Again, Douglas’s great principle, “popular sovereignty,” as he calls it, gives you, by natural consequence, the revival of the slave trade whenever you want it.  If you question this, listen awhile, consider awhile what I shall advance in support of that proposition.

He says that it is the sacred right of the man who goes into the Territories to have slavery if he wants it.  Grant that for argument’s sake.  Is it not the sacred right of the man who don’t go there equally to buy slaves in Africa, if he wants them?  Can you point out the difference?  The man who goes into the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, or any other new Territory, with the sacred right of taking a slave there which belongs to him, would certainly have no more right to take one there than I would, who own no slave, but who would desire to buy one and take him there.  You will not say you, the friends of Judge Douglas but that the man who does not own a slave has an equal right to buy one and take him to the Territory as the other does.

A voice:  I want to ask a question.  Don’t foreign nations interfere with the slave trade?

Mr. Lincoln:  Well!  I understand it to be a principle of Democracy to whip foreign nations whenever, they interfere with us.

Voice:  I only asked for information.  I am a Republican myself.

Mr. Lincoln:  You and I will be on the best terms in the world, but I do not wish to be diverted from the point I was trying to press.

I say that Douglas’s popular sovereignty, establishing his sacred right in the people, if you please, if carried to its logical conclusion gives equally the sacred right to the people of the States or the Territories themselves to buy slaves wherever they can buy them cheapest; and if any man can show a distinction, I should like to hear him try it.  If any man can show how the people of Kansas have a better right to slaves, because they want them, than the people of Georgia have to buy them in Africa, I want him to do it.  I think it cannot be done.  If it is “popular sovereignty” for the people to have slaves because they want them, it is popular sovereignty for them to buy them in Africa because they desire to do so.

I know that Douglas has recently made a little effort, not seeming to notice that he had a different theory, has made an effort to get rid of that.  He has written a letter, addressed to somebody, I believe, who resides in Iowa, declaring his opposition to the repeal of the laws that prohibit the Africa slave trade.  He bases his opposition to such repeal upon the ground that these laws are themselves one of the compromises of the Constitution of the United States.  Now, it would be very interesting to see Judge Douglas or any of his friends turn, to the Constitution of the United States and point out that compromise, to show where there is any compromise in the Constitution, or provision in the Constitution; express or implied, by which the administrators of