I want to ask your attention to a portion of the Nebraska bill which Judge Douglas has quoted: “It being the true intent and meaning of this Act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States.” Thereupon Judge Douglas and others began to argue in favor of “Popular Sovereignty,”--the right of the people to have slaves if they wanted them, and to exclude slavery if they did not want them. “But,” said, in substance, a Senator from Ohio (Mr. Chase, I believe), “we more than suspect that you do not mean to allow the people to exclude slavery if they wish to; and if you do mean it, accept an amendment which I propose expressly authorizing the people to exclude slavery.” I believe I have the amendment here before me which was offered, and under which the people of the Territory, through their proper representatives, might, if they saw fit, prohibit the existence of slavery therein. And now I state it as a _fact_, to be taken back if there is any mistake about it, that Judge Douglas and those acting with him _voted that amendment down_. I now think that those men who voted it down had a _real reason_ for doing so. They know what that reason was. It looks to us, since we have seen the Dred Scott decision pronounced, holding that “under the Constitution” the people cannot exclude slavery--I say it looks to outsiders, poor, simple, “amiable, intelligent gentlemen,” as though the niche was left as a place to put that Dred Scott decision in,--a niche which would have been spoiled by adopting the amendment. And now I say again, if _this_ was not the reason, it will avail the judge much more to calmly and good-humoredly point out to these people what that _other_ reason was for voting the amendment down than swelling himself up to vociferate that he may be provoked to call somebody a liar.