The Constitution itself dictates and enjoins both. And it is first of all necessary, that neither the power nor the duty shall be practically denied, embarrassed or obstructed, by the enactment of unconstitutional laws of prohibition. Positive legislation is more apt to be passed against slavery by local than by national laws. In any practical view, then, we are attempting to shear a lion instead of a wolf. Non-intervention is simply absurd and impossible, and it is worse than impracticable. * * * * * "Such are the teachings to me of our past history, and I trust that I have now demonstrated in the second place: 'That the inhabitants or people of a territory are sovereign to form themselves a constitution and State government as I have shown in the first place, that in their territorial condition they are within the entire control and jurisdiction, or under the entire rule or regulation of Congress, subject to the Constitution of the United States, and that the citizens of each and all of the States are alike equally entitled to protection in all the privileges and immunities of persons and property, common to equal confederates. "And this right and this duty of protection is not to be evaded or avoided either by the false _ad captandum_ clamor that a code is required to be enacted by Congress for the protection of slave property. This is but to cast odium upon slavery, by creating the impression that a discrimination is necessary to distinguish it above what is due to other personal and proprietary rights. On the contrary, no such code is required to create either the right or the duty of protection, and no law is necessary to distinguish slave property from any other property. All persons and all property, equally and alike, require only not to be assailed and destroyed in, or excluded from the common territories. Every species of rights requires laws, it is true, suited to its character and to its case. Personal property, for example, must have a law that it shall not be 'taken and carried away;' and land, which cannot be 'taken and carried away,' must have a law that it shall not be trespassed upon in some other way; and so with slaves and everything else, they must have provisions according to their kind. But the Constitution of the United States, and the laws of Congress heretofore organizing territories are sufficient, and if amendments of the laws are required, it is the duty of Congress to see that they are provided, of the Executive of the United States to see that they are executed, and of the judiciary to decide upon the rights under the laws. The slave States should never pretend to any peculiar privileges, and do not, so far as I know. They ask only that their rights shall