I have been reminded by a friend behind me that there is another topic
upon which there has been a desire expressed that I should
speak. I am
told that Mr. Lyman Trumbull, who has the good fortune to
hold a seat in the United States Senate, in violation of the
bargain between him and Lincoln, was here the other day and
occupied his time in making certain charges against me,
involving, if they be true, moral turpitude.
I am also informed that the charges he made here
were substantially the same as those made by him in the city
of Chicago, which were printed in the newspapers of that
city. I now
propose to answer those charges and to annihilate every
pretext that an honest man has ever had for repeating them.
In order that I may meet these charges fairly, I will read them, as
made by Mr. Trumbull, in his Chicago speech, in his own
language. He
says:
“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.”
Again, speaking
to some one 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.”
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 upon 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.
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 consider 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.
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 and
come into the Union, that when introduced it contained a
clause requiring the Constitution to be submitted to the
people, and that I struck out the words of that clause.
Suppose it were
true that there was such a clause in the bill, and that I
struck it out, is that proof of a plot to force a Constitution
upon a people against their will? Bear
in mind, that from the days of George Washington to the
Administration of Franklin Pierce there had never been passed
by Congress a bill requiring the submission of a Constitution
to the people. If
Trumbull’s charge, that I struck out that clause, were true,
it would only prove that I had reported the bill in the exact
shape of every bill of like character that passed under
Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, or any other
President, to the time of the then present Administration. I ask you, would
that be evidence of a design to force a Constitution on a
people against their will? If
it were so, it would be evidence against Washington,
Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, Van Buren, and every other
President.
But upon
examination, it turns out that the Toombs bill never did
contain a clause requiring the Constitution
to be submitted. Hence
no such clause was ever stricken out by me or any body else. It is true, however,
that, the Toombs bill and its authors all took it for granted
that the Constitution would be
submitted. There
had never been, in the history of this Government any attempt
made to force a Constitution upon an unwilling people, and
nobody dreamed that any such attempt would be made, or deemed
it necessary to provide for such a contingency.
If such a clause was necessary in Mr.
Trumbull's opinion, why
did he not offer an amendment to that effect?
In order to give more pertinency to that question, I will read an
extract from Trumbull's speech in the Senate, on the Toombs
bill, made on the 2d of July, 1856. He
said:
“We are asked to amend this bill, and make it perfect, and a liberal
spirit seems to be manifested on the part of some Senators
to have a fair bill. It
is difficult, I admit, to frame a bill that will give
satisfaction to all, but to approach it, or come near it, I
think two things must be done.”
The first, then, he goes on to say, was the application of the Wilmot
Proviso to the Territories, and the second the repeal of all
the laws passed by the Territorial Legislature.
He did not then say that it was necessary to put in
a clause requiring the submission of the Constitution. Why, if he thought
such a provision necessary, did he not introduce it? He says in his
speech that he was invited to offer amendments.
Why did he not do so ? He cannot pretend that he
had no chance to do this, for he did offer some amendments,
but none requiring submission.
I now proceed to show that Mr. Trumbull
knew at the time that the bill was silent as to the subject
of submission, and also that he, and every body else, took
it for granted that the Constitution would be submitted. Now for the
evidence. In
his second speech he says: “The bill in many of its features
meets my approbation.”
So he did not think it so very bad.
Further
on he says:
“In regard to the measure introduced by the Senator from Georgia [Mr. Toombs], and
recommended by the Committee, I regard it, in many respects,
as a most excellent bill; but we must look at it in the
light of surrounding circumstances.
In the condition of things now existing in the
country, I do not consider it as a safe measure, nor one
which will give peace, and I will give my reasons.
First, it affords no immediate relief.
It provides for taking a census of the voters in
the Territory, for an election in November, and the
assembling of a Convention in December, to form, if it
thinks proper, a Constitution for Kansas, preparatory to its
admission into the Union as a State.
It is not until December that the Convention is to
meet. It would
take some time to form a Constitution.
I suppose
that Constitution would have to be ratified by the people
before it becomes valid.”
He there expressly declared that he supposed, under the bill, the
Constitution would have to be submitted to the people before
it became valid. He
went onto say:
“No provision is made in this bill for such a ratification.
This is objectionable to my mind.
I do not think the people should be bound by a
Constitution, without passing upon it directly, themselves.”
