own party throughout the State have been compelled to take it back and
acknowledge that it was a lie.

[Here Mr. LINCOLN turned to the crowd on the platform, and, selecting HON.
ORLANDO B. FICKLIN, led him forward and said:]

I do not mean to do anything with Mr. FICKLIN except to present his face
and tell you that he personally knows it to be a lie! He was a member
of Congress at the only time I was in Congress, and [FICKLIN] knows
that whenever there was an attempt to procure a vote of mine which
would indorse the origin and justice of the war, I refused to give such
indorsement and voted against it; but I never voted against the supplies
for the army, and he knows, as well as Judge Douglas, that whenever a
dollar was asked by way of compensation or otherwise for the benefit of
the soldiers I gave all the votes that FICKLIN or Douglas did, and perhaps
more.

[Mr. FICKLIN: My friends, I wish to say this in reference to the matter:
Mr. Lincoln and myself are just as good personal friends as Judge Douglas
and myself. In reference to this Mexican War, my recollection is that
when Ashmun's resolution [amendment] was offered by Mr. Ashmun of
Massachusetts, in which he declared that the Mexican War was unnecessary
and unconstitutionally commenced by the President-my recollection is that
Mr. Lincoln voted for that resolution.]

That is the truth. Now, you all remember that was a resolution censuring
the President for the manner in which the war was begun. You know they
have charged that I voted against the supplies, by which I starved the
soldiers who were out fighting the battles of their country. I say that
FICKLIN knows it is false. When that charge was brought forward by the
Chicago Times, the Springfield Register [Douglas's organ] reminded the
Times that the charge really applied to John Henry; and I do know that
John Henry is now making speeches and fiercely battling for Judge Douglas.
If the Judge now says that he offers this as a sort of setoff to what I
said to-day in reference to Trumbull's charge, then I remind him that he
made this charge before I said a word about Trumbull's. He brought this
forward at Ottawa, the first time we met face to face; and in the opening
speech that Judge Douglas made he attacked me in regard to a matter
ten years old. Is n't he a pretty man to be whining about people making
charges against him only two years old!

The Judge thinks it is altogether wrong that I should have dwelt u