have an existence upon the face of the earth.

Gentlemen, I fear that I shall become tedious. I leave this branch of the
subject to take hold of another. I take up that part of Judge Douglas's
speech in which he respectfully attended to me.

Judge Douglas made two points upon my recent speech at Springfield. He
says they are to be the issues of this campaign. The first one of these
points he bases upon the language in a speech which I delivered at
Springfield, which I believe I can quote correctly from memory. I said
there that "we are now far into the fifth year since a policy was
instituted for the avowed object, and with the confident promise, of
putting an end to slavery agitation; under the operation of that policy,
that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented." "I
believe it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and
passed. 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this
government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free." "I do not
expect the Union to be dissolved,"--I am quoting from my speech, "--I do
not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be
divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the
opponents of slavery will arrest the spread of it and place it where the
public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate
extinction, or its advocates will push it forward until it shall become
alike lawful in all the States, north as well as south."

What is the paragraph? In this paragraph, which I have quoted in your
hearing, and to which I ask the attention of all, Judge Douglas thinks he
discovers great political heresy. I want your attention particularly to
what he has inferred from it. He says I am in favor of making all the
States of this Union uniform in all their internal regulations; that in