* * * The Lecompton
Constitution, as the Judge tells us, was defeated. The defeat of it was
a good thing or it was not. He thinks the defeat of it was a good
thing, and so do I, and we agree in that. Who defeated it? [A voice
--'Judge Douglas.'] Yes, he furnished himself, and if you suppose he
controlled the other Democrats that went with him, he furnished three
votes, while the Republicans furnished twenty. That is what he did to
defeat it. In the House of Representatives he and his friends furnished
some twenty votes, and the Republicans furnished ninety odd. Now, who
was it that did the work? * * * Ground was taken against it by the
Republicans long before Douglas did it. The proportion of opposition to
that measure is about five to one."
Mr. Lincoln then proceeded to take up the issues which Mr. Douglas had
joined with him the previous evening. He denied that he had said, or
that it could be fairly inferred from what he had said, in his
Springfield speech, that he was in favor of making War by the North upon
the South for the extinction of Slavery, "or, in favor of inviting the
South to a War upon the North, for the purpose of nationalizing
Slavery." Said he: "I did not even say that I desired that Slavery
should be put in course of ultimate extinction.
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