South Carolina then proposed some agreement between the Southern states, for the purpose of withdrawing from a compact, the obligations of which had been so disregarded, but Virginia discouraged this proposition, as she was exceedingly loth to take any step looking to the severance of a Union which she had done so much to establish, and for which she had made so many sacrifices. By the commencement of the canvass for the Presidency in 1860, the Democratic party had become divided on the question of the construction of the slavery clause in the Kansas-Nebraska bill: that is whether the power to exclude or adopt slavery could be exercised by the people of the territories while in the territorial condition. Mr. Douglas and the greater portion of the Northern Democrats contended for the former view, while nearly all of the Southern Democrats advocated the latter. It was contended by the Southern Democrats with great force and justice that if Congress did not have the power to exclude slavery, the legislatures of the territories, which derived their powers from the acts organizing the territories could not have that power. This view was conclusive, for the territorial legislatures, being now temporary bodies deriving their sole powers from the acts of Congress, could not exercise greater powers than the body which created them, while the people, when they came to form constitutions, under that clause of the Constitution of the United States providing for the admission of new states on the same footing with the old, were necessarily vested with that sovereign power over this subject and all others which belonged to the original states. The Northern Democrats contended for what was called "Squatter Sovereignty," that is, that this sovereign power of legislation vested in the settlers of the territories from the beginning, and to propitiate the free-soil sentiment, many of them contended that the clause in the Kansas-Nebraska bill secured the territories to the north and free-soil more effectually than could be done by Congressional legislation, as settlers from the North could more readily take possession of the territories and exclude slavery from them, than settlers from the South could introduce slavery there, while in Congress the Southern Representatives especially in the Senate where the sections were more nearly equal, could, with the aid of a few Northern men, prevent any interference with slavery. This view of the subject made the doctrine of squatter sovereignty even more offensive than what was called the Wilmot proviso, and Southern men contended that it was a trap to entrap them.