rsonal warfare with me. He says that my oath would
not be taken against the bare word of Charles H. Lanphier or Thomas L.
Harris. Well, that is altogether a matter of opinion. It is certainly not
for me to vaunt my word against oaths of these gentlemen, but I will tell
Judge Douglas again the facts upon which I "dared" to say they proved
a forgery. I pointed out at Galesburgh that the publication of these
resolutions in the Illinois State Register could not have been the result
of accident, as the proceedings of that meeting bore unmistakable
evidence of being done by a man who knew it was a forgery; that it was a
publication partly taken from the real proceedings of the Convention, and
partly from the proceedings of a convention at another place, which showed
that he had the real proceedings before him, and taking one part of
the resolutions, he threw out another part, and substituted false and
fraudulent ones in their stead. I pointed that out to him, and also that
his friend Lanphier, who was editor of the Register at that time and now
is, must have known how it was done. Now, whether he did it, or got some
friend to do it for him, I could not tell, but he certainly knew all about
it. I pointed out to Judge Douglas that in his Freeport speech he had
promised to investigate that matter. Does he now say that he did not make
that promise? I have a right to ask why he did not keep it. I call upon
him to tell here to-day why he did not keep that promise? That fraud has
been traced up so that it lies between him, Harris, and Lanphier. There
is little room for escape for Lanphier. Lanphier is doing the Judge
good service, and Douglas desires his word to be taken for the truth.
He desires Lanphier to be taken as authority in what he states in his
newspaper. He desires Harris to be taken as a man of vast credibility; and
when this thing lies among them, they will not press it to show where the
guilt really belongs. Now, as he has said that he would investigate it,
and implied that he would tell us the result of his investigation, I
demand of him to tell why he did not investigate it, if he did not; and if
he did, why he won't tell the result. I call upon him for that.

This is the third time that Judge Douglas has assumed that he learned
about these resolutions by Harris's attempting to use them against Norton
on the floor of Congress. I tell Judge Douglas the public records of the
country show that he himself attempted it upon