there is no doubt of the truth of that declaration, and it is desirable
in the original construction of society, and in organized societies, to
keep it in view as a great fundamental principle."

When I sometimes, in relation to the organization of new societies in new
countries, where the soil is clean and clear, insisted that we should
keep that principle in view, Judge Douglas will have it that I want a
negro wife. He never can be brought to understand that there is any
middle ground on this subject. I have lived until my fiftieth year, and
have never had a negro woman either for a slave or a wife, and I think I
can live fifty centuries, for that matter, without having had one for
either. I maintain that you may take Judge Douglas's quotations from my
Chicago speech, and from my Charleston speech, and the Galesburgh
speech,--in his speech of to-day,--and compare them over, and I am
willing to trust them with you upon his proposition that they show
rascality or double-dealing. I deny that they do.

The Judge does not seem at all disposed to have peace, but I find he is
disposed to have a personal warfare with me. He says that my oath would
not be taken against the bare word of Charles H. Lanphier or Thomas L.
Harris. Well, that is altogether a matter of opinion. It is certainly not
for me to vaunt my word against oaths of these gentlemen, but I will tell
Judge Douglas again the facts upon which I "dared" to say they proved a
forgery. I pointed out at Galesburgh that the publication of these
resolutions in the Illinois State Register could not have been the result
of accident, as the proceedings of that meeting bore unmistakable
evidence of being done by a man who knew it was a forgery; that it was a
publication partly taken from the real proceedings of the Convention, and
partly from the proceedings of a convention at another place, which
showed that he had the real proceedings before him, and taking one part