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

Page 303

 
  I knew at the time this statement was made, that I had urged the very objection to the Toombs bill two years before, that it did not provide for the submission of the constitution. You will find my remarks, made on the 2nd of July, 1856, in the appendix to the Congressional Globe of that year, page 179, urging this very objection. Do you ask why I did not expose him at the time? I will tell you: Mr. Douglas was then doing good service against the Lecompton iniquity. The Republicans were then engaged in a hand-to-hand fight with the National Democracy to prevent the bringing of Kansas into the Union as a Slave State against the wishes of its inhabitants, and of course I was unwilling to turn our guns from the common enemy to strike down an ally. Judge Douglas, however, on the same day, and in the same debate, probably recollecting, or being reminded of, the fact, that I had objected to the Toombs bill when pending, that it did not provide for the submission of the constitution to the people, made another statement which is to be found in the same volume of the Congressional Globe, page 22, in which he says:—
          That the bill was silent on the subject is true, and my attention was called to that about the time it was passed; and I took the fair construction to be, that powers not delegated were reserved, and that of course the constitution would be submitted to the people.
  13
  Whether this statement is consistent with the statement just before made, that had the point been made it would have been yielded to, or that it was a new discovery, you will determine; for if the public records do not convict and condemn him, he may go uncondemned, so far as I am concerned. I make no use here of the testimony of Senator Bigler to show that Judge Douglas must have been privy to the consultation held at his house, when it was determined not to submit the constitution to the people, because Judge Douglas denies it, and I wish to use his own acts and declarations, which are abundantly sufficient for my purpose.  14
  I come to a piece of testimony which disposes of all these various pretenses which have been set up for striking out of the original Toombs proposition the clause requiring a submission of the constitution to the people, and shows that it was not done