.. "Put this and that together, and we have another nice little niche,
which we may erelong see filled with another Supreme Court decision,
declaring that the Constitution of the United States does not permit a
_State_ to exclude slavery from its limits. And this may especially be
expected if the doctrine of 'care not whether slavery be voted down or
voted up' shall gain upon the public mind sufficiently to give promise
that such a decision can be maintained when made. Such a decision is all
that slavery now lacks of being alike lawful in all the States."
Following out this idea, Lincoln repeatedly put to Douglas a question to
which he could never get a direct answer from his nimble antagonist: "If
a decision is made, holding that the people of the _States_ cannot
exclude slavery, will he support it, or not?"
Even so skillful a dialectician as Douglas found this compact structure
of history and argument a serious matter. Its simple solidity was not so
susceptible to treatment by the perverting process as had been the
figurative and prophetic utterance about the "house divided against
itself." Neither could he find a chink between the facts and the
inferences. One aspect of the speech, however, could not be passed over.
Lincoln said that he had not charged "Stephen and Franklin and Roger and
James" with collusion and conspiracy; but he admitted that he had
"arrayed the evidence tending to prove," and which he "thought did
prove," these things.
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