any one of them is innocent. Lanphier perhaps insists that the rule of
honor among thieves does not quite require him to take all upon himself,
and consequently my friend Judge Douglas finds it difficult to make a
satisfactory report upon his investigation. But meanwhile the three are
agreed that each is "a most honorable man."

Judge Douglas requires an indorsement of his truth and honor by a
re-election to the United States Senate, and he makes and reports against
me and against Judge Trumbull, day after day, charges which we know to be
utterly untrue, without for a moment seeming to think that this one
unexplained fraud, which he promised to investigate, will be the least
drawback to his claim to belief. Harris ditto. He asks a re-election to
the lower House of Congress without seeming to remember at all that he is
involved in this dishonorable fraud! The Illinois State Register, edited
by Lanphier, then, as now, the central organ of both Harris and Douglas,
continues to din the public ear with this assertion, without seeming to
suspect that these assertions are at all lacking in title to belief.

After all, the question still recurs upon us, How did that fraud
originally get into the State Register? Lanphier then, as now, was the
editor of that paper. Lanphier knows. Lanphier cannot be ignorant of how
and by whom it was originally concocted. Can he be induced to tell, or,
if he has told, can Judge Douglas be induced to tell how it originally
was concocted? It may be true that Lanphier insists that the two men for
whose benefit it was originally devised shall at least bear their share
of it! How that is, I do not know, and while it remains unexplained I
hope to be pardoned if I insist that the mere fact of Judge Douglas
making charges against Trumbull and myself is not quite sufficient
evidence to establish them!