Compromise and his statement that this question of slavery was
one that every State and Territory must settle for itself, but
with which the Federal Government had nothing to do.
Unfortunately, his own party no longer agreed with him. Since
Buchanan had become President the Democrats had advanced their
ground. They now claimed that while a State might properly say
whether or not it would tolerate slavery, slavery ought to be
lawful in all the Territories, no matter whether their people
liked it or not.

A famous law case, called the Dred Scott case, lately decided by
the Supreme Court of the United States, went far toward making
this really the law of the land. In its decision the court
positively stated that neither Congress nor a territorial
legislature had power to keep slavery out of any United States
Territory. This decision placed Senator Douglas in a most curious
position. It justified him in repealing the Missouri Compromise,
but at the same time it absolutely denied his statement that the
people of a Territory had a right to settle the slavery question
to suit themselves. Being a clever juggler with words, he
explained away the difference by saying that a master might have
a perfect right to his slave in a Territory, and yet that right
could do him no good unless it were protected by laws in force
where his slave happened to be. Such laws depended entirely on
the will of the people living in the Territory, and so, after
all, they had the deciding voice. This reasoning brought upon him
the displeasure of President Buchanan and all the Democrats who
believed as he did, and Douglas found himself forced either to
deny what he had already told the voters of Illinois, or to begin
a quarrel with the President. He chose the latter, well knowing