So far as all that ground is concerned, the Judge is not sustaining popular sovereignty, but absolutely opposing it.

He sustains the decision which declares that the popular will of the Territories has no constitutional power to exclude slavery during their territorial existence." By no means the least interesting of the many points touched in these debates is Lincoln's own estimate of the probable duration of slavery, or rather of the least possible period in which "ultimate extinction" could be effected, even under the most favorable circumstances.
[Sidenote] Lincoln-Douglas Debates, p.

157.
Now, at this day in the history of the world [said he, in the Charleston debate], we can no more foretell where the end of this slavery agitation will be than we can see the end of the world itself.

The Nebraska-Kansas bill was introduced four years and a half ago, and if the agitation is ever to come to an end, we may say we are four years and a half nearer the end.

So too we can say we are four years and a half nearer the end of the world; and we can just as clearly see the end of the world as we can see the end of this agitation.