There were acute legal minds who thought that they detected a false
note in this paean. Was this a necessary implication from the Dred
Scott decision? Was it the intention of the Court to leave the
principle of popular sovereignty standing upright? Was not the
decision rather fatal to the great doctrine--the shibboleth of the
Democratic party?

On this occasion Douglas had nothing to add to his exposition of the
Dred Scott case, further than to point out the happy escape of white
supremacy from African equality. And here he struck the note which put
him out of accord with those Northern constituents with whom he was
otherwise in complete harmony. "When you confer upon the African race
the privileges of citizenship, and put them on an equality with white
men at the polls, in the jury box, on the bench, in the Executive
chair, and in the councils of the nation, upon what principle will you
deny their equality at the festive board and in the domestic circle?"
In the following year, he received his answer in the homely words of
Abraham Lincoln: "I do not understand that because I do not want a
negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife."

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 592: Sheahan, Douglas, pp. 442-443; Iglehart, History of the
Douglas Estate in Chicago.]

[Footnote 593: Letter in Chicago _Times_, August 30, 1857.]