether native or foreigner, is not enslaved, only because he cannot, as yet, be reduced to bondage.

One of the chief elements of the value of human life is freedom in the pursuit of happiness. The slave system is not only intolerable, unjust, and inhuman, towards the laborer, whom, only because he is a laborer, it loads down with chains and converts into merchandise, but is scarcely less severe upon the freeman, to whom, only because he

is a laborer from necessity, it denies facilities for employment, and whom it expels from the community because it cannot enslave and convert him into merchandise also...

The slave system is one of constant danger, distrust, suspicion, and watch fulness. It debases those whose toil alone can produce wealth and resources for defense, to the lowest degree of which human nature is capable, to guard against mutiny and insurrection, and thus wastes energies which otherwise might be employed in national development and aggrandizement.

The free-labor system educates all alike, and by opening all the fields of industrial employment, and all the departments of authority, to the unchecked and equal rivalry of all classes of men, at once secures universal contentment, and brings into the highest possible activity all the physical, moral and social energies of the whole state. In states where the slave system prevails, the masters, directly or indirectly, secure all political power, and constitute a ruling aristocracy. In states where the free-labor system prevails, universal suffrage necessarily obtains, and the state inevitably becomes, sooner or later, a republic or democracy.

Russia yet maintains slavery, and is a despotism. Most of the other European states have abolished slavery, and adopted the system of free labor. It was the antagonistic political tendencies of the two systems which the first Napoleon was contemplating when he predicted that Europe would ultimately be either all Cossack or all republican. Never did human sagacity utter a more pregnant truth. The two systems are at once perceived to be incongruous. But they are more than incon-gruous they are incompatible. They never have permanently existed together in one country, and they never can...

Hitherto, the two systems have existed in different states, but side by side within the American Union... Thus, these antagonistic systems are continually coming into closer contact, and collision results.

Shall I tell you what this collision means?.. It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slaveholding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation. Either the cotton and rice-fields of South Carolina and the sugar plantations of Louisiana will ultimately be tilled by free labor, and Charleston and New Orleans become marts for legitimate merchandise alone, or else the rye-fields and wheat-fields of Massachusetts and New York must again be surrendered by their farmers to slave culture and to the production of slaves, and Boston and New York become once more markets for trade in the bodies and souls of men... Startling as this saying may

appear to you, fellow citizens, it is by no means an original or even a moderate one. Our forefathers knew it to be true, and unanimously acted upon it when they framed the constitution of the United States... They knew that either the one or the other system must exclusively prevail.

Unlike too many of those who in modern time invoke their authority, they had a choice between the two. They preferred the system of free labor, and they determined to organize the government, and so to direct its activity, that that system should surely and certainly prevail... It is true that they necessarily and wisely modified this policy of freedom, by leaving it to the several states, affected as they were by differing circumstances, to abolish slavery in their own way and at their own pleasure, instead of confiding that duty to congress; and that they secured to the slave states, while yet retaining the system of slavery, a three-fifths representation of slaves in the federal government, until they should find themselves able to relinquish it with safety...

It remains to say on this point only one word, to guard against misapprehension. If these states are to again become universally slaveholding, I do not pretend to say with what violations of the constitution that end shall be accomplished. On the other hand, while I do confidently believe and hope that my country will yet become a land of universal freedom, I do not expect that it will be made so otherwise than through the action of the several states coöperating with the federal government, and all acting in strict conformity with their respective constitutions.

The strife and contentions concerning slavery, which gently-disposed persons so habitually deprecate, are nothing more than the ripening of the conflict which the fathers themselves not only thus regarded with favor, but which they may be said to have instituted.

It is not to be denied, however, that thus far the course of that contest has not been according to their humane anticipations and wishes. In the field of federal politics, slavery, deriving unlooked for advantages from commercial changes, and energies unforeseen from the facilities of combination between members of the slaveholding class and between that class and other property classes, early rallied, and has at length made a stand, not merely to retain its original defensive position, but to extend its sway throughout the whole Union. It is certain that the slaveholding class of American citizens indulge this high ambition, and that they derive encouragement for it from the rapid and effective political successes which they have already obtained. The plan of operation is this: By continued appliances of patronage and threats of disunion, they will keep a majority favorable to these designs