Could he have cut himself loose from his bias, he would have recognized the free-State men as the really trustworthy builders of a Commonwealth.  But having taken his stand on the legality of the territorial legislature, he persisted in regarding the free-State movement as a seditious combination to subvert the territorial government established by Congress.  To the free-State men he would not accord any inherent, sovereign right to annul the laws and resist the authority of the territorial government.[555] The right of self-government was derived only from the Constitution through the organic act passed by Congress.  And then he used that expression which was used with telling effect against the theory of popular sovereignty:  “The sovereignty of a Territory remains in abeyance, suspended in the United States, in trust for the people, until they shall be admitted into the Union as a State."[556] If this was true, then popular sovereignty after all meant nothing more than local self-government, the measure of which was to be determined by Congress.  If Congress left slavery to local determination, it was only for expediency’s sake, and not by reason of any constitutional obligation.

Douglas found a vindication of his Kansas-Nebraska Act in the peaceful history of Nebraska, “to which the emigrant aid societies did not extend their operations, and into which the stream of emigration was permitted to flow in its usual and natural channels."[557] He fixed the ultimate responsibility for the disorders in Kansas upon those who opposed the principle of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and who, “failing to accomplish their purpose in the halls of Congress, and under the authority of the Constitution, immediately resorted in their respective States to unusual and extraordinary means to control the political destinies and shape the domestic institutions of Kansas, in defiance of the wishes and regardless of the rights of the people of that Territory as guaranteed by their organic law."[558]

A practical recommendation accompanied the report.  It was proposed to authorize the territorial legislature to provide for a constitutional convention to frame a State constitution, as soon as a census should indicate that there were ninety-three thousand four hundred and twenty inhabitants.[559] This bill was in substantial accord with the President’s recommendations.

The minority report was equally positive as to the cause of the trouble in Kansas and the proper remedy.  “Repeal the act of 1854, organize Kansas anew as a free Territory and all will be put right.”  But if Congress was bent on continuing the experiment, then the Territory must be reorganized with proper safeguards against illegal voting.  The only alternative was to admit the Territory as a State with its free constitution.