And well may he cling to that
principle! If he has any parental feeling, well may he cling to it. That
principle is the only shred left of his original Nebraska doctrine.
Under the Dred Scott decision "squatter sovereignty" squatted out of
existence, tumbled down like temporary scaffolding; like the mould at
the foundry, served through one blast, and fell back into loose sand;
helped to carry an election, and then was kicked to the winds. His late
joint struggle with the Republicans, against the Lecompton Constitution,
involves nothing of the original Nebraska doctrine. That struggle was
made on a point--the right of a people to make their own
constitution--upon which he and the Republicans have never differed.
The several points of the Dred Scott decision, in connection with
Senator Douglas's "care not" policy, constitute the piece of machinery,
in its present state of advancement. This was the third point gained.
The points of that machinery are:
Firstly. That no negro slave, imported as such from Africa, and no
descendant of such slave, can ever be a citizen of any State, in the
sense of that term as used in the Constitution of the United States.
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