Lincoln-Douglas Debates (Roark, 2002)

Lincoln badgered Douglas with the question of whether he favored the spread of slavery. He tried to force Douglas into the damaging admission that the Supreme Court had repudiated his territorial solution, popular sovereignty. In the debate at Freeport, Illinois, Douglas admitted that settlers could not now pass legislation barring slavery, but he argued that they could ban slavery just as effectively by not passing protective laws. Without 'appropriate police regulations and local legislation,' such as those found in slave states, he explained, slavery could not live a day and a hour.