the plan of the founders of the government? I think he says in some of his speeches-indeed I have one here nowthat he saw evidence of a policy to allow slavery to be south of a certain line, while north of it it should be excluded; and he saw an indisposition on the part of the country to stand upon that policy, and therefore he set about studying the subject upon original principles and upon original principles he got up the Nebraska bill! I am fighting it upon these original principles,"-fighting it in the Jeffersonian, Washingtonian, and Madisonian fashion.

Now my friends I wish you to attend for a little while to one or two other things in that Springfield speech. My main object was to show, so far as my humble ability was capable of showing to the people of this country, what I believe was the truth, that there was a tendency, if not a conspiracy, among those who have engineered this slavery question for the last four or five years, to make slavery perpetual and universal in this nation. Having made that speech principally for that object, after arranging the evidences that I thought tended to prove my proposition, I concluded with this bit of

comment:

"We cannot absolutely know that these exact adaptations are the result of preconcert; but, when we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and places and by different workmen,Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James, for instance,—and when we see these timbers joined together and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortises exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too many or too few,-not omitting even the scaffolding,—or if a single piece be lacking we see the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared to yet bring such piece in,-in such a case we feel it impossible not to be

lieve that Stephen and Franklin, and Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn before the first blow was struck."

When my friend Judge Douglas came to Chicago on the 9th of July, this speech having been delivered on the 16th of June, he made an harangue there in which he took hold of this speech of mine, showing that he had carefully read it; and, while he paid no attention to this matter at all, but complimented me as being a "kind, amiable, and intelligent gentleman," notwithstanding I had said this, he goes on and deduces or draws out from my speech this tendency of mine to set the States at war with one another, to make all the institutions uniform, and set the niggers and white people to marry together.

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Then, as the judge had complimented me with these pleasant titles (I must confess to my weakness), I was a little taken;" for it came from a great man. I was not very much accustomed to flattery and it came the sweeter to me. was rather like the Hoosier with the gingerbread when he said he reckoned he loved it better than any other man and got less of it. As the judge had so flattered me I could not make up my mind that he meant to deal unfairly with me. So I went to work to show him that he misunderstood the whole scope of my speech and that I really never intended to set the people at war with one another.

As an illustration, the next time I met him, which was at Springfield, I used this expression, that I claimed no right under the constitution, nor had I any inclination, to enter into the slave States and interfere with the institutions of slavery. He says upon that, Lincoln will not enter into the Biave States, but will go to the banks of the Ohio on this side

and shoot over! He runs on, step by step, in the horsechestnut style of argument, until in the Springfield speech he says, "Unless he shall be successful in firing his batteries until he shall have extinguished slavery in all the States the Union shall be dissolved."

Now, I don't think that was exactly the way to treat "a kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman." I know if I had asked the judge to show when or where it was I had said that, if I didn't succeed in firing into the slave States until slavery should be extinguished the Union should be dissolved, he could not have shown it. I understand what he would do. He would say, "I don't mean to quote from you, but this was the result of what you say." But I have the right to ask, and I do ask now, Did you not put it in such a form that an ordinary reader or listener would take it as an expression from me?

In a speech at Springfield, on the night of the 17th, I thought I might as well attend to my business a little; and I recalled his attention as well as I could do to this charge of conspiracy to nationalize slavery. I called his attention to the fact that he had acknowledged in my hearing twice that he had carefully read the speech; and in the language of the lawyers, as he had twice read the speech and still had put in no plea or answer, I took a default on him. I insisted that I had a right then to renew that charge of conspiracy.

Ten days afterward I met the judge at Clinton—that is to say, I was on the ground but not in the discussion-and heard him make a speech. Then he comes in with his plea to this charge for the first time; and his plea when put in, as well as I can recollect it, amounted to this: That he never had any talk with Judge Taney or the President of the United States with regard to the Dred Scott decision before

it was made; I (Lincoln) ought to know that the man who makes a charge without knowing it to be true falsifies as much as he who knowingly tells a falsehood; and lastly, that he would pronounce the whole thing a falsehood; but he would make no personal application of the charge of falsehood, not because of any regard for the "kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman," but because of his own personal selfrespect! I have understood since then, but [turning to Judge Douglas] will not hold the judge to it if he is not willing, that he has broken through the "self-respect" and has got to saying the thing out. The judge nods to me that it is so. It is fortunate for me that I can keep as goodhumored as I do when the judge acknowledges that he has been trying to make a question of veracity with me.

I know the judge is a great man, while I am only a small man; but I feel that I have got him. I demur to that plea. I waive all objections that it was not filed till after default was taken and demur to it upon the merits. What if Judge Douglas never did talk with Chief Justice Taney and the President before the Dred Scott decision was made? Does it follow that he could not have had as perfect an understanding without talking as with it? I am not disposed to stand upon my legal advantage. I am disposed to take his denial as being like an answer in chancery, that he neither had any knowledge, information, nor belief in the existence of such a conspiracy.

I am disposed to take his answer as being as broad as though he had put it in these words. And now I ask even if he had done so have not I a right to prove it on him and to offer the evidence of more than two witnesses by whom to prove it; and if the evidence proves the existence of the conspiracy does his broad answer, denying all knowledge, information,

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or belief, disturb the fact? It can only show that he was used by conspirators and was not a leader of them.

Now, in regard to his reminding me of the moral rule that persons who tell what they do not know to be true falsify as much as those who knowingly tell falsehoods. I remember the rule, and it must be borne in mind that in what I have read to you I do not say that I know such a conspiracy to exist. To that I reply I believe it. If the judge says that I do not believe it, then he says what he does not know and falls within his own rule that he who asserts a thing which he does not know to be true falsifies as much as he who knowingly tells a falsehood. I want to call your attention to a little discussion on that branch of the case and the evidence which brought my mind to the conclusion which I expressed as my belief. If in arraying that evidence I stated anything which was false or erroneous, it needed but that Judge Douglas should point it out, and I would have taken it back with all the kindness in the world. I do not deal in that way. If I have brought forward anything not a fact, if he will point it out it will not even ruffle me to take it back. But if he will not point out anything erroneous in the evidence, is it not rather for him to show by a comparison of the evidence that I have reasoned falsely than to call the kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman "a liar?

If I have reasoned to a false conclusion it is the vocation of an able debater to show by argument that I have wandered to an erroneous conclusion. I want to ask your attention to a portion of the Nebraska bill which Judge Douglas has quoted: "It being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in