On the
contrary, nobody has ever expected me to be President. In my poor,
lean, lank face, nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting
out."
Then he described the main points of Senator Douglas's plan of campaign
as being not very numerous. "The first," he said, "is Popular
Sovereignty. The second and third are attacks upon my speech made on
the 16th of June. Out of these three points-drawing within the range of
Popular Sovereignty the question of the Lecompton Constitution--he makes
his principal assault. Upon these his successive speeches are
substantially one and the same." Touching the first point, "Popular
Sovereignty"--"the great staple" of Mr. Douglas's campaign--Mr. Lincoln
affirmed that it was "the most arrant Quixotism that was ever enacted
before a community."
He said that everybody understood that "we have not been in a
controversy about the right of a People to govern themselves in the
ordinary matters of domestic concern in the States and Territories;"
that, "in this controversy, whatever has been said has had reference to
the question of Negro Slavery;" and "hence," said he, "when hereafter I
speak of Popular Sovereignty, I wish to be understood as applying what I
say to the question of Slavery only; not to other minor domestic matters
of a Territory or a State.
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