have been placed upon at first; and in that speech he
confesses that he seeks to place it, not upon the basis that the fathers
placed it upon, but upon one gotten up on "original principles." When he
asks me why we cannot get along with it in the attitude where our fathers
placed it, he had better clear up the evidences that he has himself
changed it from that basis, that he has himself been chiefly instrumental
in changing the policy of the fathers. Any one who will read his speech
of the 22d of last March will see that he there makes an open confession,
showing that he set about fixing the institution upon an altogether
different set of principles. I think I have fully answered him when he
asks me why we cannot let it alone upon the basis where our fathers
left it, by showing that he has himself changed the whole policy of the
government in that regard.
Now, fellow-citizens, in regard to this matter about a contract that was
made between Judge Trumbull and myself, and all that long portion of Judge
Douglas's speech on this subject,--I wish simply to say what I have said
to him before, that he cannot know whether it is true or not, and I do
know that there is not a word of truth in it. And I have told him so
before. I don't want any harsh language indulged in, but I do not know
how to deal with this persistent insisting on a story that I know to be
utterly without truth. It used to be a fashion amongst men that when a
charge was made, some sort of proof was brought forward to establish it,
and if no proof was found to exist, the charge was dropped. I don't know
how to meet this kind of an argument. I don't want to have a fight
with Judge Douglas, and I have no way of making an argument up into the
consistency of a corn-cob and stopping his mouth with it. All I can do
is--good-humoredly--to say that, from the beginning to the end of all that
story about a bargain between Judge Trumbull and myself, there is not a
word of truth in it. I can only ask him to show some sort of evidence
of the truth of his story. He brings forward here and reads from what he
contends is a speech by James H. Matheny, charging such a bargain between
Trumbull and myself. My own opinion is that Matheny did do some such
immoral thing as to tell a story that he knew nothing about. I believe he
did. I contradicted it instantly, and it has been contradicted by Judge
Trumbull, while nobody has produced any proof, because there is none. Now,
whether th
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