"The Whig and the Democratic were the two great parties then in existence; both national and patriotic, advocating principles that were universal in their application; while these parties differed in regard to banks, tariff, and sub-treasury, they agreed on the slavery question which now agitates the Union. They had adopted the compromise measures of 1850 as the basis of a full solution of the slavery question in all its forms; that these measures had received the endorsement of both parties in their National Conventions of 1852, thus affirming the right of the people of each State and Territory to decide as to their domestic institutions for themselves; that this principle was embodied in the bill reported by me in 1854 for the organization of the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska; in order that there might be no misunderstanding, these words were inserted in that bill: 'It is the true intent and meaning of this act, not to legislate slavery into any State or Territory, or to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Federal Constitution.'" Turning to his opponent, he said: "I desire to know whether Mr. Lincoln to-day stands as he did in 1854 in favor of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law; whether he stands pledged to-day as he did in 1854 against the admission of any more slave States into the Union, even if the people want them; whether he stands pledged against the admission of a new State into the Union with such a Constitution as the people of that State may see fit to make. I want to know whether he stands to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia; I desire to know whether he stands pledged to prohibit slavery in all the Territories of the United States north as well as south of the Missouri Compromise line. I desire him to answer whether he is opposed to acquisition of any more territory unless slavery is prohibited therein. I want his answer to these questions." Douglas then addressed himself to the already quoted words of Mr. Lincoln's Springfield speech commencing: "A house divided against itself cannot stand." He declared the Government had existed for seventy years divided into free and slave States as our fathers made it; that at the time the Constitution was framed there were thirteen States, twelve of which were slave-holding, and one a free State; that if the doctrine preached by Mr. Lincoln that all should be free or all slave had prevailed, the twelve would have overruled the one, and slavery would have been established by the Constitution on every inch of the Republic, instead of being left, as our fathers wisely left it, for each State to decide for itself. He then declared that: