a general knowledge that there had been such an
assemblage of men there, that when Judge Douglas read the resolutions,
I really did not know but that they had been the resolutions passed
then and there. I did not question that they were the resolutions
adopted. For I could not bring myself to suppose that Judge Douglas
could say what he did upon this subject without _knowing_ that it was
true. I contented myself, on that occasion, with denying, as I truly
could, all connection with them, not denying or affirming whether they
were passed at Springfield. Now it turns out that he had got hold of
some resolutions passed at some convention or public meeting in Kane
County. I wish to say here, that I don't conceive that in any fair and
just mind this discovery relieves me at all. I had just as much to do
with the convention in Kane County as that at Springfield. I am just
as much responsible for the resolutions at Kane County as those at
Springfield, the amount of the responsibility being exactly nothing in
either case; no more than there would be in regard to a set of
resolutions passed in the moon.

I allude to this extraordinary matter in this canvass for some further
purpose than anything yet advanced. Judge Douglas did not make his
statement upon that occasion as matters that he believed to be true,
but he stated them roundly as _being true_, in such form as to pledge
his veracity for their truth. When the whole matter turns out as it
does, and when we consider who Judge Douglas is,--that he is a
distinguished Senator of the United States; that he has served nearly
twelve years as such; that his character is not at all limited as an
ordinary Senator of the United States, but that his name has become of
world-wide renown,--it is _most extraordinary_ that he should so far
forget all the suggestions of justice to an adversary, or of prudence
to himself, as to venture upon the assertion of that which the
slightest investigation would have shown him to be wholly false. I can
only account for his having done so upon the supposition that that evil
genius which has attended him through his life, giving to him an
apparent astonishing prosperity, such as to lead very many good men to
doubt there being any advantage in virtue over vice--I say I can only
account for it on the supposition that that evil genius has at last
made up its mind to forsake him.

And I may add that another extraordinary feature of the Judge's cond