domestic purposes. This reasonable view of the Constitution forces the conclusion that we must regard the power to make rules and regulations as to the territory and other property of the United States, as relating solely to the protection and disposal of the public territory as land or property, and we must therefore find the power to govern the territories involved or implied, as it doubtless is in the power to admit new States. The end of acquiring territory is the formation of States, and the powers of territorial government, so far as power was conferred upon Congress, must have had reference to that end. Therefore it is, that the duty and the function of Congress are alike filled in the civil government of a territory, when the Congress shall have defined a mode or an organization by which the citizens in a territory shall be able to exercise their inherent right of self-government in accordance with the principles of the Constitution. No man pretends that Congress has any power of legislation over the internal or domestic affairs of a sovereign State. All matters of internal sovereignty are left to the people of such State, and there is no reason to be found in the Constitution or in the nature of the case, why Congress should have any greater power over the internal or domestic concerns of citizens in a territory than it has over those of citizens in a State. It is not true that the territories are outside of the Constitution, and become entitled to it and its sacred bill of rights by grace of an act of Congress. That is, indeed, strange doctrine to apply to an American citizen standing on his own territorial soil, which Congress had no right to acquire or govern at all, except by virtue of the Constitution, and it assumes too much, for this reason: All power not granted to Congress is reserved to the States or the people; and if the territories are not under the Constitution, there is no right in Congress to govern them at all, and that right rests in the States or the people who settle the territories. On the contrary, if the territories be under the Constitution, then must they be governed according to its principles and bill of rights, and not arbitrarily, and all powers of government over them not granted to Congress are in the people of the territories themselves. Powers of municipal legislation as to internal affairs, as already stated, are not granted, therefore are they in the people. If this doctrine of arbitrary Congressional sovereignty be correct, then have citizens in the territories no constitutional rights, and no franchise except at Congressional discretion—they may be put and kept under martial law as long as Congress pleases, and this without respect to population—they may be sold into slavery according to John Pettit—and this system of military provincial government may be kept up so long as the Federal government can control an army to carry it out. Does any man believe there is any constitutional right in Congress to do any such thing? The statement of the proposition is its best refutation. How much more logical and consistent then, is it to refer the powers of Congress to legislate for the territories, to the end of all legislation either for acquiring or governing territory, viz: the formation of States, equal in sovereignty on all questions to the original States. If then, the question of domestic slavery be a local question to be decided by the people of the States as they see fit, and such the whole theory of the Constitution assumes it to be, it is equally a local question to be decided by the people of the territories as they see fit. If the people of a territory when they come to form a State Constitution, are competent and have the right to decide the slavery question for themselves, as all concede to be the case, then there is no argument consistent with the principle on which our institutions are based, of any avail to show, that the same territorial people have not equal right and capacity under a territorial government, and before they form a State Constitution, to decide the question of slavery for themselves by local legislation. If the people of a territory are competent to make a Constitution without the assent of Congress, for a stronger reason they are competent to make a law below the dignity of a Constitution. It will not do for any man to contend that mere change of residence from a State to a territory, so changes the moral and intellectual character of the man, as to unfit him for the exercise of self-government, or the high duties of founder of a State. The experience of the nation disproves this position. Some of the strongest and best minds known to American history have grown up on the frontier and among the hardships of border life. High mental cultivation or the refinements and elegancies of social life are not necessary to the founders of States. Heroic and manly virtues, and intellectual powers, are often developed amid the trials which beset the emigrant and the pioneer. Like the oak which takes deeper root from the rockings of the storm, true manhood enlarges and strengthens itself by the conflict with adversity and privation. History records the obligations Ohio and Kentucky owe to Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton. Beneath the leathern hunting shirts of those bold pioneers beat the hearts of heroes. They were types of many squatter sovereigns known to history, and of many more

"Illustrious masters of a name unknown."

In the territory of Indiana, William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor, two of the Presidents of the United States, laid in early manhood the basis of character that has made them famous. If you would know of what material squatter sovereigns are made, look over the territorial history of the North-west. Look to the early history of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Of one of these squatter sovereigns, Manasseh Cutler, of Hamilton, Massachusetts, it has been said, "Beneath the shelter of the covered wagon in which he started from his village home in Massachusetts to found Marietta, the imperial State of Ohio was wrapped up. He was truly a philosopher and a patriarch. He was more than a statesman—he was the founder of a State."

What says Judge Burnett, of Cincinnati, himself a squatter sovereign, of the first territorial legislature of the North-west territory? He says:

"In choosing members to the first Territorial Legislature, the people in almost every instance, selected their strongest and best men in their respective counties. Party influence was scarcely felt; and it may be said with confidence, that no legislature has been chosen under the State government which contained a larger proportion of aged, intelligent men, than were found in that body. Many of them, it is true, were unacquainted with the forms and practical duties of legislation; but they were strong-minded, sensible men, acquainted with the condition and wants of the country, and could form correct opinions of the operation of any measure proposed for their consideration." He further adds, "several members of that assembly were men of the first order of talents; and, with scarcely an exception, they would all be now estimated as well qualified for State legislation." Away then with the idea that there are not in the manly form, the courageous and generous heart, the clear and self-reliant, though, perhaps, untutored mind of the pioneer of the forest and prairie, "native countryman," though he may be, equally with "the exile from foreign lands," or the residents of towns and cities, the inherent right of self-government, and the elements that lay broad and deep the foundations of free and sovereign States! As for me, I had rather trust the interests of American liberty and the destiny of American institutions to the keeping of the men, who in the encounter of hardships that make men heroes, have