ou to-day. It is true that many of these resolutions are at variance
with the positions I have here assumed. All I have to ask is that we talk
reasonably and rationally about it. I happen to know, the Judge's opinion
to the contrary notwithstanding, that I have never tried to conceal my
opinions, nor tried to deceive any one in reference to them. He may go
and examine all the members who voted for me for United States Senator in
1855, after the election of 1854. They were pledged to certain things here
at home, and were determined to have pledges from me; and if he will find
any of these persons who will tell him anything inconsistent with what I
say now, I will resign, or rather retire from the race, and give him no
more trouble. The plain truth is this: At the introduction of the Nebraska
policy, we believed there was a new era being introduced in the history of
the Republic, which tended to the spread and perpetuation of slavery. But
in our opposition to that measure we did not agree with one another in
everything. The people in the north end of the State were for stronger
measures of opposition than we of the central and southern portions of the
State, but we were all opposed to the Nebraska doctrine. We had that one
feeling and that one sentiment in common. You at the north end met in your
conventions and passed your resolutions. We in the middle of the State and
farther south did not hold such conventions and pass the same resolutions,
although we had in general a common view and a common sentiment. So that
these meetings which the Judge has alluded to, and the resolutions he has
read from, were local, and did not spread over the whole State. We at last
met together in 1886, from all parts of the State, and we agreed upon a
common platform. You, who held more extreme notions, either yielded
those notions, or, if not wholly yielding them, agreed to yield them
practically, for the sake of embodying the opposition to the measures
which the opposite party were pushing forward at that time. We met you
then, and if there was anything yielded, it was for practical purposes. We
agreed then upon a platform for the party throughout the entire State of
Illinois, and now we are all bound, as a party, to that platform.

And I say here to you, if any one expects of me--in case of my
election--that I will do anything not signified by our Republican platform
and my answers here to-day, I tell you very frankly that person will be
de