Why did he not offer an amendment providing for such a submission, if
he thought it necessary? Notwithstanding
the
absence of such a clause, he took it for granted that the
Constitution would have to be ratified by the people, under
the bill.
In another part of the same speech, he says:
“There is nothing said in this bill, so far as I have discovered, about
submitting the Constitution which is to be framed, to the
people, for their sanction or rejection.
Perhaps the Convention would have the right to
submit it, if it should think proper; but it is certainly
not compelled to do so, according to the provisions of the
bill. If it is
to be submitted to the people, it will take time, and it
will not be until sometime next year that this new
Constitution, affirmed and ratified by the people, would be
submitted here to Congress for its acceptance, and what is
to be the condition of that people in the meantime?”
You see that his argument then was that the Toombs bill would not get
Kansas into the Union quick enough and was objectionable on
that account. He
had no fears about this submission, or why did he not
introduce an amendment to meet the case?
A
voice—“Why didn't you? You
were Chairman of the Committee.”
Mr. Douglas—I will
answer that question for you.
In the first place, no such provision had ever before been put in any
similar act passed by Congress.
I did not suppose that there was an honest man who
would pretend that the omission of such a clause furnished
evidence of a conspiracy or attempt to impose on the people. It could not be
expected that such of us as did not think that omission was
evidence of such a scheme, would offer such an amendment;
but if Trumbull then believed what he now says, why did he
not offer the amendment, and try to prevent it, when he was,
as he says, invited to do so?
In this connection I will tell you what the main point of discussion
was: There was a bill pending to admit Kansas whenever she
should have a population of 93,420, that being the ratio
required for a member of Congress.
Under that bill Kansas could not have become a
State for some years, because she could not have had the
requisite population. Mr.
Toombs took it into his head to bring in a bill to admit
Kansas then, with only twenty-five or thirty thousand
people, and the question was whether we would allow Kansas
to come in under this bill, or keep her out under mine until
she had 93,420 people.
The Committee considered that question, and overruled
me by deciding in favor of the immediate admission of
Kansas, and I reported accordingly.
I hold in my hand a copy of the Report which I made
at that time. I
will read from it:
“The point upon which your Committee have entertained the most serious
and grave doubts in regard to the propriety of indorsing the
proposition, relates to the fact that, in the absence of any
census of the inhabitants, there is reason to apprehend that
the Territory does not contain sufficient population to
entitle them to demand admission under the treaty with
France, if we take the ratio of representation for a member
of Congress as the rule.”
Thus you see that in the written report accompanying the bill, I said
that the great difficulty with the Committee was the
question of population.
In the same report I happened to refer to the
question of submission.
Now, listen to what I said about that:
“In the opinion of your Committee, whenever a Constitution shall be
formed in any Territory, preparatory to its admission into
the Union as a State, justice, the genius of our
institutions, the whole theory of our republican system,
imperatively demands that the voice of the people shall be
fairly expressed, and their will embodied in that
fundamental law without fraud or violence, or intimidation,
or any other improper or unlawful influence, and subject to
no other restrictions than those imposed by the Constitution
of the United States.”
I read this from the Report I made at the time, on the Toombs bill. I will read yet
another passage from the same Report; after setting out the
features of the Toombs bill, I contrast it with the
proposition of Senator Seward, saying:
“The revised proposition of the Senator from Georgia refers all matters
in dispute to the decision of the present population, with
guaranties of fairness and safeguards against frauds and
violence, to which no reasonable man can find just grounds
of exception, while the Senator from New York, if his
proposition is designed to recognize and impart vitality to
the Topeka Constitution, proposes to disfranchise not only
all the emigrants who have arrived in the Territory this
year, but all the law abiding men who refused to join in the
act of open rebellion against the constituted authorities of
the Territory last year by making the unauthorized and
unlawful action of a political party the fundamental law of
the whole people.”
Then, again, I repeat that under that bill the question is to be
referred to the present population to decide for or against
coming into the Union under the Constitution they may adopt.
Mr. Trumbull, when at Chicago, rested his charge upon the allegation
that the clause requiring submission was originally in the
bill, and was stricken out by me.
When that falsehood was exposed by a publication of
the record, he went to Alton and made another speech,
repeating the charge and referring to other and different
evidence to sustain it.
