e
government in that regard.

Now, fellow-citizens, in regard to this matter about a contract that was
made between Judge Trumbull and myself, and all that long portion of Judge
Douglas's speech on this subject,--I wish simply to say what I have said
to him before, that he cannot know whether it is true or not, and I do
know that there is not a word of truth in it. And I have told him so
before. I don't want any harsh language indulged in, but I do not know
how to deal with this persistent insisting on a story that I know to be
utterly without truth. It used to be a fashion amongst men that when a
charge was made, some sort of proof was brought forward to establish it,
and if no proof was found to exist, the charge was dropped. I don't know
how to meet this kind of an argument. I don't want to have a fight
with Judge Douglas, and I have no way of making an argument up into the
consistency of a corn-cob and stopping his mouth with it. All I can do
is--good-humoredly--to say that, from the beginning to the end of all that
story about a bargain between Judge Trumbull and myself, there is not a
word of truth in it. I can only ask him to show some sort of evidence
of the truth of his story. He brings forward here and reads from what he
contends is a speech by James H. Matheny, charging such a bargain between
Trumbull and myself. My own opinion is that Matheny did do some such
immoral thing as to tell a story that he knew nothing about. I believe he
did. I contradicted it instantly, and it has been contradicted by Judge
Trumbull, while nobody has produced any proof, because there is none. Now,
whether the speech which the Judge brings forward here is really the
one Matheny made, I do not know, and I hope the Judge will pardon me for
doubting the genuineness of this document, since his production of those
Springfield resolutions at Ottawa. I do not wish to dwell at any great
length upon this matter. I can say nothing when a long story like this is
told, except it is not true, and demand that he who insists upon it shall
produce some proof. That is all any man can do, and I leave it in that
way, for I know of no other way of dealing with it.

[In an argument on the lines of: "Yes, you did.--No, I did not." It bears
on the former to prove his point, not on the negative to "prove" that he
did not--even if he easily can do so.]

The Judge has gone over a long account of the old Whig and Democratic
parties, and it connects itself