rned out that although a few men calling themselves an
anti-Nebraska State Convention had sat at Springfield about that time, yet
neither did I take any part in it, nor did it pass the resolutions or any
such resolutions as Judge Douglas read. So apparent had it become that the
resolutions which he read had not been passed at Springfield at all,
nor by a State Convention in which I had taken part, that seven days
afterward, at Freeport, Judge Douglas declared that he had been misled by
Charles H. Lanphier, editor of the State Register, and Thomas L. Harris,
member of Congress in that district, and he promised in that speech that
when he went to Springfield he would investigate the matter. Since
then Judge Douglas has been to Springfield, and I presume has made the
investigation; but a month has passed since he has been there, and, so
far as I know, he has made no report of the result of his investigation.
I have waited as I think sufficient time for the report of that
investigation, and I have some curiosity to see and hear it. A fraud, an
absolute forgery was committed, and the perpetration of it was traced to
the three,--Lanphier, Harris, and Douglas. Whether it can be narrowed in
any way so as to exonerate any one of them, is what Judge Douglas's report
would probably show.

It is true that the set of resolutions read by Judge Douglas were
published in the Illinois State Register on the 16th of October, 1854, as
being the resolutions of an anti-Nebraska Convention which had sat in
that same month of October, at Springfield. But it is also true that the
publication in the Register was a forgery then, and the question is still
behind, which of the three, if not all of them, committed that forgery.
The idea that it was done by mistake is absurd. The article in the
Illinois State Register contains part of the real proceedings of that
Springfield Convention, showing that the writer of the article had
the real proceedings before him, and purposely threw out the genuine
resolutions passed by the Convention and fraudulently substituted the
others. Lanphier then, as now, was the editor of the Register, so that
there seems to be but little room for his escape. But then it is to
be borne in mind that Lanphier had less interest in the object of that
forgery than either of the other two. The main object of that forgery at
that time was to beat Yates and elect Harris to Congress, and that object
was known to be exceedingly dear to