“That the following propositions be and the same are hereby offered to the said Convention of the people of Kansas when formed, for their free acceptance or rejection; which, if accepted by the Convention and ratified by the people at the election for the adoption of the constitution, shall be obligatory upon the United States and the said State of Kansas.”

Now, Trumbull alleges that these last words were stricken out of the bill when it came back, and he says this was a provision for submitting the constitution to a vote of the people; and his argument is this: 

“Would it have been possible to ratify the land propositions at the election for the adoption of the constitution, unless such an election was to be held?”

This is Trumbull’s argument.  Now, Judge Douglas does not meet the charge at all, but he stands up and says there was no such proposition in that bill for submitting the constitution to be framed to a vote of the people.  Trumbull admits that the language is not a direct provision for submitting it, but it is a provision necessarily implied from another provision.  He asks you how it is possible to ratify the land proposition at the election for the adoption of the constitution, if there was no election to be held for the adoption of the constitution.  And he goes on to show that it is not any less a law because the provision is put in that indirect shape than it would be if it were put directly.  But I presume I have said enough to draw attention to this point, and I pass it by also.

Another one of the points that Judge Douglas makes upon Trumbull, and at very great length, is, that Trumbull, while the bill was pending, said in a speech in the Senate that he supposed the constitution to be made would have to be submitted to the people.  He asks, if Trumbull thought so then, what ground is there for anybody thinking otherwise now?  Fellow-citizens, this much may be said in reply:  That bill had been in the hands of a party to which Trumbull did not belong.  It had been in the hands of the committee at the head of which Judge Douglas stood.  Trumbull perhaps had a printed copy of the original Toomb’s bill.  I have not the evidence on that point except a sort of inference I draw from the general course of business there.  What alterations, or what provisions in the way of altering, were going on in committee, Trumbull had no means of knowing, until the altered bill was reported back.  Soon afterwards, when it was reported back, there was a discussion over it, and perhaps Trumbull in reading it hastily in the altered form did not perceive all the bearings of the alterations.  He was hastily borne into the debate, and it does not follow that because there was something in it Trumbull did not perceive, that something did not exist.  More than this, is it true that what Trumbull did can have any effect on what Douglas did?  Suppose Trumbull had been in the plot with these other men, would that let Douglas