but because of his own personal self-respect!  I have understood since then (but [turning to Judge Douglas] will not hold the Judge to it if he is not willing) that he has broken through the “self-respect,” and has got to saying the thing out.  The Judge nods to me that it is so.  It is fortunate for me that I can keep as good-humored as I do, when the Judge acknowledges that he has been trying to make a question of veracity with me.  I know the Judge is a great man, while I am only a small man, but I feel that I have got him.  I demur to that plea.  I waive all objections that it was not filed till after default was taken, and demur to it upon the merits.  What if Judge Douglas never did talk with Chief Justice Taney and the President before the Dred Scott decision was made, does it follow that he could not have had as perfect an understanding without talking as with it?  I am not disposed to stand upon my legal advantage.  I am disposed to take his denial as being like an answer in chancery, that he neither had any knowledge, information, or belief in the existence of such a conspiracy.  I am disposed to take his answer as being as broad as though he had put it in these words.  And now, I ask, even if he had done so, have not I a right to prove it on him, and to offer the evidence of more than two witnesses, by whom to prove it; and if the evidence proves the existence of the conspiracy, does his broader answer denying all knowledge, information, or belief, disturb the fact?  It can only show that he was used by conspirators, and was not a leader of them.

Now, in regard to his reminding me of the moral rule that persons who tell what they do not know to be true falsify as much as those who knowingly tell falsehoods.  I remember the rule, and it must be borne in mind that in what I have read to you, I do not say that I know such a conspiracy to exist.  To that I reply, I believe it.  If the Judge says that I do not believe it, then he says what he does not know, and falls within his own rule, that he who asserts a thing which he does not know to be true, falsifies as much as he who knowingly tells a falsehood.  I want to call your attention to a little discussion on that branch of the case, and the evidence which brought my mind to the conclusion which I expressed as my belief.  If, in arraying that evidence I had stated anything which was false or erroneous, it needed but that Judge Douglas should point it out, and I would have taken it back, with all the kindness in the world.  I do not deal in that way.  If I have brought forward anything not a fact, if he will point it out, it will not even ruffle me to take it back.  But if he will not point out anything erroneous in the evidence, is it not rather for him to show, by a comparison of the evidence, that I have reasoned falsely, than to call the “kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman” a liar?  If I have reasoned to a false conclusion, it is the vocation of an able debater to show by argument that I have wandered to an erroneous conclusion.  I want to ask your attention to a portion of the Nebraska Bill, which Judge Douglas has quoted: