Mr. Douglas's Reply in the Quincy Joint De

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bate.

ADIES AND. GENTLEMEN:

Per

mit me to say that unless silence is observed it will be impossible for me to be heard by this immense crowd, and my friends can confer no higher favor upon me than by omitting all expressions of applause or approbation. I desire to be heard rather than to be applauded. I wish to address myself to your reason, your judgment, your sense of justice, and not to your passions.

I regret that Mr. Lincoln should have deemed it proper for him to again indulge in gross personalities and base insinuations in regard to the Springfield resolutions. It has imposed upon me the necessity of using some portion of my time for the purpose of calling your attention to the facts of the case, and it will then be for you to say what you think of a man who can predicate such a charge upon the circumstances he has in this. I had seen the platform adopted by a Republican congressional convention held in Aurora, the second congressional district, in September, 1854, published as purporting to be

the platform of the Republican party. That platform declared that the Republican party was pledged never to admit another slave State into the Union, and also that it was pledged to prohibit slavery in all the Territories of the United States,-not only all that we then had, but all that we should thereafter acquire,-and to repeal unconditionally the fugitive-slave law, abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and prohibit the slave-trade between the different States. These and other articles against slavery were contained in this platform, and unanimously adopted by the Republican congressional convention in that district. I had also seen that the Republican congressional conventions at Rockford, in the first district, and at Bloomington, in the third, had adopted the same platform that year, nearly word for word, and had declared it to be the platform of the Republican party. I had noticed that Major Thomas L. Harris, a member of Congress from the Springfield district, had referred to that platform in a speech in Congress, as having been adopted by the first Republican State convention which assembled in Illinois. When I had occasion to use the fact in this canvass, I wrote to Major Harris to know on what day that convention was held, and to ask him to send me its proceedings. He being sick, Charles H. Lanphier an

swered my letter by sending me the published proceedings of the convention held at Springfield on the 5th of October, 1854, as they appeared in the report of the "State Register." I read those resolutions from that newspaper the same as any of you would refer back and quote any fact from the files of a newspaper which had published it. Mr. Lincoln pretends that after I had so quoted those resolutions he discovered that they had never been adopted at Springfield. He does not deny their adoption by the Republican party at Aurora, at Bloomington, and at Rockford, and by nearly all the Republican county conventions in northern Illinois where his party is in a majority; but merely because they were not adopted on the "spot" on which I said they were, he chooses to quibble about the place rather than meet and discuss the merits of the resolutions themselves. I stated when I quoted them that I did so from the "State Register." I gave my authority. Lincoln believed at the time, as he has since admitted, that they had been adopted at Springfield, as published. Does he believe now that I did not tell the truth when I quoted those resolutions? He knows in his heart that I quoted them in good faith, believing at the time that they had been adopted at Springfield. I would consider myself an infamous wretch if, under

such circumstances, I could charge any man with being a party to a trick or a fraud. And I will tell him, too, that it will not do to charge a forgery on Charles H. Lanphier or Thomas L. Harris. No man on earth, who knows them, and knows Lincoln, would take his oath against their word. There are not two men in the State of Illinois who have higher characters for truth, for integrity, for moral character, and for elevation of tone, as gentlemen, than Mr. Lanphier and Mr. Harris. Any man who attempts to make such charges as Mr. Lincoln has indulged in against them, only proclaims himself a slanderer.

I will now show you that I stated with entire fairness, as soon as it was made known to me, that there was a mistake about the spot where the resolutions had been adopted, although their truthfulness, as a declaration of the principles of the Republican party, had not and could not be questioned. I did not wait for Lincoln to point out the mistake; but the moment I discovered it, I made a speech, and published it to the world, correcting the error. I corrected it myself, as a gentleman and an honest man, and as I always feel proud to do when I have made a mistake. I wish Mr. Lincoln could show that he has acted with equal fairness and truthfulness when I have convinced him that he

has been mistaken. I will give you an illustration to show you how he acts in a similar case: In a speech at Springfield he charged Chief Justice Taney and his associates, President Pierce, President Buchanan, and myself with having entered into a conspiracy at the time the Nebraska bill was introduced, by which the Dred Scott decision was to be made by the Supreme Court, in order to carry slavery everywhere under the Constitution. I called his attention to the fact that at the time alluded toto-wit, the introduction of the Nebraska billit was not possible that such a conspiracy could have been entered into, for the reason that the Dred Scott case had never been taken before the Supreme Court, and was not taken before it for a year after; and I asked him to take back that charge. Did he do it? I showed him that it was impossible that the charge could be true; I proved it by the record, and I then called upon him to retract his false charge. What was his answer? Instead of coming out like an honest man and doing so, he reiterated the charge, and said that if the case had not gone up to the Supreme Court from the courts of Missouri at the time he charged that the judges of the Supreme Court entered into the conspiracy, yet that there was an understanding with the Democratic owners of Dred Scott that they