friends have their way and plant slavery over all the States; cease
speaking of it as in any way a wrong; regard slavery as one of the common
matters of property, and speak of negroes as we do of our horses and
cattle. But while it drives on in its state of progress as it is now
driving, and as it has driven for the last five years, I have ventured
the opinion, and I say to-day, that we will have no end to the slavery
agitation until it takes one turn or the other. I do not mean that when
it takes a turn toward ultimate extinction it will be in a day, nor in a
year, nor in two years. I do not suppose that in the most peaceful way
ultimate extinction would occur in less than a hundred years at least;
but that it will occur in the best way for both races, in God's own good
time, I have no doubt. But, my friends, I have used up more of my time
than I intended on this point.

Now, in regard to this matter about Trumbull and myself having made a
bargain to sell out the entire Whig and Democratic parties in 1854: Judge
Douglas brings forward no evidence to sustain his charge, except the
speech Matheny is said to have made in 1856, in which he told a
cock-and-bull story of that sort, upon the same moral principles that
Judge Douglas tells it here to-day. This is the simple truth. I do not
care greatly for the story, but this is the truth of it: and I have twice
told Judge Douglas to his face that from beginning to end there is not
one word of truth in it. I have called upon him for the proof, and he
does not at all meet me as Trumbull met him upon that of which we were
just talking, by producing the record. He did n't bring the record
because there was no record for him to bring. When he asks if I am ready
to indorse Trumbull's veracity after he has broken a bargain with me, I
reply that if Trumbull had broken a bargain with me I would not be likely
to indorse his veracity; but I am ready to indorse his veracity because
neither in that thing, nor in any other, in all the years that I have