I begin with Utah. If it prove to be true, as is probable, that the
people of Utah are in open rebellion to the United States, then Judge
Douglas is in favor of repealing their territorial organization, and
attaching them to the adjoining States for judicial purposes. I say, too,
if they are in rebellion, they ought to be somehow coerced to obedience;
and I am not now prepared to admit or deny that the Judge's mode of
coercing them is not as good as any. The Republicans can fall in with it
without taking back anything they have ever said. To be sure, it would be
a considerable backing down by Judge Douglas from his much-vaunted
doctrine of self-government for the Territories; but this is only
additional proof of what was very plain from the beginning, that that
doctrine was a mere deceitful pretense for the benefit of slavery. Those
who could not see that much in the Nebraska act itself, which forced
governors, and secretaries, and judges on the people of the Territories
without their choice or consent, could not be made to see, though one
should rise from the dead.
But in all this it is very plain the Judge evades the only question the
Republicans have ever pressed upon the Democracy in regard to Utah.
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