e speech which the Judge brings forward here is really the
one Matheny made, I do not know, and I hope the Judge will pardon me for
doubting the genuineness of this document, since his production of those
Springfield resolutions at Ottawa. I do not wish to dwell at any great
length upon this matter. I can say nothing when a long story like this is
told, except it is not true, and demand that he who insists upon it shall
produce some proof. That is all any man can do, and I leave it in that
way, for I know of no other way of dealing with it.

[In an argument on the lines of: "Yes, you did.--No, I did not." It bears
on the former to prove his point, not on the negative to "prove" that he
did not--even if he easily can do so.]

The Judge has gone over a long account of the old Whig and Democratic
parties, and it connects itself with this charge against Trumbull and
myself. He says that they agreed upon a compromise in regard to the
slavery question in 1850; that in a National Democratic Convention
resolutions were passed to abide by that compromise as a finality upon the
slavery question. He also says that the Whig party in National Convention
agreed to abide by and regard as a finality the Compromise of 1850. I
understand the Judge to be altogether right about that; I understand
that part of the history of the country as stated by him to be correct
I recollect that I, as a member of that party, acquiesced in that
compromise. I recollect in the Presidential election which followed,
when we had General Scott up for the presidency, Judge Douglas was around
berating us Whigs as Abolitionists, precisely as he does to-day,--not a
bit of difference. I have often heard him. We could do nothing when the
old Whig party was alive that was not Abolitionism, but it has got an
extremely good name since it has passed away.

[It almost a natural law that, when dead--no matter how bad we were--we
are automatically beatified.]

When that Compromise was made it did not repeal the old Missouri
Compromise. It left a region of United States territory half as large
as the present territory of the United States, north of the line of 36
degrees 30 minutes, in which slavery was prohibited by Act of Congress.
This Compromise did not repeal that one. It did not affect or propose to
repeal it. But at last it became Judge Douglas's duty, as he thought (and
I find no fault with him), as Chairman of the Committee on Territories, to
bring in a bill fo