"Now, sir, I say it never was understood, so far as I had anything to do with the bill, by the southern men who maintained the class of opinions of which I am speaking, that they were conferring on the territorial legislature the absolute power to deal with this subject. They did not; but they were secured to vote for a bill which would organize a territorial Legislature which should leave this question in abeyance, and this bill decided nothing, but only provided that the question should go to the courts, to be decided under that jurisdiction. "Nor did the bill--although everybody consented to strike out the phrase to which the senator from Illinois alludes--nor did the bill ever mean to say that Congress absolutely gave up jurisdiction over the subject. Inasmuch as it was a common point which accomplished good, which repealed what all the branches of the Democracy thought unconstitutional--the Missouri Compromise--they passed a bill which did that, without deciding absolutely on other differences of opinion, but merely providing a tribunal to decide them when they should come up." That Senator Hunter stated the truth in reference to himself is evident from the subjoined quotation from a speech of his, delivered during the discussion of the Kansas-Nebraska act in 1854: "But it has been often said by those who admit that Congress has the power of governing the territories, that it is a power to be exercised, not in reference to the rights of the States, but in reference to the good and welfare of the people of the territories. Now, if in exercising this power we are to be confined to the single consideration of the good and welfare of the people of the territories, then, I say, the whole subject of government ought to be left to the people of the territories. That is the true American principle. If the only consideration which is to apply to their government be the good and welfare of the people of the territories, then they ought to determine all questions in regard to their domestic institutions and laws. But, in my opinion, the government of these territories ought to be administered with the double object of securing the rights of the States as well as those of the people of the territories, and to these last should be given all the rights of self-government which are consistent with the limitation, that they shall not interfere with the equal rights of the States, or violate the provisions of the Constitution. With those limitations, all the power that could possibly be given to the people of that territory, ought to be given to them. All that portion of the power which is to be exercised with a view to their interests, ought to be exercised as they wish it. That, in my opinion, is the true principle.