In an important statement at Freeport, he held that the people could keep slavery out of their territories, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, simply by withholding the protection of the local law. Douglas was disturbed by Lincoln’s effort to resolve a controversial moral question by political means, warning that it could lead to a Civil War.
Finally, Douglas placed his disagreement with Lincoln on the level of republican ideology, arguing that the contest was between consolidation and confederation, or as he put it, “one consolidated empire” as proposed by Lincoln versus a “confederacy of sovereign and equal states” as he proposed.
