reply amount to a satisfactory answer?

[Cries of "Yes," "Yes," and "No," "No."]

There is some little difference of opinion here. But I ask attention to
a few more views bearing on the question of whether it amounts to a
satisfactory answer. The men who were determined that that amendment
should not get into the bill, and spoil the place where the Dred Scott
decision was to come in, sought an excuse to get rid of it somewhere.
One of these ways--one of these excuses--was to ask Chase to add to his
proposed amendment a provision that the people might introduce slavery if
they wanted to. They very well knew Chase would do no such thing, that Mr.
Chase was one of the men differing from them on the broad principle of
his insisting that freedom was better than slavery,--a man who would not
consent to enact a law, penned with his own hand, by which he was made to
recognize slavery on the one hand, and liberty on the other, as precisely
equal; and when they insisted on his doing this, they very well knew they
insisted on that which he would not for a moment think of doing, and that
they were only bluffing him. I believe (I have not, since he made his
answer, had a chance to examine the journals or Congressional Globe and
therefore speak from memory)--I believe the state of the bill at that
time, according to parliamentary rules, was such that no member could
propose an additional amendment to Chase's amendment. I rather think this
is the truth,--the Judge shakes his head. Very well. I would 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, t