And
now I say again, if this was not the reason, it will avail the Judge
much more to calmly and good-humouredly 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 provision 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 that was to come in due time; we
shall see that it was the other half of something.
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