"My opinions upon all questions relating to the General Government of the States, have been made public during my connection with an office from which I have been but recently relieved, and also by my course in the late Presidential canvass. I resisted the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and I am still opposed to that measure, as I am to all acts of the late and present administration, whether of an executive, legislative, or judicial character, which have been devised to maintain or to perpetuate the original purpose of that flagitious wrong; and I shall earnestly advocate the admission of Kansas into the Union of States, under its own charter of freedom. I am opposed to the further extension of slavery, or to the increase of its political power. I believe that the Constitution confers upon Congress sovereign power over the territories of the United States for their government; and that, in the exercise of its authority, it is its duty to prohibit slavery or polygamy therein. I shall support the most energetic measures which the Constitution admits, for the development of the moral and material interests of the American people, defend the sovereignty of the States against executive or judicial encroachment, and contribute all in my power for the restoration of the General Government to the principles of the fathers of the Constitution and the Union. "I am opposed to the recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, not only upon the ground that it controverts the principles and overthrows all the precedents of our history upon the subject of slavery, but that it assumes to decide, as a judicial problem, the question whether slavery shall be established in this State, which has been, and ought to be, left as a political question for the people of the State to determine for themselves.