, etc., are not domestic questions, but political; and
provided the people are suffered to vote on the future (not the
existing) condition of slaves, faith has been sufficiently kept.
Popular Sovereignty means "pertaining to negroes,"--not the negroes
already in the Territory, but those who may be hereafter introduced;
for the monopoly of that branch of trade and merchandise, which is
already established, and the future growth and increase of it, must
not be interfered with, even by Popular Sovereignty, because that
would be "an act of gross injustice." In other words, Popular
Sovereignty is merely designed to cover the right of the people to
vote on a single question, specially presented by an illegal body,
under electoral arrangements made by its new officers,--which
officers not only receive, but count the votes, and make the returns,--
while all the rest is merely unimportant and trivial. It is just the
sort of sovereignty for which Louis Napoleon provided when he wished
to procure a popular sanction for the numberless atrocities of the
_coup-d'etat_ of the 2d December.
An old authority tells us that "it is hard to kick against the pricks";
and the President appears to have experienced the difficulty, in
kicking against the pricks of his conscience. He had committed
himself to a principle which he is now compelled by the policy of
his Southern masters to evade, and is painfully embarrassed as to
how he shall hide his tracks.
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