4. Using the quote above, summarize Douglas’s views on slavery and the Constitution in 1858. Douglas Excerpt:
“I believe that the Union can only be preserved by maintaining inviolate the Constitution of the United States as our fathers have made it. That constitution guarantees to the people of every State the right to have slavery or not have it… each State being left free to decide for itself. The framers of that constitution… well understood that each one of the thirteen States had distinct and separate interests and required distinct and separate local laws and local institutions.”
—Stephen A. Douglas, Springfield, Illinois, June 17, 1858