ut we prove by another source that about the same
time Douglas comes into the Senate with that provision stricken out of the
bill. Although Bigler cannot say they were all working in concert, yet
it looks very much as if the thing was agreed upon and done with a mutual
understanding after the conference; and while we do not know that it was
absolutely so, yet it looks so probable that we have a right to call upon
the man who knows the true reason why it was done to tell what the true
reason was. When he will not tell what the true reason was, he stands in
the attitude of an accused thief who has stolen goods in his possession,
and when called to account refuses to tell where he got them. Not only is
this the evidence, but when he comes in with the bill having the provision
stricken out, he tells us in a speech, not then but since, that these
alterations and modifications in the bill had been made by HIM, in
consultation with Toombs, the originator of the bill. He tells us the
same to-day. He says there were certain modifications made in the bill in
committee that he did not vote for. I ask you to remember, while certain
amendments were made which he disapproved of, but which a majority of the
committee voted in, he has himself told us that in this particular the
alterations and modifications were made by him, upon consultation with
Toombs. We have his own word that these alterations were made by him, and
not by the committee. Now, I ask, what is the reason Judge Douglas is so
chary about coming to the exact question? What is the reason he will not
tell you anything about How it was made, BY WHOM it was made, or that he
remembers it being made at all? Why does he stand playing upon the meaning
of words and quibbling around the edges of the evidence? If he can explain
all this, but leaves it unexplained, I have the right to infer that Judge
Douglas understood it was the purpose of his party, in engineering that
bill through, to make a constitution, and have Kansas come into the Union
with that constitution, without its being submitted to a vote of the
people. If he will explain his action on this question, by giving a
better reason for the facts that happened than he has done, it will be
satisfactory. But until he does that--until he gives a better or more
plausible reason than he has offered against the evidence in the case--I
suggest to him it will not avail him at all that he swells himself up,
takes on dignity, and calls