the people to have it, or rather to keep
it, if they choose? These questions, so far as I know, the Judge never
answers. It might involve the Democracy to answer them either way, and
they go unanswered.

As to Kansas. The substance of the Judge's speech on Kansas is an effort
to put the free-State men in the wrong for not voting at the election of
delegates to the constitutional convention. He says:

"There is every reason to hope and believe that the law will be fairly
interpreted and impartially executed, so as to insure to every bona fide
inhabitant the free and quiet exercise of the elective franchise."

It appears extraordinary that Judge Douglas should make such a statement.
He knows that, by the law, no one can vote who has not been registered;
and he knows that the free-State men place their refusal to vote on the
ground that but few of them have been registered. It is possible that this
is not true, but Judge Douglas knows it is asserted to be true in letters,
newspapers, and public speeches, and borne by every mail and blown by
every breeze to the eyes and ears of the world. He knows it is boldly
declared that the people of many whole counties, and many whole
neighborhoods in others, are left unregistered; yet he does not venture
to contradict the declaration, or to point out how they can vote without
being registered; but he just slips along, not seeming to know there is
any such question of fact, and complacently declares:

"There is every reason to hope and believe that the law will be
fairly and impartially executed, so as to insure to every bona fide
inhabitant the free and quiet exercise of the elective franchise."

I readily agree that if all had a chance to vote they ought to have voted.
If, on the contrary, as they allege, and Judge Douglas ventures not to
particularly contradict, few only of the free-State men had a chance to
vote, they were perfectly right in staying from the polls in a body.

By the way, since the Judge spoke, the Kansas election has come off. The
Judge expressed his confidence that all the Democrats in Kansas would
do their duty-including "free-State Democrats," of course. The returns
received here as yet are very incomplete; but so far as they go, they
indicate that only about one sixth of the registered voters have really
voted; and this, too, when not more, perhaps, than one half of the
rightful voters have been registered, thus showing the thing to have
been altogether t