2153.
[Sidenote] Ibid., p.

2155.
Davis had begun the debate on the 7th of May by a savage onslaught on "Squatter Sovereignty"-- a fallacy, he said, fraught with mischief more deadly than the fatal upas, because it spread its poison over the whole Union.

Douglas took up the gauntlet, and, replying on May 15 and 16, said he could not recognize the right of a caucus of the Senate or the House to prescribe new tests for the Democratic party.

Senators were not chosen for the purpose of making platforms.

That was the duty of the Charleston Convention, and it had decided in his favor, platform, organization, and least of all the individual, by giving him a majority of fifty votes over all the other candidates combined.