a Territory remains in abeyance, suspended in the United States, in
trust for the people, until they shall be admitted into the Union as a
State."[556] If this was true, then popular sovereignty after all
meant nothing more than local self-government, the measure of which
was to be determined by Congress. If Congress left slavery to local
determination, it was only for expediency's sake, and not by reason of
any constitutional obligation.

Douglas found a vindication of his Kansas-Nebraska Act in the peaceful
history of Nebraska, "to which the emigrant aid societies did not
extend their operations, and into which the stream of emigration was
permitted to flow in its usual and natural channels."[557] He fixed
the ultimate responsibility for the disorders in Kansas upon those who
opposed the principle of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and who, "failing to
accomplish their purpose in the halls of Congress, and under the
authority of the Constitution, immediately resorted in their
respective States to unusual and extraordinary means to control the
political destinies and shape the domestic institutions of Kansas, in
defiance of the wishes and regardless of the rights of the people of
that Territory as guaranteed by their organic law."[558]

A practical recommendation accompanied the report. It was proposed to
authorize the territorial legislature to provide for a constitutional
convention to frame a State constitution, as soon as a census should
indicate that there were ninety-three thousand four hundred and twenty
inhabitants.[559] This bill was in substantial accord with the
President's recommendations.

The minority report was equally positive as to the cause of the
trouble in Kansas and the proper remedy. "Repeal the act of 1854,