that always; Judge
Douglas has heard me say it, if not quite a hundred times, at least
as good as a hundred times; and when it is said that I am in favor of
interfering with slavery where it exists, I know it is unwarranted by
anything I have ever intended, and, as I believe, by anything I have ever
said. If, by any means, I have ever used language which could fairly be so
construed (as, however, I believe I never have), I now correct it.

So much, then, for the inference that Judge Douglas draws, that I am in
favor of setting the sections at war with one another. I know that I never
meant any such thing, and I believe that no fair mind can infer any such
thing from anything I have ever said.

Now, in relation to his inference that I am in favor of a general
consolidation of all the local institutions of the various States. I will
attend to that for a little while, and try to inquire, if I can, how on
earth it could be that any man could draw such an inference from anything
I said. I have said, very many times, in Judge Douglas's hearing, that no
man believed more than I in the principle of self-government; that it lies
at the bottom of all my ideas of just government, from beginning to end. I
have denied that his use of that term applies properly. But for the thing
itself, I deny that any man has ever gone ahead of me in his devotion to
the principle, whatever he may have done in efficiency in advocating it. I
think that I have said it in your hearing, that I believe each individual
is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruit of
his labor, so far as it in no wise interferes with any other man's rights;
that each community as a State has a right to do exactly as it pleases
with all the concerns within that State that interfere with the right of
no other State; and that the General Government, upon principle, has no
right to interfere with anything other than that general class of things
that does concern the whole. I have said that at all times. I have said,
as illustrations, that I do not believe in the right of Illinois to
interfere with the cranberry laws of Indiana, the oyster laws of Virginia,
or the liquor laws of Maine. I have said these things over and over again,
and I repeat them here as my sentiments.

How is it, then, that Judge Douglas infers, because I hope to see slavery
put where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the
course of ultimate extinction, that I am