is perfect and complete under the Nebraska Bill.  I hope Mr. Lincoln will deem my answer satisfactory on this point.”  This is the distinct assertion of the power of territorial legislation to admit or exclude slavery; of the first in the race of migration who reach a territory, the common property of the people of the United States to enact laws for the exclusion of other joint owners of the territory, who may in the exercise of their equal right to enter the common property, choose to take with them property recognized by the Constitution, built not acceptable to the first emigrants to the Territory.  That Senator had too often and too fully discussed with me the question of “squatter sovereignty” to be justified in thus mistaking my opinion.  The difference between us is as wide as that of one who should assert the right to rob from him who admitted the power.  It is true, as I stated it at that time, all property requires protection from the society in the midst of which it is held.  This necessity does not confer a right to destroy, but rather creates an obligation to protect.  It is true as I stated it, that slave property peculiarly requires the protection of society, and would ordinarily become valueless in the midst of a community, which would seek to seduce the slave front his master, and conceal him whilst absconding, and as jurors protect each other in any suit which the master might bring for damages.  The laws of the United States, through the courts of the United States, might enable the master to recover the slave wherever he could find him.  But you all know, in such a community as I have supposed, that a slave inclined to abscond would become utterly useless, and that was the extent of the admission.

The extract on which reliance has been placed was taken from a speech made at Portland, and both before and after the extract, the language employed conclusively disproves the construction, which unfriendly criticism has put upon the detached passage.  Immediately preceding it, the following language was used: 

“The Territory being the common property of States, equals in the Union, and bound by the Constitution which recognizes property in slaves, it is an abuse of terms to call aggression the migration into that Territory of one of its joint owners, because carrying with him any species of property recognized by the Constitution of the United States.  The Federal Government has no power to declare what is property enywhere.{sic} The power of each State cannot extend beyond its own limits.  As a consequence, therefore, whatever is property in any of the States, must be so considered in any of the territories of the United States until they reach to the dignity of community independence, when the subject matter will be entirely under the control of the people, and be determined by their fundamental law.  If the inhabitants of any territory should refuse to enact such laws and police regulations as would give security to their