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I was told, before my last paragraph, that my time was within three minutes of being out. I presume it is expired now. I therefore close.
Ladies and Gentlemen: I had supposed that we assembled here to-day for the purpose of a joint discussion between
Mr. Lincoln and myself, upon the political questions that now agitate the whole country.
The rule of such discussions is, that the opening speaker shall touch upon all the points he intends to discuss, in order that his opponent, in reply, shall have the opportunity of answering them.
Let me ask you what questions of public policy, relating to the welfare of this State or the
Union, has
Mr. Lincoln discussed before you?
Mr. Lincoln simply contented himself at the outset by saying, that he was not in favor of social and political equality between the white man and the negro, and did not desire the law so changed as to make the latter voters or eligible to office.
I am glad that I have at last succeeded in getting an answer out of him upon this question of negro citizenship and eligibility to office, for I have been trying to bring him to the point on it ever since this canvass commenced.
I will now call your attention to the question which
Mr. Lincoln has occupied his entire time in discussing.
He spent his whole hour in retailing a charge made by
Senator Trumbull against me. The circumstances out of which that charge was manufactured, occurred prior to the last, Presidential election, over.
two years ago. If the charge was true, why did not
Trumbull make it in 1856, when I was discussing the questions of that day all over this State with
Lincoln and him, and when it was pertinent to the then issue?
He was then as silent as the grave on the subject.
If that charge was true, the time to have brought it forward was the canvass of 1856, the year when the Toombs bill passed the Senate.
When the facts were fresh in the public mind, when the
Kansas question was the paramount question of the day, and when such a charge would have had a material bearing on the election, why did he and
Lincoln remain silent then, knowing that such a charge could be made and proven if true?
Were they not false to you and false to the country in going through that entire campaign, concealing their knowledge of this enormous conspiracy which,
Mr. Trumbull says, he then knew and would not tell?
Mr. Lincoln intimates, in his speech, a good reason why
Mr. Trumbull would not tell, for, he says, that it might be true, as I proved that it was at
Jacksonville, that
Trumbull was also in the plot, yet that the fact of
Trumbull's being in the plot would not in any way relieve me. He illustrates this argument by supposing himself on trial for murder, and says that it would be no extenuating circumstance if, on his trial, another man was found to be a party to his crime.
Well, if
Trumbull was in the plot, and concealed it in order to escape the odium which would have fallen upon himself, I ask you whether you can believe him now when he turns State's evidence, and avows his own infamy in order to implicate me. I am amazed that
Mr. Lincoln should now come forward and indorse that charge, occupying his whole hour in reading
Mr. Trumbull's speech in support of it. Why, I ask, does not
Mr. Lincoln make a speech of his own instead of taking up his time reading
Trumbull's speech at
Alton?
I supposed that
Mr. Lincoln was capable of making a public speech on his own account, or I should not have accepted the banter from him for a joint discussion. [ “How about the charges?” ] Do not trouble yourselves, I am going to make my speech in my own way, and I trust, as the Democrats listened patiently and respectfully, to
Mr. Lincoln, that his friends will not interrupt me when I am answering him. When
Mr. Trumbull returned from the
East, the first thing he did when he landed at
Chicago was to make a speech wholly devoted to assaults upon my public character and public action.
Up to that time I had never alluded to his course in Congress, or to him directly or indirectly, and hence his assaults upon me were entirely without provocation and without excuse.
Since then he has been traveling from one end of the