Summary

A local Breckinridge supporter wrote to the editor of the Vindicator--who supported Douglas--to argue that Breckinridge supporters believed they have a constitutional right to extend their property (slaves) into the territories. He asserted that Breckinridge supporters had no need for a federal slave code for the territories.

EXCERPT:

"Now this what we want, and nothing more. The assertion that we want Congress to legislate slavery into the territories (which assertion was also made by Mr. Douglas on last Saturday) we unhesitatingly pronounce false and absurd, and ask any man who has ever advanced such an idea, to prove it. We ask Congress to protect the property of all the people in the Territories against unconstitutional legislation, Northern Aid Societies, &c., so that the South may emigrate and have a chance to extend her Territory, and not be encompassed by those who together with the final overwhelming negro population, will crush us out of existence. "

Full-text web version of newspaper

"Augusta's Democratic Party emphasized that slavery was the country's economic engine of success, protected in the territories by the Dred Scott decision, and they defended Stephen Douglas to the end as the best candidate to defeat Lincoln."