I never had anything
to do with them. I repeat here to today that I never in any possible form
had anything to do with that set of resolutions It turns out, I believe,
that those resolutions were never passed in any convention held in
Springfield.

It turns out that they were never passed at any convention or any public
meeting that I had any part in. I believe it turns out, in addition to all
this, that there was not, in the fall of 1854, any convention holding a
session in Springfield, calling itself a Republican State Convention; yet
it is true there was a convention, or assemblage of men calling themselves
a convention, at Springfield, that did pass some resolutions. But so
little did I really know of the proceedings of that convention, or what
set of resolutions they had passed, though having a general knowledge that
there had been such an assemblage of men there, that when Judge Douglas
read the resolutions, I really did not know but they had been the
resolutions passed then and there. I did not question that they were the
resolutions adopted. For I could not bring myself to suppose that Judge
Douglas could say what he did upon this subject without knowing that it
was true. I contented myself, on that occasion, with denying, as I truly
could, all connection with them, not denying or affirming whether they
were passed at Springfield. Now, it turns out that he had got hold of some
resolutions passed at some convention or public meeting in Kane County.
I wish to say here, that I don't conceive that in any fair and just mind
this discovery relieves me at all. I had just as much to do with the
convention in Kane County as that at Springfield. I am as much responsible
for the resolutions at Kane County as those at Springfield,--the amount
of the responsibility being exactly nothing in either case; no more than
there would be in regard to a set of resolutions passed in the moon.

I allude to this extraordinary matter in this canvass for some further
purpose than anything yet advanced. Judge Douglas did not make his
statement upon that occasion as matters that he believed to be true,
but he stated them roundly as being true, in such form as to pledge his
veracity for their truth. When the whole matter turns out as it does, and
when we consider who Judge Douglas is, that he is a distinguished Senator
of the United States; that he has served nearly twelve years as such; that
his character is not at all limited as an ordina