[Footnote 533: Correspondent to Cincinnati _Enquirer_, June 12, 1856.]

[Footnote 534: The letter read, "This legislation is founded upon
principles as ancient as free government itself, and in accordance
with them has simply declared that the people of a Territory like
those of a State, shall decide for themselves whether slavery shall or
shall not exist within their limits. The Kansas-Nebraska Act does no
more than give the force of law to this elementary principle of
self-government, declaring it to be 'the true intent and meaning of
this act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to
exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free
to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way,
subject only to the Constitution of the United States.' How vain and
illusory would any other principle prove in practice in regard to the
Territories," etc. Cincinnati _Enquirer_, June 22, 1856.]

[Footnote 535: Stanwood, History of the Presidency, pp. 269-274.]




CHAPTER XIII

THE TESTING OF POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY


The author of the Kansas-Nebraska bill doubtless anticipated a gradual
and natural occupation of the new Territories by settlers like those
home-seekers who had taken up government lands in Iowa and other
States of the Northwest. In the course of time, it was to be expected,