It was the theory of the Missouri Compromise Measure of 1820 and it was the theory of the compromise measures of 1850, that the Constitution neither authorized slavery anywhere nor prohibited it anywhere. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 recognized, as an admitted fact, the doctrine that the Constitution extended to the Territories, and it asserted as a conclusion of law and as a public policy, the doctrine that the Constitution "should have the same force and effect within the Territory of Kansas as elsewhere within the United States." Thus it was maintained by the friends of the compromise measures that the Constitution neither authorized slavery in the Territories nor prohibited it. This view of the Constitution was accepted by the opponents of slavery. The Constitution did not authorize slavery in the States nor did it prohibit slavery in the States. Until the Dred Scott Decision, the controversy proceeded upon the idea that States and Territories were alike under the Constitution, and that by the Constitution slavery was neither authorized nor prohibited in any State, nor in any Territory of the Union. Inasmuch as at that time slavery was not prohibited under the Constitution, there was a general agreement in the proposition that Congress might authorize slavery in the Territories and that Congress might prohibit slavery in the Territories. One party contended for its authorization, the other party demanded its prohibition. On this issue the contest was made up. From first to last the contest proceeded upon the theory, on all sides admitted to be a true theory, that the Constitution of the United States, by its own force, applied to all the Territories of the United States. In that opinion I concurred. When Mr. Douglas concluded to become a Presidential candidate, he broached a theory of constitutional interpretation for which he may have found some support in the Dred Scott Decision. His theory was this: The Constitution so applies to the Territories that they must take places as States in the American Union, and the Constitution also requires Congress to accept the Territories as States, and with such institutions as the Territories, when on their way to Statehood, might choose to establish. Hence it was, that in the article in reply to Mr. Douglas, I made this statement: "But now under the new political dispensation, these thirty million can have no opinion concerning the admission of States which may have established Catholicism, Mohammadanism, Polygamy or even Slavery." I interrupt the course of my remarks to say that already in the Philippines we are tolerating and supporting slavery and polygamy, and preparing the way for the organization of Catholic and Mohammedan States, and their admission into the American Union. It was in 1859, and in the article now under debate, that I used this language as a fair exposition of Mr. Douglas' plans: