The captious criticism of the Freeport doctrine by Southerners of the Calhoun-Jefferson Davis school was less damaging, from a legal point of view, than the sober analysis of Lincoln. The emphasis in Lincoln's famous question at Freeport fell upon the word _lawful_: "Can the people of a United States Territory, in any lawful way," etc. Douglas had replied to the question of legal right by an assertion of the power of the people of the Territories. This answer, as Lincoln pointed out subsequently, was equivalent to saying that "a thing may be lawfully driven away from where it has the lawful right to be."[794] As a prediction, Douglas's simple statement, that if the people of a Territory wanted slavery they would have it, and if they did not, they would not let it be forced on them, was fully justified by the facts of American history. It has been characteristic of the American people that, without irreverence for law, they have not allowed it to stand in the way of their natural development: they have not, as a rule, driven rough-shod over law, but have quietly allowed undesirable laws to fall into innocuous desuetude. But such an answer was unworthy of a man who prided himself upon his fidelity to the obligation of the Constitution and the laws. Feeling the full force of Lincoln's inexorable logic,[795] but believing that it was bottomed on a false premise, Douglas endeavored to give his Freeport doctrine its proper constitutional setting. During the summer, he elaborated an historical and constitutional defense of popular sovereignty. The editors of _Harper's Magazine_ so far departed from the traditions of that popular periodical as to publish this long and tedious essay in the September number. Douglas probably calculated that through this medium better than almost any other, he would reach those readers to whom Lincoln made his most effective appeal.[796] The essay bore the title "The Dividing Line between Federal and Local Authority," with the sub-caption, "Popular Sovereignty in the Territories." In his interpretation of history, the author proved himself rather a better advocate than historian. He had traversed much the same ground in his speeches--and with far more vivacity and force. Douglas searched the colonial records, and found--one is tempted to say, to find--our fathers contending unremittingly for "the inalienable right, when formed into political communities, to exercise exclusive power of legislation in their local legislatures in respect to all things affecting their internal polity--slavery not excepted."[797]