The Papers and Writings of Abraham Lincoln — Volume 4: The Lincoln-Douglas Debates — John Shaqi
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
This is Trumbull's argument. Now, Judge Douglas does not meet the charge
at all, but he stands up and says there was no such proposition in that
bill for submitting the constitution to be framed to a vote of the people.
Trumbull admits that the language is not a direct provision for submitting
it, but it is a provision necessarily implied from another provision. He
asks you how it is possible to ratify the land proposition at the election
for the adoption of the constitution, if there was no election to be held
for the adoption of the constitution. And he goes on to show that it is
not any less a law because the provision is put in that indirect shape
than it would be if it were put directly. But I presume I have said enough
to draw attention to this point, and I pass it by also.
Another one of the points that Judge Douglas makes upon Trumbull, and at
very great length, is, that Trumbull, while the bill was pending, said in
a speech in the Senate that he supposed the constitution to be made would
have to be submitted to the people. He asks, if Trumbull thought so then,
what ground is there for anybody thinking otherwise now? Fellow-citizens,
this much may be said in reply: That bill had been in the hands of a
party to which Trumbull did not belong. It had been in the hands of the
committee at the head of which Judge Douglas stood. Trumbull perhaps had a
printed copy of the original Toomb's bill. I have not the evidence on
that point except a sort of inference I draw from the general course
of business there. What alterations, or what provisions in the way of
altering, were going on in committee, Trumbull had no means of knowing,
until the altered bill was reported back. Soon afterwards, when it was
reported back, there was a discussion over it, and perhaps Trumbull in
reading it hastily in the altered form did not perceive all the bearings
of the alterations. He was hastily borne into the debate, and it does not
follow that because there was something in it Trumbull did not perceive,
that something did not exist. More than this, is it true that what
Trumbull did can have any effect on what Douglas did? Suppose Trumbull had
been in the plot with these other men, would that let Douglas out of it?
Would it exonerate Douglas that Trumbull did n't then perceive he was in
the plot? He also asks the question: Why did n't Trumbull propose to
amend the bill, if he thought it needed any amendment? Why, I believe that
everything Judge Trumbull had proposed, particularly in connection with
this question of Kansas and Nebraska, since he had been on the floor of
the Senate, had been promptly voted down by Judge Douglas and his friends.
He had no promise that an amendment offered by him to anything on this
subject would receive the slightest consideration. Judge Trumbull did
bring to the notice of the Senate at that time the fact that there was no
provision for submitting the constitution about to be made for the people
of Kansas to a vote of the people.
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