]--the following resolution: "Resolved, That our Liberty
and Independence are based upon the right of the people to form for
themselves such a government as they may choose; that this great
principle, the birthright of freemen, the gift of Heaven, secured to us
by the blood of our ancestors, ought to be secured to future
generations, and no limitation ought to be applied to this power in the
organization of any Territory of the United States, of either
Territorial Government or State Constitution, provided the government so
established shall be Republican and in conformity with the Constitution
of the United States." This resolution was a practical endorsement of
the course of Stephen A. Douglas in supporting the Compromise measures
of 1850, which he had defended as being "all founded upon the great
principle that every people ought to possess the right to form and
regulate their own domestic institutions in their own way," and that
"the same principle" should be "extended to all of the Territories of
the United States."
In accordance with his views and the resolution aforesaid, Mr. Douglas
in 1854, as we have already seen, incorporated in the Kansas-Nebraska
Bill a clause declaring it to be "the true intent and meaning of the Act
not to legislate Slavery into any State or Territory, or to exclude it
therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and
regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to
the Constitution of the United States.
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