Douglas called attention to Lincoln’s explanation of his house-divided-against-itself argument.  It still seemed to him to invite a war of sections.  Mr. Lincoln had said that he had no wish to see the people enter into the Southern States and interfere with slavery:  for his part, he was equally opposed to a sectional agitation to control the institutions of other States.[695] Again, Mr. Lincoln had said that he proposed, so far as in him lay, to secure a reversal of the Dred Scott decision.  How, asked Douglas, will he accomplish this?  There can be but one way:  elect a Republican President who will pack the bench with Republican justices.  Would a court so constituted command respect?[696]

As to the effect of the Dred Scott decision upon slavery in the Territories, Douglas had only this to say:  “With or without that decision, slavery will go just where the people want it, and not one inch further.”  “Hence, if the people of a Territory want slavery, they will encourage it by passing affirmatory laws, and the necessary police regulations, patrol laws, and slave code; if they do not want it they will withhold that legislation, and by withholding it slavery is as dead as if it was prohibited by a constitutional prohibition, especially if, in addition, their legislation is unfriendly, as it would be if they were opposed to it.  They could pass such local laws and police regulations as would drive slavery out in one day, or one hour, if they were opposed to it, and therefore, so far as the question of slavery in the Territories is concerned, so far as the principle of popular sovereignty is concerned, in its practical operation, it matters not how the Dred Scott case may be decided with reference to the Territories."[697]

The closing words of the speech approached dangerously near to bathos.  Douglas pictured himself standing beside the deathbed of Clay and pledging his life to the advocacy of the great principle expressed in the compromise measures of 1850, and later in the Kansas-Nebraska Act.  Strangely enough he had given the same pledge to “the god-like Webster."[698] This filial reverence for Clay and Webster, whom Douglas had fought with all the weapons of partisan warfare, must have puzzled those Whigs in his audience who were guileless enough to accept such statements at their face value.

Devoted partisans accompanied Douglas to Springfield, on the following day.  In spite of the frequent downpours of rain and the sultry atmosphere, their enthusiasm never once flagged.  On board the same train, surrounded by good-natured enemies, was Lincoln, who was also to speak at the capital.[699] Douglas again found a crowd awaiting him.  He had much the same things to say.  Perhaps his arraignment of Lincoln’s policy was somewhat more severe, but he turned the edges of his thrusts by a courteous reference to his opponent, “with whom he anticipated no personal collision.”  For the first time he alluded to Lincoln’s charge of conspiracy, but only to remark casually, “If Mr. Lincoln deems me a conspirator of that kind, all I have to say is that I do not think so badly of the President of the United States, and the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest judicial tribunal on earth, as to believe that they were capable in their actions and decision of entering into political intrigues for partisan purposes."[700]