The objection raised by Clayton still remained: how was it possible to reconcile congressional non-intervention with the right of Congress to revise territorial laws? Now Douglas had never contended that the right of the people to self-government in the Territories was complete as against the power of Congress. He had never sought to confer upon them more than a relative degree of self-government--"the power to regulate their domestic institutions." He could not, and he did not, deny the truth and awkwardness of Clayton's contention. Where, then, demanded his critics, was the guarantee that the Kansas-Nebraska bill would banish the slavery controversies from Congress? This challenge could not go unanswered. Without other explanation, Douglas moved to strike out the provision requiring all territorial laws to be submitted to Congress.[481] But did this divest Congress of the power of revision? On this point Douglas preserved a discreet silence. Recognizing also the incongruity of giving an absolute veto power to a governor who would be appointed by the President, Douglas proposed a suspensive, in place of an absolute, veto power. A two-thirds vote in each branch of the territorial legislature would override the governor's negative.[482] Chase now tried to push Douglas one step farther on the same slippery road. "Can it be said," he asked, "that the people of a territory will enjoy self-government when they elect only their legislators and are subject to a governor, judges, and a secretary appointed by the Federal Executive?" He would amend by making all these officers elective.[483] Douglas extricated himself from this predicament by saying simply that these officers were charged with federal rather than with territorial duties.[484] The amendment was promptly negatived. Yet seven years later, this very proposition was indorsed by Douglas under peculiar circumstances. At this time in 1854, it would have effected nothing short of a revolution in American territorial policy; and it might have altered the whole history of Kansas.