rather think this the truth--the Judge shakes his head. Very well. I
would, like to know then, _if they wanted Chase's amendment fixed over,
why somebody else could not have offered to do it_. If they wanted it
amended, why did they not offer the amendment? Why did they stand
there taunting and quibbling at Chase? Why did they not put it in
themselves? But, to put it on the other ground: suppose that there was
such an amendment offered and Chase's was an amendment to an amendment;
until one is disposed of by parliamentary law, you cannot pile another
on. Then all these gentlemen had to do was to vote Chase's on, and
then, in the amended form in which the whole stood, add their own
amendment to it if they wanted to put it in that shape. This was all
they were obliged to do, and the ayes and noes show that there were
thirty-six who voted it down, against ten who voted in favor of it.
The thirty-six held entire sway and control. They could in some form
or other have put that bill in the exact shape they wanted. If there
was a rule preventing their amending it at the time, they could pass
that, and then, Chase's amendment being merged, put it in the shape
they wanted. They did not choose to do so, but they went into a
quibble with Chase to get him to add what they knew he would not add,
and because he would not, they stand upon that flimsy pretext for
voting down what they argued was the meaning and intent of their own
bill. They left room thereby for this Dred Scott decision, which goes
very far to make slavery national throughout the United States.

I pass one or two points I have because my time will very soon expire,
but I must be allowed to say that Judge Douglas recurs again, as he did
upon one of two other occasions, to the enormity of Lincoln--an
insignificant individual like Lincoln--upon his _ipse dixit_ charging a
conspiracy upon a large number of members of Congress, the Supreme
Court, and two Presidents, to nationalize slavery. I want to say that,