If it be admitted--and I believe there is no issue between the Senator and myself on that point--that the Congress of the United States have no right to pass a law excluding slaves from a Territory, or determining in the Territory the relation of master and slave, of parent and child, of guardian and ward; that they have no right anywhere to decide what is property, but are only bound to protect such rights as preëxisted the formation of the Union--to perform such functions as are intrusted to them as the agent of the States--then how can Congress, thus fettered, confer upon a corporation of its creation--upon a territorial legislature, by an organic act, a power to determine what shall be property within the limits of such Territory? But, again, if it were admitted that the territorial inhabitants did possess this sovereignty: that they had the right to do as they pleased on all subjects, then would arise the question, if they were authorized, through their representatives, thus to act, whence came the opposition to what was called the Lecompton Constitution? How did Congress, under this state of facts, get the right to inquire whether those representatives in that case really expressed the will of the people. Still more; how did Congress get the right to decide that those representatives must submit their action to a popular vote in a manner not prescribed by the people of the Territory, however eminently it may have been advisable, convenient, and proper in the judgment of the Congress of the United States? What revisory function had we, if they, through their representatives, had full power to act on all such subjects whatsoever? I have necessarily, in answering the Senator, gone somewhat into the _argumentum ad hominem_. Though it is not entirely exhausted, I think enough has been said to show the Senate in what the difference between us consists. If it be necessary further to illustrate it, I might ask how did he propose to annul the organic act for Utah, if the recognition by the Congress of a sufficient number of inhabitants to justify the organization of a territorial government transferred the sovereignty to the inhabitants of the Territory? If sovereignty passed by the recognition of the fact, how did he propose, by congressional act, to annul the territorial existence of Utah?