attention to the evidence which I brought forward that he himself had discovered a “fatal blow being struck” against the right of the people to exclude slavery from their limits, which fatal blow he assumed as in evidence in an article in the Washington Union, published “by authority.”  I ask by whose authority?  He discovers a similar or identical provision in the Lecompton Constitution.  Made by whom?  The framers of that Constitution.  Advocated by whom?  By all the members of the party in the nation, who advocated the introduction of Kansas into the Union under the Lecompton Constitution.  I have asked his attention to the evidence that he arrayed to prove that such a fatal blow was being struck, and to the facts which he brought forward in support of that charge,—­being identical with the one which he thinks so villainous in me.  He pointed it, not at a newspaper editor merely, but at the President and his Cabinet and the members of Congress advocating the Lecompton Constitution and those framing that instrument.  I must again be permitted to remind him that although my ipse dixit may not be as great as his, yet it somewhat reduces the force of his calling my attention to the enormity of my making a like charge against him.

Go on, Judge Douglas.

Mr. Lincoln’s rejoinder.

My friends:—­It will readily occur to you that I cannot, in half an hour, notice all the things that so able a man as Judge Douglas can say in an hour and a half; and I hope, therefore, if there be anything that he has said upon which you would like to hear something from me, but which I omit to comment upon, you will bear in mind that it would be expecting an impossibility for me to go over his whole ground.  I can but take up some of the points that he has dwelt upon, and employ my half-hour specially on them.

The first thing I have to say to you is a word in regard to Judge Douglas’s declaration about the “vulgarity and blackguardism” in the audience, that no such thing, as he says, was shown by any Democrat while I was speaking.  Now, I only wish, by way of reply on this subject, to say that while I was speaking, I used no “vulgarity or blackguardism” toward any Democrat.

Now, my friends, I come to all this long portion of the Judge’s speech,—­perhaps half of it,—­which he has devoted to the various resolutions and platforms that have been adopted in the different counties in the different Congressional districts, and in the Illinois legislature, which he supposes are at variance with the positions I have assumed before you to-day.  It is true that many of these resolutions are at variance with the positions I have here assumed.  All I have to ask is that we talk reasonably and rationally about it.  I happen to know, the Judge’s opinion to the contrary notwithstanding, that I have never tried to conceal my opinions, nor tried to deceive any one in reference to them.  He may go and examine all the members