Subsequent events acquit Douglas of truckling to the South at this time. No doubt he would have been glad to let bygones be bygones, to close up the gap of unpleasant memories between himself and the administration, and to restore Democratic harmony. For Douglas loved his party and honored its history. To him the party of Jefferson and Jackson was inseparably linked with all that made the American Commonwealth the greatest of democracies. Yet where men are acutely conscious of vital differences of opinion, only the hourly practice of self-control can prevent clashing. Neither Douglas nor his opponents were prepared to undergo any such rigid self-discipline. On February 23d, the pent-up feeling broke through all barriers and laid bare the thoughts and intents of the Democratic factions. The Kansas question once more recurring, Brown of Mississippi now demanded adequate protection for property; that is, "protection sufficient to protect animate property." Any other protection would be a delusion and a cheat. If the territorial legislature refused such protection, he for one would demand it of Congress. He dissented altogether from the doctrine of the Senator from Illinois, that by non-action, or unfriendly legislation a Territory could annul a decision of the Supreme Court and exclude slavery. That was mistaking power for right. "What I want to know is, whether you will interpose against power and in favor of right.... If the Territorial Legislature refuses to act, will you act?... If it pass laws hostile to slavery, will you annul them, and substitute laws favoring slavery in their stead?" "What I and my people ask is action; positive, unqualified action. Our understanding of the doctrine of non-intervention was, that you were not to intervene against us, but I never understood that we could have any compromise or understanding here which could release Congress from an obligation imposed on it by the Constitution of the United States."[783]