Douglas replied that he would denounce it as soon as it was read.

The President, excited, told him "to remember that no Democrat ever yet differed from an administration of his own choice without being crushed.

Beware of the fate of Tallmadge and Rives." [Sidenote] Douglas, Milwaukee Speech, October 13, 1860.
"Mr.President," retorted Douglas, "I wish you to remember that General Jackson is dead." In the election of Mr.Buchanan as President the South had secured a most important ally for the work of pro-slavery reaction.

Trained in the belief that the South had hitherto been wronged, he was ready on every occasion to appear as her champion for redress; and Southern politicians were now eager to use his leadership to make their views of public policy and constitutional duty acceptable to the North.
Respectable in capacity but feeble in will, he easily submitted to control and guidance from a few Southern leaders of superior intellectual force.

In his inaugural, he sought to prepare public opinion for obedience to the Dred Scott decision, and since its publication he had undertaken to interpret its scope and effect.
Replying to a memorial from certain citizens of New England, he declared in a public letter, "Slavery existed at that period, and still exists in Kansas, under the Constitution of the United States.
This point has at last been finally decided by the highest tribunal known to our laws.