A seeming blow at squatter sovereignty — but not quite as hard a one as we could wish the Court had given. If Congress cannot exclude slavery from a territory, it cannot give that power to territorial agents. The stream can rise no higher than the fountain.
Original passage & context
"This is a seeming blow at the doctrine of squatter sovereignty, but not quite as hard a one as we could wish the Court had given. As Congress has no power to exclude slavery from the territory and confer freedom upon negroes, it cannot confer that power on territorial agents. The stream can rise no higher than the fountain, as a matter of course."
A Mississippi paper that reads the great pro-slavery victory and wants more. The unanswered question it names — whether settlers could bar slavery on their own authority, without Congress — is exactly the gap Stephen Douglas would try to stand in at Freeport a year later, and it split the Democratic party in 1860.
Read it in the original — Natchez Daily Courier, Mar 14, 1857 ↗