might, if they saw fit, prohibit the existence of slavery therein. And
now I state it as a fact, to be taken back if there is any mistake about
it, that Judge Douglas and those acting with him voted that amendment
down. I now think that those men who voted it down had a real reason for
doing so. They know what that reason was. It looks to us, since we have
seen the Dred Scott decision pronounced, holding that "under the
Constitution" the people cannot exclude slavery, I say it looks to
outsiders, poor, simple, "amiable, intelligent gentlemen," as though the
niche was left as a place to put that Dred Scott decision in,--a niche
which would have been spoiled by adopting the amendment. And now, I say
again, if this was not the reason, it will avail the Judge much more to
calmly and good-humoredly point out to these people what that other
reason was for voting the amendment down, than, swelling himself up, to
vociferate that he may be provoked to call somebody a liar.

Again: There is in that same quotation from the Nebraska Bill this
clause: "It being the true intent and meaning of this bill not to
legislate slavery into any Territory or State." I have always been
puzzled to know what business the word "State" had in that connection.
Judge Douglas knows. He put it there. He knows what he put it there for.
We outsiders cannot say what he put it there for. The law they were
passing was not about States, and was not making provisions for States.
What was it placed there for? After seeing the Dred Scott decision, which
holds that the people cannot exclude slavery from a Territory, if another
Dred Scott decision shall come, holding that they cannot exclude it from
a State, we shall discover that when the word was originally put there,
it was in view of something which was to come in due time, we shall see
that it was the other half of something. I now say again, if there is any
different reason for putting it there, Judge Douglas, in a good-humored
way, without calling anybody a liar, can tell what the reason was.