Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/124

90 popular sovereignty has received at the hands of the people at the last State elections all over the Union, it is a characteristic sign of the times that even one of his political friends, an anti-Lecompton Democrat, recently went so far as to declare on the floor of Congress that he would not vote for Mr. Douglas if nominated by the Charleston Convention, unless a clear and unequivocal construction were affixed to the re-affirmation of the Cincinnati platform. A wise precaution, indeed! But whatever construction might be given to the Cincinnati platform, what will that gentleman do with the double-faced platform which Mr. Douglas has laid down for himself? What will the abstract pledge of a convention be worth to him, if Mr. Douglas's principles pledge him to nothing? What will he do with a man who, when pressed to take an unequivocal position, is always ready to sneak behind a superior authority, declaring that “these are questions to be settled by the courts”?

Mr. Douglas's position is certainly a very perplexing one. On one side he is ostracised by the Administration Democracy for his illogical and unconstitutional doctrine, that the legislature of a territory has control over slavery; and on the other hand one of his nearest friends, Mr. Morris, of Illinois, in his recent speech on the President's message, denounces the doctrine that slave property may be carried into the territories, just like other property, as an atrocious “abomination.” Was Mr. Morris not aware that this “abomination” is the identical doctrine advocated by Mr. Douglas in his New Orleans speech? Let Mr. Morris examine the record of Judge Douglas, and he will find out that whatever abominations Mr. Buchanan may bring forward in his message, he advocates none that is not a direct logical consequence of Mr. Douglas's own admissions.

I see the time coming when many of those who rallied