with this question, for it is in this matter of the Lecompton constitution that our friend Judge Douglas claims such vast credit.  I agree that in opposing the Lecompton constitution, so far as I can perceive, he was right.  I do not deny that at all; and, gentlemen, you will readily see why I could not deny it, even if I wanted to.  But I do not wish to, for all the Republicans in the nation opposed it, and they would have opposed it just as much without Judge Douglas’s aid as with it.  They had all taken ground against it long before he did.  Why, the reason that he urges against that constitution I urged against him a year before.  I have the printed speech in my hand.  The argument that he makes why that constitution should not be adopted, that the people were not fairly represented nor allowed to vote, I pointed out in a speech a year ago, which I hold in my hand now, that no fair chance was to be given to the people.

...  A little more now as to this matter of popular sovereignty and the Lecompton constitution.  The Lecompton constitution, as the Judge tells us, was defeated.  The defeat of it was a good thing, or it was not.  He thinks the defeat of it was a good thing, and so do I; and we agree in that.  Who defeated it? [A voice:  “Judge Douglas.”] Yes, he furnished himself; and if you suppose he controlled the other Democrats that went with him, he furnished three votes, while the Republicans furnished twenty.

That is what he did to defeat it.  In the House of Representatives he and his friends furnished some twenty votes, and the Republicans furnished ninety odd.  Now, who was it that did the work? [A voice:  “Douglas.”] Why, yes, Douglas did it?  To be sure he did!

Let us, however, put that proposition another way.  The Republicans could not have done it without Judge Douglas.  Could he have done it without them?  Which could have come the nearest to doing it without the other?  Ground was taken against it by the Republicans long before Douglas did it.  The proposition of opposition to that measure is about five to one. [A voice:  “Why don’t they come out on it?”] You don’t know what you are talking about, my friend; I am quite willing to answer any gentleman in the crowd who asks an intelligent question.

Now, who in all this country has ever found any of our friends of Judge Douglas’s way of thinking, and who have acted upon this main question, that have ever thought of uttering a word in behalf of Judge Trumbull?  I defy you to show a printed resolution passed in a Democratic meeting.  I take it upon myself to defy any man to show a printed resolution, large or small, of a Democratic meeting in favour of Judge Trumbull, or any of the five to one Republicans who beat that bill.  Everything must be for the Democrats!  They did everything, and the five to the one that really did the thing, they snub over, and they do not seem to remember that they have an existence upon the face of the earth.