ificance. He means for the
Republicans who do not count themselves as leaders to be his friends; he
makes no fuss over them, it is the leaders that he is making war upon.
He wants it understood that the mass of the Republican party are really
his friends. It is only the leaders that are doing something, that are
intolerant, and require extermination at his hands. As this is clearly
and unquestionably the light in which he presents that matter, I want to
ask your attention, addressing myself to Republicans here, that I may
ask you some questions as to where you, as the Republican party, would
be placed if you sustained Judge Douglas in his present position by a
re-election? I do not claim, gentlemen, to be unselfish; I do not
pretend that I would not like to go to the United States Senate,--I make
no such hypocritical pretence; but I do say to you, that in this mighty
issue it is nothing to you, nothing to the mass of the people of the
nation, whether or not Judge Douglas or myself shall ever be heard of
after this night. It may be a trifle to either of us; but in connection
with this mighty question, upon which hang the destinies of the nation,
perhaps, it is absolutely nothing. But where will you be placed if you
reindorse Judge Douglas? Don't you know how apt he is, how exceedingly
anxious he is, at all times to seize upon anything and everything to
persuade you that something he has done you did yourselves? Why, he
tried to persuade you last night that our Illinois Legislature
instructed him to introduce the Nebraska bill. There was nobody in that
Legislature ever thought of it; but still he fights furiously for the
proposition; and that he did it because there was a standing instruction
to our senators to be always introducing Nebraska bills. He tells you he
is for the Cincinnati platform; he tells you he is for the Dred Scott
decision; he tells you--not in his speech last night, but substantially
in a former speech--that he cares not if slavery is voted up or down; he
tells you the struggle on Lecompton is past,--it may come up again or
not, and if it does, he stands where he stood when, in spite of him and
his opposition, you built up the Republican party. If you indorse him,
you tell him you do not care whether slavery be voted up or down, and he
will close, or try to close, your mouths with his declaration, repeated
by the day, the week, the month, and the year. I think, in the position
in which Judge Douglas stoo