The objection raised by Clayton still remained:  how was it possible to reconcile congressional non-intervention with the right of Congress to revise territorial laws?  Now Douglas had never contended that the right of the people to self-government in the Territories was complete as against the power of Congress.  He had never sought to confer upon them more than a relative degree of self-government—­“the power to regulate their domestic institutions.”  He could not, and he did not, deny the truth and awkwardness of Clayton’s contention.  Where, then, demanded his critics, was the guarantee that the Kansas-Nebraska bill would banish the slavery controversies from Congress?  This challenge could not go unanswered.  Without other explanation, Douglas moved to strike out the provision requiring all territorial laws to be submitted to Congress.[481] But did this divest Congress of the power of revision?  On this point Douglas preserved a discreet silence.

Recognizing also the incongruity of giving an absolute veto power to a governor who would be appointed by the President, Douglas proposed a suspensive, in place of an absolute, veto power.  A two-thirds vote in each branch of the territorial legislature would override the governor’s negative.[482] Chase now tried to push Douglas one step farther on the same slippery road.  “Can it be said,” he asked, “that the people of a territory will enjoy self-government when they elect only their legislators and are subject to a governor, judges, and a secretary appointed by the Federal Executive?” He would amend by making all these officers elective.[483] Douglas extricated himself from this predicament by saying simply that these officers were charged with federal rather than with territorial duties.[484] The amendment was promptly negatived.  Yet seven years later, this very proposition was indorsed by Douglas under peculiar circumstances.  At this time in 1854, it would have effected nothing short of a revolution in American territorial policy; and it might have altered the whole history of Kansas.

Despite asseverations to the contrary, there were Southern men in Congress who nourished the tacit hope that another slave State might be gained west of the Missouri.  There was a growing conviction among Southern people that the possession of Kansas at least might be successfully contested.[485] At all events, no barrier to Southern immigration into the Territory was allowed to remain in the bill.  Objection was raised to the provision, common to nearly all territorial bills, that aliens, who had declared their intention of becoming citizens, should be permitted to vote in territorial elections.  In a contest with the North for the possession of the territorial government, the South would be at an obvious disadvantage, if the homeless aliens in the North could be colonized in Kansas, for there was no appreciable alien population in the Southern States.[486] So it was that Clayton’s amendment, to restrict the right to vote and to hold office to citizens of the United States, received the solid vote of the South in the Senate.  It is significant that Douglas voted with his section on this important issue.  There can be no better proof of his desire that freedom should prevail in the new Territories.  The Clayton amendment, however, passed the Senate by a close vote.[487]