Mr. Hill declared that the Kansas-Nebraska bill embodied the principles of "squatter sovereignty" and alien suffrage. The bill was not identical with the Utah and New Mexico bill, as Toombs and Stephens had alleged. The restrictive provisions of the Utah bill would prohibit this Territorial Legislature from excluding slavery. It could not do that until it became a State, while the Kansas bill allowed a majority of the actual residents to determine whether slavery should or should not exist, even prior to its admission as a State. He denounced the Kansas bill as a cheat, a swindle, and a surrender of our dearest rights. As to the National Convention, Mr. Hill declared that the South may have framed the platform, but the North secured the candidate. Mr. Hill, relative to territorial questions, recognized the right of native born and naturalized citizens of the United States, permanently residing in any Territory, to frame a constitution and laws and to regulate their social and domestic affairs in their own way. The American party proposed to extend the term required for naturalization and to bar the foreigners from holding office. Mr. Hill had strong sympathizers in the extreme Southern Rights' men, who were on hand in abundance. Mr. Toombs replied with great dignity and warmth. He said that the Nebraska bill was a reiteration of the true intent of the compromise measures of 1850; that whoever opposed the Kansas bill was opposed to the South. It was a touchstone for fixing party affiliations. It only carried out the Georgia platform protesting against Congressional prohibition of slavery in the Territories. He paid high tribute to Douglas as a patriot and friend to the South. "Whoever condemned Douglas needed watching himself." Mr. Toombs charged that the representatives of the Know-nothing party had voted for the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and now claimed ignorance of its provisions. He denied that either he or Mr. Stephens had declared that the Kansas bill was identical with the Utah bill. Mr. Hill insisted that they had said so. Affirmance and denial became heated, and talk of holding each other "personally responsible" was indulged in, but pretty soon the debate went back into the political grooves. Mr. Toombs denied that the bill was a "Pandora's box of evil," or that its passage was violative of the good faith of the South. This part of his argument, of course, was directed to meet Northern criticism. "The North," Mr. Toombs said, "had tried, by the Wilmot Proviso, to legislate the South out of the right of equal enjoyment of the Territories. The South had endeavored to take the question of these rights out of Congress, to establish the doctrine of non-intervention." This doctrine triumphed in 1850 and, despite the assertion of his opponent, was reaffirmed in the Kansas-Nebraska Act. This Act of 1854 was the great measure of justice and equality to the South.