railroads, and other internal improvements, and thus make this the asylum of the oppressed of the whole earth. We have this great mission to perform, and it can only be performed by adhering faithfully to that principle of self-government on which our institutions were all established. I repeat that the principle is the right of each State, each Territory, to decide this slavery question for itself, to have slavery or not, as it chooses; and it does not become Mr. Lincoln, or anybody else, to tell the people of Kentucky that they have no consciences, that they are living in a state of iniquity, and that they are cherishing an institution to their bosoms in violation of the law of God. Better for him to adopt the loctrine of "Judge not, lest ye shall be judged." Let him perform his own duty at home, and he will ave a better fate in the future. I think there are bjects of charity enough in the free States to excite he sympathies and open the pockets of all the enevolence we have amongst us, without going broad in search of negroes, of whose condition we now nothing. We have enough objects of charity t home, and it is our duty to take care of our own oor and our own suffering, before we go abroad to termeddle with other people's business.

My friends, I am told that my time is within two inutes of expiring. I have omitted many topics hat I would like to have discussed before you at ength. There were many points touched by Mr. incoln that I have not been able to take up for the yant of time. I have hurried over each subject that have discussed as rapidly as possible, so as to omit

but few; but one hour and a half is not time sufficient for a man to discuss at length one half of the great questions which are now dividing the public mind.

In conclusion, I desire to return to you my grateful acknowledgments for the kindness and the courtesy with which you have listened to me. It is something remarkable that in an audience as vast as this, composed of men of opposite politics and views, with their passions highly excited, there should be so much courtesy, kindness, and respect exhibited, not only toward one another, but toward the speakers; and I feel that it is due to you that I should thus express my gratitude for the kindness with which you have treated me.

MR. LINCOLN'S REJOINDER.

MY FRIENDS: Since Judge Douglas has said to you in his conclusion that he had not time in an hour and a half to answer all I had said in an hour, it follows of course that I will not be able to answer in half an hour all that he said in an hour and a half.

I wish to return to Judge Douglas my profound thanks for his public annunciation here to-day, to be put on record, that his system of policy in regard to the institution of slavery contemplates that it shall last forever. We are getting a little nearer the true issue of this controversy, and I am profoundly grateful for this one sentence. Judge Douglas asks you, Why cannot the institution of slavery, or rather, why cannot the nation, part slave and part

free, continue as our fathers made it, forever? In the first place, I insist that our fathers did not make this nation half slave and half free, or part slave and part free. I insist that they found the institution of slavery existing here. They did not make it so but they left it so because they knew of no way to get rid of it at that time. When Judge Douglas undertakes to say that, as a matter of choice, the fathers of the government made this nation part slave and part free, he assumes what is historically a falsehood. More than that: when the fathers of the government cut off the source of slavery by the abolition of the slave-trade, and adopted a system of restricting it from the new Territories where it had not existed, I maintain that they placed it where they understood, and all sensible men understood, it was in the course of ultimate extinction; and when Judge Douglas asks me why it cannot continue as our fathers made it, I ask him why he and his friends could not let it remain as our fathers made it?

It is precisely all I ask of him in relation to the institution of slavery, that it shall be placed upon the basis that our fathers placed it upon. Mr. Brooks, of South Carolina, once said, and truly said, that when this government was established, no one expected the institution of slavery to last until this day, and that the men who formed this government were wiser and better than the men of these days; but the men of these days had experience which the fathers had not, and that experience had taught them the invention of the cotton-gin, and this had made the perpetuation of the institution of slavery a necessity

in this country. Judge Douglas could not let it stand upon the basis which our fathers placed it, but removed it, and put it upon the cotton-gin basis. It is a question, therefore, for him and his friends to answer, why they could not let it remain where the fathers of the government originally placed it.

I hope nobody has understood me as trying to sustain the doctrine that we have a right to quarrel with Kentucky, or Virginia, or any of the slave States, about the institution of slavery,—thus giving the Judge an opportunity to be eloquent and valian: against us in fighting for their rights. I expressly declared in my opening speech that I had neither the inclination to exercise, nor the belief in the exist ence of, the right to interfere with the States of Kentucky or Virginia in doing as they pleased with slavery or any other existing institution. Then what becomes of all his eloquence in behalf of the rights of States, which are assailed by no living man?

But I have to hurry on, for I have but a half hour. The Judge has informed me, or informed this audience, that the Washington Union is laboring for my election to the United States Senate. This is news to me,-not very ungrateful news either. [Turning to Mr. W. H. Carlin, who was on the stand I hope that Carlin will be elected to the State Senate, and will vote for me. [Mr. Carlin shook his head.] Carlin don't fall in, I perceive, and I suppose he will not do much for me; but I am glad of all the support I can get, anywhere, if I can get it without practising any deception to obtain it. In respect to this large portion of Judge Douglas's speech in which he tries to

show that in the controversy between himself and he Administration party he is in the right, I do not eel myself at all competent or inclined to answer im. I say to him, "Give it to them,-give it to hem just all you can!" and, on the other hand, I ay to Carlin, and Jake Davis, and to this man Wogley up here in Hancock, "Give it to Douglas,ust pour it into him!"

Now, in regard to this matter of the Dred Scott ecision, I wish to say a word or two. After all, he Judge will not say whether, if a decision is made olding that the people of the States cannot exclude lavery, he will support it or not. He obstinately efuses to say what he will do in that case. The udges of the Supreme Court as obstinately refused o say what they would do on this subject. Before his I reminded him that at Galesburgh he said the udges had expressly declared the contrary, and you emember that in my opening speech I told him I ad the book containing that decision here, and I Would thank him to lay his finger on the place where ny such thing was said. He has occupied his hour nd a half, and he has not ventured to try to sustain is assertion. He never will. But he is desirous of nowing how we are going to reverse that Dred cott decision. Judge Douglas ought to know how. Did not he and his political friends find a way to everse the decision of that same court in favor of he constitutionality of the National Bank? Didn't hey find a way to do it so effectually that they have eversed it as completely as any decision ever was eversed, so far as its practical operation is concerned?