Your obedient servant,
A. LINCOLN.




FIRST JOINT DEBATE, AT OTTAWA,

AUGUST 21, 1858

Mr. LINCOLN'S REPLY

MY FELLOW-CITIZENS:--When a man hears himself somewhat misrepresented, it
provokes him, at least, I find it so with myself; but when
misrepresentation becomes very gross and palpable, it is more apt to
amuse him. The first thing I see fit to notice is the fact that Judge
Douglas alleges, after running through the history of the old Democratic
and the old Whig parties, that Judge Trumbull and myself made an
arrangement in 1854, by which I was to have the place of General Shields
in the United States Senate, and Judge Trumbull was to have the place of
Judge Douglas. Now, all I have to say upon that subject is that I think
no man not even Judge Douglas can prove it, because it is not true. I
have no doubt he is "conscientious" in saying it. As to those resolutions
that he took such a length of time to read, as being the platform of the
Republican party in 1854, I say I never had anything to do with them, and
I think Trumbull never had. Judge Douglas cannot show that either of us
ever did have anything to do with them.

I believe this is true about those resolutions: There was a call for a
convention to form a Republican party at Springfield, and I think that my