Accordingly, then, as theories or principles of national politics favor or oppose the consolidation of power in the Federal government, upon matters of domestic concern or internal policy, to the denial or exclusion of the power of the people of the States or territories over the same matters, so are those theories or principles, and the measures based upon them, practically favorable or opposed to true democratic principles of government. Apply, then, this test to the Breckinridge and Lincoln doctrines, and we need not be at a loss to determine to what class of political theories they belong. The Breckinridge and Lincoln platforms both rest upon the same idea, viz: That there is a power in the Federal government or constitution, derived from implication, not from express language, in reference to the subject matter of domestic slavery, _above the power of the people of the States or territories to control_--or, to state the point a little differently: On this one subject of purely domestic concern the Federal government is stronger than the people. The Federal government, virtually say the Breckinridge party, must every where protect, but can no where prohibit slavery: The same government, in effect say the Lincoln party, must prohibit slavery, but can no where establish or legalize it: True it is, that the Breckinridge party in the 3d article of their platform say: "That when the settlers of a territory having an adequate population, _form a State constitution_," the State "ought to be admitted into the Federal Union, whether its constitution prohibits or recognizes the institution of slavery;" but at the same time they so construe the Dred Scott decision as to affirm that the right of property in slaves is guaranteed by the Federal constitution, and therefore protected every where, where that constitution is the supreme law. If so, of what avail is it for a State constitution or State law to prohibit slavery? The prohibition would be a nullity under the Federal constitution. True it is also, that the Lincoln party affirm in the 4th article of the Chicago platform, the necessity of maintaining "the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions, according to its own judgment exclusively;" but in the 8th article of the same platform, they affirm the right and duty of Congress, _by legislation_, to maintain the territories in their normal condition of freedom, and they deny "_the authority of Congress, of a territorial legislature, or of any individual, to give legal existence to slavery in any territory of the United States_."