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 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 the 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 or 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, in the
first place, I have made no charge of this sort upon my ipse dixit. I
have only arrayed the evidence tending to prove it, and presented it to