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

Page 306

 
          Now, fellow-citizens, I make the distinct charge that there was a preconcerted arrangement and plot entered into by the very men who now claim credit for opposing a constitution not submitted to the people, to have a constitution formed and put in force without giving the people an opportunity to pass upon it. This, my friends, is a serious charge, but I charge it to-night, that the very men who traverse the country under banners proclaiming popular sovereignty, by design concocted a bill on purpose to force a constitution upon that people.
  2
  Again, speaking to someone in the crowd, he says:—
          And you want to satisfy yourself that he was in the plot to force a constitution upon that people? I will satisfy you, I will cram the truth down any honest man’s throat, until he cannot deny it, and to the man who does deny it I will cram the lie down his throat till he shall cry ‘Enough!’ It is preposterous; it is the most damnable effrontery that man ever put on to conceal a scheme to defraud and cheat the people out of their rights, and then claim credit for it.
  3
  That is polite and decent language for a senator of the United States. Remember that that language was used without any provocation whatever from me. I had not alluded to him in any manner in any speech that I had made, hence without provocation. As soon as he sets his foot within the State, he makes the direct charge that I was a party to a plot to force a constitution upòn the people of Kansas against their will, and knowing that it would be denied, he talks about cramming the lie down the throat of any man who shall deny it, until he cries, “Enough.”  4
  Why did he take it for granted that it would be denied, unless he knew it to be false? Why did he deem it necessary to make a threat in advance that he would “cram the lie” down the throat of any man that should deny it? I have no doubt that the entire Abolition party considers it very polite for Mr. Trumbull to go round uttering calumnies of that kind, bullying, and talking of cramming lies down men’s throats; but if I deny any of his lies by calling him a liar, they are shocked at the indecency of the language; hence, to-day, instead of calling him a liar I intend to prove that he is one.  5
  I wish, in the first place, to refer to the evidence adduced by Trumbull, at Chicago, to sustain his charge. He there declared that Mr. Toombs, of Georgia, introduced a bill into Congress authorizing the people of Kansas to form a constitution