if they wanted them?  Clearly this was no invention of his because General Cass put forth the same doctrine in 1848 in his so called Nicholson letter, six years before Douglas thought of such a thing.  Then what was it that the “Little Giant” invented?  It never occurred to General Cass to call his discovery by the odd name of popular sovereignty.  He had not the face to say that the right of the people to govern “niggers” was the right of the people to govern themselves.  His notions of the fitness of things were not moulded to the brazenness of calling the right to put a hundred “niggers” through under the lash in Nebraska a “sacred” right of self-government.  And here I submit to you was Judge Douglas’s discovery, and the whole of it:  He discovered that the right to breed and flog negroes in Nebraska was popular sovereignty.

SPEECH AT CLINTON, ILLINOIS,

September 8, 1858.

The questions are sometimes asked “What is all this fuss that is being made about negroes?  What does it amount to?  And where will it end?” These questions imply that those who ask them consider the slavery question a very insignificant matter they think that it amounts to little or nothing and that those who agitate it are extremely foolish.  Now it must be admitted that if the great question which has caused so much trouble is insignificant, we are very foolish to have anything to do with it—­if it is of no importance we had better throw it aside and busy ourselves with something else.  But let us inquire a little into this insignificant matter, as it is called by some, and see if it is not important enough to demand the close attention of every well-wisher of the Union.  In one of Douglas’s recent speeches, I find a reference to one which was made by me in Springfield some time ago.  The judge makes one quotation from that speech that requires some little notice from me at this time.  I regret that I have not my Springfield speech before me, but the judge has quoted one particular part of it so often that I think I can recollect it.  It runs I think as follows: 

“We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation.  Under the operation of that policy that agitation has not only not ceased but has constantly augmented.  In my opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed.

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.  I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.  I do not expect the Union to be dissolved.  I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided.  It will become all one thing or all the other.  Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South.”