It is the same principle, in whatever shape it develops itself.

It is the same spirit that says, "You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.
[Sidenote] Lincoln-Douglas Debates, p.

56.
As to the vaunted popular sovereignty principle, Lincoln declared it "the most arrant Quixotism that was ever enacted before a community....

Does he mean to say that he has been devoting his life to securing to the people of the Territories the right to exclude slavery from the Territories?
If he means so to say, he means to deceive; because he and every one knows that the decision of the Supreme Court, which he approves and makes especial ground of attack upon me for disapproving, forbids the people of a Territory to exclude slavery.

This covers the whole ground from the settlement of a Territory till it reaches the degree of maturity entitling it to form a State constitution.