He saw that he was caught in his first falsehood, so
he changed the issue, and instead of resting upon the
allegation of striking out, he made it rest upon the
declaration that I had introduced a clause into the bill
prohibiting the people from voting upon the Constitution. I am told that he
made the same charge here that he made at Alton, that I had
actually introduced and incorporated into the bill, a clause
which prohibited the people from voting upon their
Constitution. I
hold his Alton speech in my hand, and will read the
amendment, which he alleges that I offered.
It is in these words:
“And until the complete execution of this act no other election shall
be held in said Territory.”
Trumbull says the object of
that amendment was to prevent the Convention from submitting
the Constitution to a vote of the people.
I will read what he said at Alton on that subject:
“This clause put it out of the power of the Convention, had it been so
disposed, to submit the Constitution to the people for
adoption; for it absolutely prohibited the holding of any
other election, than that for the election of delegates,
till that act was completely executed, which would not have
been till Kansas was admitted as a State, or, at all events,
till her Constitution was fully prepared and ready for
submission to Congress for admission.”
Now, do you suppose that Mr. Trumbull supposed that that clause
prohibited the Convention from submitting the Constitution
to the people, when, in his speech in the Senate, he
declared that the Convention had a right to submit it? In his Alton speech,
as will be seen by the extract which I have read, he
declared that the clause put it out of the power of the
Convention to submit the Constitution, and in his speech in
the Senate he said:
“There is nothing said in this bill, so far as I have discovered, about
submitting the Constitution which is to be formed, to the
people, for their sanction or rejection.
Perhaps the Convention could have the right to
submit it, if it should think proper, but it is certainly
not compelled to do so according to the provisions of the
bill.”
Thus you see that, in Congress, he declared the bill to be silent on
the subject, and a few days since, at Alton, he made a
speech, and said that there was a provision in the bill
prohibiting submission.
I have two answers to make to that.
In the first place, the amendment which he quotes
as depriving the people of an opportunity to vote upon the
Constitution, was stricken out on my motion—absolutely
stricken out and not voted on at all! In
the second place, in lieu of it, a provision was voted in
authorizing the Convention to order an election whenever it
pleased. I will
read. After
Trumbull had made his speech in the Senate, declaring that
the Constitution would probably be submitted to the people,
although the bill was silent upon that subject, I made a few
remarks, and offered two amendments, which you may find in
the Appendix to the Congressional
Globe, volume thirty-three, first session of the
thirty-fourth Congress, page 795.
I quote:
“Mr. Douglas—I have an
amendment to offer from the Committee on Territories.
On page 8, section 11, strike out the words ‘until
the complete execution of this act no other election shall
be held in said Territory,’ and insert the amendment which I
hold in my hand.”
The amendment was as follows:
“That all persons who shall possess the other qualifications prescribed
for voters under this act, and who shall have been bona fide
inhabitants of said Territory since its organization, and
who shall have absented themselves there from in consequence
of the disturbances therein, and who shall return before the
first day of October next, and become bona fide inhabitants
of the Territory, with the intent of making it their
permanent home, and shall present satisfactory evidence of
these facts to the Board of Commissioners, shall be entitled
to vote at said election, and shall have their names placed
on said corrected list of voters for that purpose.”
That amendment was adopted unanimously.
After its adoption, the record shows the following:
“Mr. Douglas—I have
another amendment to offer from the Committee, to follow the
amendment which has been adopted.
The bill reads now, ‘and until the complete
execution of this act, no other election shall be held in
said Territory.’ It has been suggested that it should be
modified in this way, ‘and to avoid all conflict in the
complete execution of this act, all other elections in said
Territory are hereby postponed until such time as said
Convention shall appoint,’ so that they can appoint the day
in the event that there should be a failure to come into the
Union.”
This amendment was also agreed to without dissent.
Thus you see that the amendment quoted by Trumbull, at Alton, as
evidence against me, instead of being put into the bill by
me, was stricken out on my motion, and never became a part
thereof at all. You
also see that the substituted clause expressly authorized
the Convention to appoint such day of election as it should
deem proper.
Mr. Trumbull when he made that speech knew these facts.
He forged his evidence from beginning to end, and
by falsifying the record he endeavors to bolster up his
false charge. I
ask you what you think of Trumbull thus going around the
country, falsifying and garbling the public records.
I ask you whether you will sustain a man who will
descend to the infamy of such conduct.
Mr. Douglas proceeded to remark that he should not hereafter occupy his
time in refuting such charges made by Trumbull, but that
Lincoln having indorsed the character of Trumbull for
veracity, he should hold him [Lincoln] responsible for the
slanders.
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