The Republican Convention had declared it to be "both the right and imperative duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territories those twin relics of barbarism,-- polygamy and slavery." The Democratic Convention had presented a very elaborate and exhaustive series of resolutions touching the slavery question.

They indorsed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and recognized the "right of the people of all the territories to form a constitution with or without domestic slavery." The resolution was artfully constructed.

Read in one way it gave to the people of the Territories the right to determine the question for themselves.

It thus upheld the doctrine of "popular sovereignty" which Mr.Douglas had announced as the very spirit of the Act organizing Kansas and Nebraska.

A closer analysis of the Democratic declaration, however, showed that this "popular sovereignty" was not to be exercised until the people of the Territory were sufficiently numerous to form a State constitution and apply for admission to the Union, and that meanwhile in all the Territories the slave- holder had the right to settle and to be protected in the possession of his peculiar species of property.