LINCOLN AND TALBOTT IN REPLY TO GEN.  ADAMS.

“Sangamon journal,” Springfield, ill., Oct. 28, 1837.

In the Republican of this morning a publication of Gen. Adams’s appears, in which my name is used quite unreservedly.  For this I thank the General.  I thank him because it gives me an opportunity, without appearing obtrusive, of explaining a part of a former publication of mine, which appears to me to have been misunderstood by many.

In the former publication alluded to, I stated, in substance, that Mr. Talbott got a deed from a son of Gen. Adams’s for the purpose of correcting a mistake that had occurred on the record of the said deed in the recorder’s office; that he corrected the record, and brought the deed and handed it to me, and that on opening the deed, another paper, being the assignment of a judgment, fell out of it.  This statement Gen. Adams and the editor of the Republican have seized upon as a most palpable evidence of fabrication and falsehood.  They set themselves gravely about proving that the assignment could not have been in the deed when Talbott got it from young Adams, as he, Talbott, would have seen it when he opened the deed to correct the record.  Now, the truth is, Talbott did see the assignment when he opened the deed, or at least he told me he did on the same day; and I only omitted to say so, in my former publication, because it was a matter of such palpable and necessary inference.  I had stated that Talbott had corrected the record by the deed; and of course he must have opened it; and, just as the General and his friends argue, must have seen the assignment.  I omitted to state the fact of Talbott’s seeing the assignment, because its existence was so necessarily connected with other facts which I did state, that I thought the greatest dunce could not but understand it.  Did I say Talbott had not seen it?  Did I say anything that was inconsistent with his having seen it before?  Most certainly I did neither; and if I did not, what becomes of the argument?  These logical gentlemen can sustain their argument only by assuming that I did say negatively everything that I did not say affirmatively; and upon the same assumption, we may expect to find the General, if a little harder pressed for argument, saying that I said Talbott came to our office with his head downward, not that I actually said so, but because I omitted to say he came feet downward.

In his publication to-day, the General produces the affidavit of Reuben Radford, in which it is said that Talbott told Radford that he did not find the assignment in the deed, in the recording of which the error was committed, but that he found it wrapped in another paper in the recorder’s office, upon which statement the Genl. comments as follows, to wit:  “If it be true as stated by Talbott to Radford, that he found the assignment wrapped up in another paper at his office, that contradicts the statement of Lincoln that it fell out of the deed.”