o deter me from doing justice
to Mr. Judd, and preventing a wrong being done to him by the use of nay
name in connection with alleged wrongs to me.

In answer to your first question, as to whether Mr. Judd was guilty of
any unfairness to me at the time of Senator Trumbull's election, I answer
unhesitatingly in the negative; Mr. Judd owed no political allegiance
to any party whose candidate I was. He was in the Senate, holding over,
having been elected by a Democratic Constituency. He never was in any
caucus of the friends who sought to make me U. S. Senator, never gave me
any promises or pledges to support me, and subsequent events have greatly
tended to prove the wisdom, politically, of Mr. Judd's course. The
election of Judge Trumbull strongly tended to sustain and preserve the
position of that lion of the Democrats who condemned the repeal of the
Missouri Compromise, and left them in a position of joining with us in
forming the Republican party, as was done at the Bloomington convention in
1856.

During the canvass of 1858 for the senatorship my belief was, and
still is, that I had no more sincere and faithful friend than Mr.
Judd--certainly none whom I trusted more. His position as chairman of the
State Central Committee led to my greater intercourse with him, and to
my giving him a larger share of my confidence, than with or to almost any
other friend; and I have never suspected that that confidence was, to any
degree, misplaced.

My relations with Mr. Judo since the organization of the Republican
party, in, our State, in 1856, and especially since the adjournment of the
Legislature in Feb., 1857, have been so very intimate that I deem it an
impossibility that he could have been dealing treacherously with me. He
has also, at all times, appeared equally true and faithful to the party.
In his position as chairman of the committee, I believe he did all that
any man could have done. The best of us are liable to commit errors, which
become apparent by subsequent developments; but I do not know of a single
error, even, committed by Mr. Judd, since he and I have acted together
politically.

I, had occasionally heard these insinuations against Mr. Judd, before the
receipt of your letter; and in no instance have I hesitated to pronounce
them wholly unjust, to the full extent of my knowledge and belief. I have
been, and still am, very anxious to take no part between the many friends,
all good and true, who are mentioned