Judge Douglas makes use of the above quotation, and finds a great deal of fault with it.  He deals unfairly with me, and tries to make the people of this State believe that I advocated dangerous doctrines in my Springfield speech.  Let us see if that portion of my Springfield speech of which Judge Douglas complains so bitterly, is as objectionable to others as it is to him.  We are, certainly, far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation.  On the fourth day of January, 1854, Judge Douglas introduced the Kansas-Nebraska bill.  He initiated a new policy, and that policy, so he says, was to put an end to the agitation of the slavery question.  Whether that was his object or not I will not stop to discuss, but at all events some kind of a policy was initiated; and what has been the result?  Instead of the quiet and good feeling which were promised us by the self-styled author of Popular Sovereignty, we have had nothing but ill-feeling and agitation.  According to Judge Douglas, the passage of the Nebraska bill would tranquilize the whole country—­there would be no more slavery agitation in or out of Congress, and the vexed question would be left entirely to the people of the Territories.  Such was the opinion of Judge Douglas, and such were the opinions of the leading men of the Democratic Party.  Even as late as the spring of 1856 Mr. Buchanan said, a short time subsequent to his nomination by the Cincinnati convention, that the territory of Kansas would be tranquil in less than six weeks.  Perhaps he thought so, but Kansas has not been and is not tranquil, and it may be a long time before she may be so.

We all know how fierce the agitation was in Congress last winter, and what a narrow escape Kansas had from being admitted into the Union with a constitution that was detested by ninety-nine hundredths of her citizens.  Did the angry debates which took place at Washington during the last season of Congress lead you to suppose that the slavery agitation was settled?

An election was held in Kansas in the month of August, and the constitution which was submitted to the people was voted down by a large majority.  So Kansas is still out of the Union, and there is a probability that she will remain out for some time.  But Judge Douglas says the slavery question is settled.  He says the bill he introduced into the Senate of the United States on the 4th day of January, 1854, settled the slavery question forever!  Perhaps he can tell us how that bill settled the slavery question, for if he is able to settle a question of such great magnitude he ought to be able to explain the manner in which he does it.  He knows and you know that the question is not settled, and that his ill-timed experiment to settle it has made it worse than it ever was before.