my friends, are any of you obtuse enough to swallow that? Judge Douglas
had said I had made a speech at Charleston that I would not make up
north, and I turned around and answered him by showing I had made that
same speech up north,--had made it at Ottawa; made it in his hearing;
made it in the Abolition District,--in Lovejoy's District,--in the
personal presence of Lovejoy himself,--in the same atmosphere exactly in
which I had made my Chicago speech, of which he complains so much.

Now, in relation to my not having said anything about the quotation from
the Chicago speech: he thinks that is a terrible subject for me to
handle. Why, gentlemen, I can show you that the substance of the Chicago
speech I delivered two years ago in "Egypt," as he calls it. It was down
at Springfield. That speech is here in this book, and I could turn to it
and read it to you but for the lack of time. I have not now the time to
read it. ["Read it, read it."] No, gentlemen, I am obliged to use
discretion in disposing most advantageously of my brief time. The Judge
has taken great exception to my adopting the heretical statement in the
Declaration of Independence, that "all men are created equal," and he has
a great deal to say about negro equality. I want to say that in sometimes
alluding to the Declaration of Independence, I have only uttered the
sentiments that Henry Clay used to hold. Allow me to occupy your time a
moment with what he said. Mr. Clay was at one time called upon in
Indiana, and in a way that I suppose was very insulting, to liberate his
slaves; and he made a written reply to that application, and one portion
of it is in these words:

"What is the foundation of this appeal to me in Indiana to liberate the
slaves under my care in Kentucky? It is a general declaration in the act
announcing to the world the independence of the thirteen American
colonies, that men are created equal. Now, as an abstract principle,