Stephen Douglas’ position was: Slavery or no slavery in any territory is entirely the affair of the white inhabitants of such territory. If they choose to have it, it is their right; if they choose not to have it, they have a right to exclude or prohibit it. Neither Congress nor the people of the Union, outside of said territory, have any right to meddle with or trouble themselves about the matter. The Democrats of Illinois laughed at the others for hailing forth the Kentuckian. But Breckinridge represented the powerful slavocracy which said: The citizen of any state has a right to migrate to any territory, taking with him anything which is property by the law of his own sure, and hold, enjoy, and be protected in the use of, such property in said territory. And Congress is bound to furnish him protection wherever necessary, with or without the co-operation of the territorial legislature. Abraham Lincoln’s voice had never been heard by the nation. Easterners waited with misgivings to hear what the gangling backwoods lawyer would say. He did not mince words: Slavery can exist only by virtue of municipal law; and there is no law for it in the territories and no power to enact one. Congress can establish or legalize slavery nowhere but is bound to prohibit it in, or exclude it from, any and every Federal territory, whenever and wherever there shall be necessity for such exclusion or prohibition. Frederick Douglass was convinced not only by his words but by the fact that Abraham Lincoln was so clearly the choice of the people who knew him. He threw his pen and voice into the contest. Many of the Abolitionists hung back; many an “old guard” politician sulked. Wendell Phillips dug up evidence that Lincoln had supported enforcement of the hated Fugitive Slave Law in Illinois. But Douglass shook his leonine mane and campaigned throughout New York State and in Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago--wherever Negroes could vote. “Here is a man who knows your weariness,” he told them. “This is your opportunity to make your voice heard. Send Lincoln to the White House! Strengthen his hand that he may fight for you!” Fear gripped the South. They called Lincoln the “Black Republican.” No longer was the North divided. Young Republicans organized marching clubs and tramped through the city streets; torchlight processions turned night into day: _John Brown’s body lies a-moldering in the grave_.... A new singing could be heard in the remotest pine woods of the South: “Oh, freedom Oh, freedom! Oh, freedom ovah me-- An’ befo’ I’d be a slave I’d be buried in mah grave An’ go home to my Lawd An’ be free.” On November 6, Wendell Phillips congratulated Frederick Douglass: “For the first time in our history, the slave has chosen a President of the United States.” * * * * *