slavery in the Territories beyond the power of the people to control it by law, and guaranteed to every citizen the right to go there and be protected in the enjoyment of his slave property; then every member of Congress would be in duty bound to supply adequate protection, if the rights of property should be invaded.  Not only so, but another conclusion would follow,—­if the Constitution should be held to establish slavery in the Territories beyond the power of the people to control it,—­Congress would be bound to provide adequate protection for slave property everywhere, in the States as well as in the Territories.

Douglas immediately went on to show that such was not the decision of the Court in the Dred Scott case.  The Court had held that “the right of property in slaves is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution.”  Yes, but where?  Why in that provision which speaks of persons “held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof”; not under the Constitution, not under the laws of Congress, Douglas emphasized, but under the laws of the particular State where such service is due. And so, when the Court declared that “the government, in express terms, is pledged to protect it [slave property] in all future time,” it added “if the slave escapes from his owner.”  “This is the only contingency,” Douglas maintained, “in which the Federal Government is authorized, required, or permitted to interfere with slavery in the States or Territories; and in that case only for the purpose of ’guarding and protecting the owner in his rights’ to reclaim his slave property.”  Slave-owners, therefore, who moved with their property to a Territory, must hold it like all other property, subject to local law, and look to local authorities for its protection.

One other question remained:  was the word “State,” as used in the clause just cited, intended to include Territories?  Douglas so contended.  Otherwise, “the Territories must become a sanctuary for all fugitives from service and justice.”  In numerous clauses in the Constitution, the Territories were recognized as States.

Clever as this reasoning was, it clearly was not a fair exposition of the opinion of the Court in the case of Dred Scott.  If the Court did not deny the right of a territorial legislature to interfere with slave property, it certainly left that proposition open to fair inference by the phrasing and emphasis of the critical passages.  It should be noted that Douglas, in quoting the decision, misplaced the decisive clause so as to bring it in juxtaposition to the reference to the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution, thus redistributing the emphasis and confusing the real significance of the foregoing paragraph.[798] Douglas stated subsequently that he did not believe the decision of the Court reached the power of a territorial legislature, because there was no territorial legislature in the record nor any allusion to one; because there