participated in adopting, in the first Republican State
Convention, held at Springfield in October, 1854. He insisted that I and
Judge Trumbull, and perhaps the entire Republican party, were responsible
for the doctrines contained in the set of resolutions which he read, and
I understand that it was from that set of resolutions that he deduced the
interrogatories which he propounded to me, using these resolutions as a
sort of authority for propounding those questions to me. Now, I say here
to-day that I do not answer his interrogatories because of their springing
at all from that set of resolutions which he read. I answered them
because Judge Douglas thought fit to ask them. I do not now, nor ever did,
recognize any responsibility upon myself in that set of resolutions. When
I replied to him on that occasion, I assured him that I never had anything
to do with them. I repeat here to today that I never in any possible form
had anything to do with that set of resolutions It turns out, I believe,
that those resolutions were never passed in any convention held in
Springfield.

It turns out that they were never passed at any convention or any public
meeting that I had any part in. I believe it turns out, in addition to all
this, that there was not, in the fall of 1854, any convention holding a
session in Springfield, calling itself a Republican State Convention; yet
it is true there was a convention, or assemblage of men calling themselves
a convention, at Springfield, that did pass some resolutions. But so
little did I really know of the proceedings of that convention, or what
set of resolutions they had passed, though having 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 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
co