The Papers and Writings of Abraham Lincoln — Volume 4: The Lincoln-Douglas DebatesLincoln, Abraham
History
The Papers and Writings of Abraham Lincoln — Volume 4: The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
Lincoln, Abraham
Lincoln-Douglas Debates, Ill., 1858
On the 9th of August, Harris attempted it again upon Norton in the House
of Representatives, as will appear by the same documents,--the appendix
to the Congressional Globe of that date. On the 21st of August last, all
three--Lanphier, Douglas, and Harris--reattempted it upon me at Ottawa.
It has been clung to and played out again and again as an exceedingly high
trump by this blessed trio. And now that it has been discovered publicly
to be a fraud we find that Judge Douglas manifests no surprise at it at
all. He makes no complaint of Lanphier, who must have known it to be a
fraud from the beginning. He, Lanphier, and Harris are just as cozy now
and just as active in the concoction of new schemes as they were before
the general discovery of this fraud. Now, all this is very natural if they
are all alike guilty in that fraud, and it is very unnatural if any one
of them is innocent. Lanphier perhaps insists that the rule of honor
among thieves does not quite require him to take all upon himself,
and consequently my friend Judge Douglas finds it difficult to make a
satisfactory report upon his investigation. But meanwhile the three are
agreed that each is "a most honorable man."
Judge Douglas requires an indorsement of his truth and honor by a
re-election to the United States Senate, and he makes and reports against
me and against Judge Trumbull, day after day, charges which we know to
be utterly untrue, without for a moment seeming to think that this one
unexplained fraud, which he promised to investigate, will be the least
drawback to his claim to belief. Harris ditto. He asks a re-election to
the lower House of Congress without seeming to remember at all that he is
involved in this dishonorable fraud! The Illinois State Register, edited
by Lanphier, then, as now, the central organ of both Harris and Douglas,
continues to din the public ear with this assertion, without seeming to
suspect that these assertions are at all lacking in title to belief.
After all, the question still recurs upon us, How did that fraud
originally get into the State Register? Lanphier then, as now, was the
editor of that paper. Lanphier knows. Lanphier cannot be ignorant of how
and by whom it was originally concocted. Can he be induced to tell, or,
if he has told, can Judge Douglas be induced to tell how it originally was
concocted? It may be true that Lanphier insists that the two men for whose
benefit it was originally devised shall at least bear their share of it!
How that is, I do not know, and while it remains unexplained I hope to be
pardoned if I insist that the mere fact of Judge Douglas making charges
against Trumbull and myself is not quite sufficient evidence to establish
them!
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