The Papers and Writings of Abraham Lincoln — Volume 4: The Lincoln-Douglas DebatesLincoln, Abraham
History
The Papers and Writings of Abraham Lincoln — Volume 4: The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
Lincoln, Abraham
Lincoln-Douglas Debates, Ill., 1858
His striking out such a provision, if there was such a one in the bill,
he argues, does not establish the proof that it was stricken out for the
purpose of robbing the people of that right. I would say, in the first
place, that that would be a most manifest reason for it. It is true, as
Judge Douglas states, that many Territorial bills have passed without
having such a provision in them. I believe it is true, though I am not
certain, that in some instances constitutions framed under such bills
have been submitted to a vote of the people with the law silent upon the
subject; but it does not appear that they once had their enabling acts
framed with an express provision for submitting the constitution to be
framed to a vote of the people, then that they were stricken out when
Congress did not mean to alter the effect of the law. That there have been
bills which never had the provision in, I do not question; but when was
that provision taken out of one that it was in? More especially does the
evidence tend to prove the proposition that Trumbull advanced, when
we remember that the provision was stricken out of the bill almost
simultaneously with the time that Bigler says there was a conference among
certain senators, and in which it was agreed that a bill should be passed
leaving that out. Judge Douglas, in answering Trumbull, omits to attend to
the testimony of Bigler, that there was a meeting in which it was agreed
they should so frame the bill that there should be no submission of the
constitution to a vote of the people. The Judge does not notice this part
of it. If you take this as one piece of evidence, and then ascertain that
simultaneously Judge Douglas struck out a provision that did require it to
be submitted, and put the two together, I think it will make a pretty fair
show of proof that Judge Douglas did, as Trumbull says, enter into a plot
to put in force a constitution for Kansas, without giving the people any
opportunity of voting upon it.
But I must hurry on. The next proposition that Judge Douglas puts is this:
"But upon examination it turns out that the Toombs bill never did contain
a clause requiring the constitution to be submitted."
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