And I will remind Judge Douglas and this audience, that
while Mr. Jefferson was the owner of slaves, as undoubtedly he was, in
speaking on this very subject, he used the strong language that "he
trembled for his country when he remembered that God was just;" and I
will offer the highest premium in my power to Judge Douglas if he will
show that he, in all his life, ever uttered a sentiment at all akin to
that of Jefferson.
... I want to call to the Judge's attention an attack he made upon me in
the first one of these debates.... In order to fix extreme Abolitionism
upon me, Judge Douglas read a set of resolutions which he declared had
been passed by a Republican State Convention, in October 1854, held at
Springfield, Illinois, and he declared that I had taken a part in that
convention. It turned out that although a few men calling themselves an
anti-Nebraska State Convention had sat at Springfield about that time,
yet neither did I take any part in it, nor did it pass the resolutions
or any such resolutions as Judge Douglas read. So apparent had it become
that the resolutions that he read had not been passed at Springfield at
all, nor by any State Convention in which I had taken part, that seven
days later at Freeport .
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