uct
in this canvass--made more extraordinary by this incident--is, that he
is in the habit, in almost all the speeches he makes, of charging
falsehood upon his adversaries, myself and others. I now ask whether
he is able to find in anything that Judge Trumbull, for instance, has
said, or in anything that I have said, a justification at all compared
with what we have, in this instance, for that sort of vulgarity.

I have been in the habit of charging as a matter of belief on my part,
that, in the introduction of the Nebraska bill into Congress, there was
a conspiracy to make slavery perpetual and national. I have arranged
from time to time the evidence which establishes and proves the truth
of this charge. I recurred to this charge at Ottawa. I shall not now
have time to dwell upon it at very great length; but, inasmuch as Judge
Douglas in his reply of half an hour made some points upon me in
relation to it, I propose noticing a few of them.

The Judge insists that, in the first speech I made, in which I very
distinctly made that charge, he thought for a good while I was in
fun!--that I was playful--that I was not sincere about it--and that he
only grew angry and somewhat excited when he found that I insisted upon
it as a matter of earnestness. He says he characterized it as a
falsehood as far as I implicated his _moral character_ in that
transaction. Well, I did not know, till he presented that view, that I
had implicated his moral character. He is very much in the habit, when
he argues me up into a position I never thought of occupying, of very
cozily saying he has no doubt Lincoln is "conscientious" in saying so.
He should remember that I did not know but what _he_ was ALTOGETHER
"CONSCIENTIOUS" in that matter. I can conceive it possible for men to
conspire to do a good thing, and I really find nothing in Judge
Douglas's course of arguments that is contrary to or inconsistent with
his belief of a conspiracy to nationalize and spread slavery as being a
good and blessed thing, and so I hope he will understand that I do not
at all question but that in all this matter he is entirely
"conscientious."

But to draw your attention to one of the points I made in this case,
beginning at the beginning. When the Nebraska bill was introduced, or
a short time afterward, by an amendment, I believe, it was provided
that it must be considered "the true intent and meaning of this act not
to legislate slavery into any State