he had got hold of some resolutions passed at some convention or public
meeting in Kane County. I wish to say here, that I don't conceive that in
any fair and just mind this discovery relieves me at all. I had just as
much to do with the convention in Kane County as that at Springfield. I
am as much responsible for the resolutions at Kane County as those at
Springfield,--the amount of the responsibility being exactly nothing in
either case; no more than there would be in regard to a set of
resolutions passed in the moon.

I allude to this extraordinary matter in this canvass for some further
purpose than anything yet advanced. Judge Douglas did not make his
statement upon that occasion as matters that he believed to be true, but
he stated them roundly as being true, in such form as to pledge his
veracity for their truth. When the whole matter turns out as it does, and
when we consider who Judge Douglas is, that he is a distinguished Senator
of the United States; that he has served nearly twelve years as such;
that his character is not at all limited as an ordinary Senator of the
United States, but that his name has become of world-wide renown,--it is
most extraordinary that he should so far forget all the suggestions of
justice to an adversary, or of prudence to himself, as to venture upon
the assertion of that which the slightest investigation would have shown
him to be wholly false. I can only account for his having done so upon
the supposition that that evil genius which has attended him through his
life, giving to him an apparent astonishing prosperity, such as to lead
very many good men to doubt there being any advantage in virtue over
vice,--I say I can only account for it on the supposition that that evil
genius has as last made up its mind to forsake him.

And I may add that another extraordinary feature of the Judge's conduct
in this canvass--made more extraordinary by this incident--is, that he is