The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, vol 4 | Page 6

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."
This is a mere question of fact, and can be determined by evidence. I
only want to ask this question: Why did not Judge Douglas say that
these words were not stricken out of the Toomb's bill, or this bill from
which it is alleged the provision was stricken out,--a bill which goes by
the name of Toomb's, because he originally brought it forward? I ask
why, if the Judge wanted to make a direct issue with Trumbull, did he
not take the exact proposition Trumbull made in his speech, and say it
was not stricken out? Trumbull has given the exact words that he says
were in the Toomb's bill, and he alleges that when the bill came back,
they were stricken out. Judge Douglas does not say that the words
which Trumbull says were stricken out were not so stricken out, but he
says there was no provision in the Toomb's bill to submit the
constitution to a vote of the people. We see at once that he is merely
making an issue upon the meaning of the words. He has not undertaken
to say that Trumbull tells a lie about these words being stricken out, but
he is really, when pushed up to it, only taking an issue upon the
meaning of the words. Now, then, if there be any issue upon the
meaning of the words, or if there be upon the question of fact as to
whether these words were stricken out, I have before me what I
suppose to be a genuine copy of the Toomb's bill, in which it can be
shown that the words Trumbull says were in it were, in fact, originally
there. If there be any dispute upon the fact, I have got the documents
here to show they were there. If there be any controversy upon the
sense of the words,--whether these words which were stricken out
really constituted a provision for submitting the matter to a vote of the
people,--as that is a matter of argument, I think I may as well use
Trumbull's own argument. He says that the proposition is in these
words:
"That the following propositions be and the same are hereby offered to
the said Convention of the people of Kansas when formed, for their free
acceptance or rejection; which, if accepted by the Convention and
ratified by the people at the election for the adoption of the constitution,
shall be obligatory upon the United States and the said State of
Kansas."
Now, Trumbull alleges that these last words were stricken out of the

bill when it came back, and he says this was a provision for submitting
the constitution to a vote of the people; and his argument is this:
"Would it have been possible to ratify the land propositions at the
election for the adoption of the constitution, unless such an election
was to be held?"
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