On the 9th of August, Harris attempted it again upon Norton in the House of Representatives, as will appear by the same documents,—­the appendix to the Congressional Globe of that date.  On the 21st of August last, all three—­Lanphier, Douglas, and Harris—­reattempted it upon me at Ottawa.  It has been clung to and played out again and again as an exceedingly high trump by this blessed trio.  And now that it has been discovered publicly to be a fraud we find that Judge Douglas manifests no surprise at it at all.  He makes no complaint of Lanphier, who must have known it to be a fraud from the beginning.  He, Lanphier, and Harris are just as cozy now and just as active in the concoction of new schemes as they were before the general discovery of this fraud.  Now, all this is very natural if they are all alike guilty in that fraud, and it is very unnatural if 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!

While we were at Freeport, in one of these joint discussions, I answered certain interrogatories which Judge Douglas had propounded to me, and then in turn propounded some to him, which he in a sort of way answered.  The third one of these interrogatories I have with me, and wish now to make some comments upon it.  It was in these words:  “If the Supreme Court of the United States shall decide that the States cannot exclude slavery from their limits, are you in favor of acquiescing in, adhering to, and following such decision as a rule of political action?”