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, 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