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Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865). Political Debates Between Lincoln and Douglas. 1897.

Page 302

Now, for the other part of the charge, that Judge Douglas was in this plot, whether knowingly or ignorantly is not material to my purpose. The charge is that he was an instrument cooperating in the project to have a constitution formed and put into operation, without affording the people an opportunity to pass upon it. The first evidence to sustain the charge is the fact that he reported back the Toombs amendment, with the clause providing for the submission stricken out. This, in connection with his speech in the Senate on the 9th of December, 1857 (Congressional Globe, part 1, page 14), wherein he stated:—

That during the last Congress, I [Mr. Douglas] reported a bill from the Committee on Territories, to authorize the people of Kansas to assemble and form a constitution for themselves. Subsequently the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Toombs) brought forward a substitute for my bill, which, after having been modified by him and myself in consultation, was passed by the Senate.

This of itself ought to be sufficient to show that my colleague was an instrument in the plot to have a constitution put in force without submitting it to the people, and to forever close his mouth from attempting to deny. No man can reconcile his acts and former declarations with his present denial, and the only charitable conclusion would be that he was being used by others without knowing it. Whether he is entitled to the benefit of even this excuse, you must judge on a candid hearing of the facts I shall present. When the charge was first made in the United States Senate, by Mr. Bigler, that my colleague had voted for an Enabling Act which put a Government in operation without submitting the constitution to the people, my colleague (Congressional Globe, last session, part 1, page 24) stated:—

I will ask the Senator to show me an intimation from any one member of the Senate, in the whole debate on the Toombs bill, and in the Union from any quarter, that the constitution was not to be submitted to the people. I will venture to say that on all sides of the chamber it was so understood at the time. If the opponents of the bill had understood it was not, they would have made the point on it; and if they had made it, we should certainly have yielded to it, and put in the clause. That is a discovery made since the President found out that it was not safe to take it for granted that that would be done which ought in fairness to have been done.

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