f it which he skipped over (taking an extract before and an
extract after) will give a different idea, and the true idea I intended to
convey. It will take me some little time to read it, but I believe I will
occupy the time that way.

You have heard him frequently allude to my controversy with him in regard
to the Declaration of Independence. I confess that I have had a struggle
with Judge Douglas on that matter, and I will try briefly to place myself
right in regard to it on this occasion. I said--and it is between
the extracts Judge Douglas has taken from this speech, and put in his
published speeches:

"It may be argued that there are certain conditions that make necessities
and impose them upon us, and to the extent that a necessity is imposed
upon a man he must submit to it. I think that was the condition in which
we found ourselves when we established this government. We had slaves
among us, we could not get our Constitution unless we permitted them
to remain in slavery, we could not secure the good we did secure if we
grasped for more; and having by necessity submitted to that much, it does
not destroy the principle that is the charter of our liberties. Let the
charter remain as our standard."

Now, I have upon all occasions declared as strongly as Judge Douglas
against the disposition to interfere with the existing institution of
slavery. You hear me read it from the same speech from which he takes
garbled extracts for the purpose of proving upon me a disposition to
interfere with the institution of slavery, and establish a perfect social
and political equality between negroes and white people.

Allow me while upon this subject briefly to present one other extract from
a speech of mine, more than a year ago, at Springfield, in discussing this
very same question, soon after Judge Douglas took his ground that negroes
were, not included in the Declaration of Independence:

"I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all
men, but they did not mean to declare all men equal in all respects. They
did not mean to say all men were equal in color, size, intellect, moral
development, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness
in what they did consider all men created equal,--equal in certain
inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness. This they said, and this they meant. They did not mean to
assert the obvious untruth that all were then act