I had asked: "If, in carrying the Utah and New Mexico laws to Nebraska,
you could clear away other objection, how could you leave Nebraska
'perfectly free' to introduce slavery before she forms a constitution,
during her territorial government, while the Utah and New Mexico laws
only authorize it when they form constitutions and are admitted into the
Union?" To this Judge Douglas answered that the Utah and New Mexico laws
also authorized it before; and to prove this he read from one of their
laws, as follows: "That the legislative power of said Territory shall
extend to all rightful subjects of legislation, consistent with the
Constitution of the United States and the provisions of this act."
Now it is perceived from the reading of this that there is nothing
express upon the subject, but that the authority is sought to be implied
merely for the general provision of "all rightful subjects of
legislation." In reply to this I insist, as a legal rule of construction,
as well as the plain, popular view of the matter, that the express
provision for Utah and New Mexico coming in with slavery, if they choose,
when they shall form constitutions, is an exclusion of all implied
authority on the same subject; that Congress having the subject
distinctly in their minds when they made the express provision, they
therein expressed their whole meaning on that subject.
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