" This he called "the great principle
of popular sovereignty." When asked whether, under this act, the people
of a Territory, before its admission as a State, would have the right to
exclude slavery, he answered, "That is a question for the courts to
decide." Then came the famous "Dred Scott decision," in which the
Supreme Court held substantially that the right to hold slaves as
property existed in the Territories by virtue of the Federal
Constitution, and that this right could not be denied by any act of a
territorial government. This, of course, denied the right of the people
of any Territory to exclude slavery while they were in a territorial
condition, and it alarmed the Northern people still more. Douglas
recognized the binding force of the decision of the Supreme Court, at the
same time maintaining, most illogically, that his great principle of
popular sovereignty remained in force nevertheless. Meanwhile, the
proslavery people of western Missouri, the so-called "border ruffians,"
had invaded Kansas, set up a constitutional convention, made a
constitution of an extreme pro-slavery type, the "Lecompton
Constitution," refused to submit it fairly to a vote of the people of
Kansas, and then referred it to Congress for acceptance,--seeking thus to
accomplish the admission of Kansas as a slave State.
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