s, I saw that there was a
fatal blow being struck at the sovereignty of the States of this Union."

I stop the quotation there, again requesting that it may all be read. I
have read all of the portion I desire to comment upon. What is this charge
that the Judge thinks I must have a very corrupt heart to make? It was a
purpose on the part of certain high functionaries to make it impossible
for the people of one State to prohibit the people of any other State from
entering it with their "property," so called, and making it a slave State.
In other words, it was a charge implying a design to make the institution
of slavery national. And now I ask your attention to what Judge Douglas
has himself done here. I know he made that part of the speech as a reason
why he had refused to vote for a certain man for public printer; but when
we get at it, the charge itself is the very one I made against him, that
he thinks I am so corrupt for uttering. Now, whom does he make that charge
against? Does he make it against that newspaper editor merely? No; he
says it is identical in spirit with the Lecompton Constitution, and so
the framers of that Constitution are brought in with the editor of
the newspaper in that "fatal blow being struck." He did not call it a
"conspiracy." In his language, it is a "fatal blow being struck." And if
the words carry the meaning better when changed from a "conspiracy" into a
"fatal blow being struck," I will change my expression, and call it "fatal
blow being struck." We see the charge made not merely against the editor
of the Union, but all the framers of the Lecompton Constitution; and not
only so, but the article was an authoritative article. By whose authority?
Is there any question but he means it was by the authority of the
President and his Cabinet,--the Administration?

Is there any sort of question but he means to make that charge? Then there
are the editors of the Union, the framers of the Lecompton Constitution,
the President of the United States and his Cabinet, and all the supporters
of the Lecompton Constitution, in Congress and out of Congress, who
are all involved in this "fatal blow being struck." I commend to Judge
Douglas's consideration the question of how corrupt a man's heart must be
to make such a charge!

Now, my friends, I have but one branch of the subject, in the little time
I have left, to which to call your attention; and as I shall come to a
close at the end of that branch, it