States can exclude slavery, nor
said anything that was substantially that. The nearest approach that any
one of them has made to it, so far as I can find, was by Judge Nelson,
and the approach he made to it was exactly, in substance, the Nebraska
Bill,--that the States had the exclusive power over the question of
slavery, so far as they are not limited by the Constitution of the United
States. I asked the question, therefore, if the non-concurring judges,
McLean or Curtis, had asked to get an express declaration that the States
could absolutely exclude slavery from their limits, what reason have we
to believe that it would not have been voted down by the majority of the
judges, just as Chase's amendment was voted down by Judge Douglas and his
compeers when it was offered to the Nebraska Bill.

Also, at Galesburgh, I said something in regard to those Springfield
resolutions that Judge Douglas had attempted to use upon me at Ottawa, and
commented at some length upon the fact that they were, as presented,
not genuine. Judge Douglas in his reply to me seemed to be somewhat
exasperated. He said he would never have believed that Abraham Lincoln, as
he kindly called me, would have attempted such a thing as I had attempted
upon that occasion; and among other expressions which he used toward me,
was that I dared to say forgery, that I had dared to say forgery [turning
to Judge Douglas]. Yes, Judge, I did dare to say forgery. But in this
political canvass the Judge ought to remember that I was not the first
who dared to say forgery. At Jacksonville, Judge Douglas made a speech in
answer to something said by Judge Trumbull, and at the close of what
he said upon that subject, he dared to say that Trumbull had forged his
evidence. He said, too, that he should not concern himself with Trumbull
any more, but thereafter he should hold Lincoln responsible for the
slanders upon him. When I met him at Charleston after that, although I
think that I should not have noticed the subject if he had not said he
would hold me responsible for it, I spread out before him the statements
of the evidence that Judge Trumbull had used, and I asked Judge Douglas,
piece by piece, to put his finger upon one piece of all that evidence that
he would say was a forgery! When I went through with each and every piece,
Judge Douglas did not dare then to say that any piece of it was a forgery.
So it seems that there are some things that Judge Douglas dares to do, an