Senator Toombs said that the opposition to the Kansas bill had continued because it was said to recognize the right of the people of a Territory, through the Territorial legislature, to establish or prohibit slavery. "When we condemned and abrogated Congressional intervention against us," said he, "that was a great point gained. Congress had actually excluded us from the Territories for thirty years. The people of a Territory had in no instance attempted such an iniquity. I considered it wise, prudent, and politic to settle the question against our common enemy, Congress, even if I left it unsettled as to our known friends, the people of the Territories. We could not settle the question of the power of the people over slavery while in a territorial condition, because Democrats differed on that point. We, therefore, declared in the Kansas bill that we left the people of the Territories perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States. We decided to refer the question to the Supreme Court. It has gone there and been decided in our favor. The Southern friends of the measure repudiate the principle of squatter sovereignty. I stand its steady and uncompromising adversary. The doctrine of Douglas has not a leg to stand upon. Yet I do not belong to those who denounce him. The organization of the Democratic party leaves this an open question, and Mr. Douglas is at full liberty to take either side he may choose, and if he maintains his ground of neither making nor accepting new tests of political soundness, I shall consider him a political friend, and will accept him as the representative of the party, whatever it may tender him. I do not hesitate to tell you that, with his errors, I prefer him and would support him to-morrow against any opposition leader in America. "We are told," said Mr. Toombs, "that we must put a new plank in the platform of the Democratic party, and demand the affirmance of the duty of Congress to prohibit slavery in a Territory, where such Territory may fail to discharge this duty. I reply, I do not think it is wise to do the thing proposed, and the inducement would not help the proposition. While I have already asserted full and complete power of Congress to do this, I think, with Mr. Madison, that it should be prudently and carefully exercised, and it ought not to be exercised until the occasion is imperative. There has been no occasion, from 1789 to this hour, calling for it, and I am more than willing that the Territorial settlers shall continue to govern themselves in their own way, so long as they respect the rights of all the people. I will not insult them by supposing them capable of disregarding the Constitution of the United States, or by assuming that they are incapable of honest self-government.