Lincoln-Douglas Debates (Boyer, 1995)

In the debate at Freeport, Illinois, Lincoln challenged Douglas to explain how popular sovereignty - the method the Kansas-Nebraska Act had used to settle the slavery issue in the new territories - was still workable in the wake of Dred Scott. Douglas replied that the people of a territory could still prohibit slavery simply by refusing to pass the local laws necessary to make a slave system work: 'It matters not what ways the Supreme Court may...decide...The people have the lawful means to introduce [slavery] or exclude it as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist...unless it is supported by local police negotiators.'