is action from the one we assign him--he
can tell it. I insist upon knowing why he made the bill silent upon that
point when it was vocal before he put his hands upon it.

I was told, before my last paragraph, that my time was within three
minutes of being out. I presume it is expired now; I therefore close.

Mr. LINCOLN'S REJOINDER.

FELLOW-CITIZENS: It follows as a matter of course that a half-hour answer
to a speech of an hour and a half can be but a very hurried one. I shall
only be able to touch upon a few of the points suggested by Judge Douglas,
and give them a brief attention, while I shall have to totally omit others
for the want of time.

Judge Douglas has said to you that he has not been able to get from me an
answer to the question whether I am in favor of negro citizenship. So far
as I know the Judge never asked me the question before. He shall have no
occasion to ever ask it again, for I tell him very frankly that I am not
in favor of negro citizenship. This furnishes me an occasion for saying a
few words upon the subject. I mentioned in a certain speech of mine, which
has been printed, that the Supreme Court had decided that a negro could
not possibly be made a citizen; and without saying what was my ground of
complaint in regard to that, or whether I had any ground of complaint,
Judge Douglas has from that thing manufactured nearly everything that he
ever says about my disposition to produce an equality between the negroes
and the white people. If any one will read my speech, he will find I
mentioned that as one of the points decided in the course of the Supreme
Court opinions, but I did not state what objection I had to it. But Judge
Douglas tells the people what my objection was when I did not tell them
myself. Now, my opinion is that the different States have the power to
make a negro a citizen under the Constitution of the United States if they
choose. The Dred Scott decision decides that they have not that power. If
the State of Illinois had that power, I should be opposed to the exercise
of it. That is all I have to say about it.

Judge Douglas has told me that he heard my speeches north and my speeches
south; that he had heard me at Ottawa and at Freeport in the north and
recently at Jonesboro in the south, and there was a very different cast of
sentiment in the speeches made at the different points. I will not charge
upon Judge Douglas that he wilfully misrepresents me, but I call upon