A "FACT" IN..."DEMOCRAT" HISTORY

Senator Stephen A. Douglas, "Democrat" Illinois,it might be said, was a man of conflicting convictions. He had, at first, given his endorsement to the 1857 "Dred Scott Decision"; but then, during his campaign for the Senate the following year, he had taken the position that the effect of the Act could be negated by popular sovereignty. He had opposed President Buchanan's attempt to effectuate onto Kansas a federal..."slave code", via a blatant injustice monstrosity, called the "Lecompton Constitution". But then, he also had said this: "I hold that the signers of the Declaration of Independence had no reference to Negroes at all when they declared that all men were created equal. They did not mean Negroes, nor savage Indians,nor Feejee Islanders, nor any other barbarous race. They were speaking of white men. They alluded to men of European birth and European descent--to white men, and to none others,when they declared that doctrine. So spoke Senator Stephen A. Douglas, "DEMOCRAT", Illinois, October 15, 1858.