“The Declaration acknowledged a rule of _Right_ paramount to the power of independent states itself, and virtually disclaimed all power to do _Wrong_. This was a novelty in the moral philosophy of nations, and it is the essential point of difference between the system of government announced in the Declaration of Independence and those systems which had until then prevailed among men.… It was an experiment upon the heart of man. All the legislators of the human race until that day had laid the foundations of all government among men in _Power_; and hence it was that in the maxims of theory, as well as in the practice of nations, sovereignty was held to be unlimited and illimitable. The Declaration of Independence proclaimed another law, … a law of _Right_, binding upon nations as well as individuals, upon sovereigns as well as upon subjects.… In assuming the attributes of _sovereign power_, the Colonists appealed to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of their intentions, and neither claimed nor conferred authority to do anything but _of Right_.”[32] Such is the irresistible testimony of John Quincy Adams. On the other side are arrayed John C. Calhoun, Stephen A. Douglas, and Eli Thayer. Choose you between these two sides. * * * * * Enough, perhaps, has been said. But I shall not leave this question merely on reason and high authority, decisive as they may be. I appeal, further, to the practice of the National Government, which from the beginning has sanctioned the Prohibition of Slavery in the Territories. The pretension of Popular Sovereignty is altogether a modern invention, unknown to our fathers. The positive Prohibition of Slavery in the Territories was proposed in the Continental Congress by Mr. Jefferson, as early as 1784. Thus did the hand which drew the Declaration of Independence first assert the practical application of its principles within the jurisdiction of Congress; and here the Popular Sovereignty of the Declaration receives most instructive illustration. Although the proposition had in its favor a majority of all the delegates then present, and also a majority of all the States then present, yet, under the rules of the Continental Congress, it failed for the moment. But there is no evidence that anybody questioned the power of Congress, or claimed Sovereignty for any handful of squatters.