-I have been somewhat, in my own mind, complimented
by a large portion of Judge Douglas's speech,--I mean that portion
which he devotes to the controversy between himself and the present
Administration. This is the seventh time Judge Douglas and myself have met
in these joint discussions, and he has been gradually improving in regard
to his war with the Administration. At Quincy, day before yesterday, he
was a little more severe upon the Administration than I had heard him upon
any occasion, and I took pains to compliment him for it. I then told him
to give it to them with all the power he had; and as some of them were
present, I told them I would be very much obliged if they would give it to
him in about the same way. I take it he has now vastly improved upon
the attack he made then upon the Administration. I flatter myself he has
really taken my advice on this subject. All I can say now is to re-commend
to him and to them what I then commended,--to prosecute the war against
one another in the most vigorous manner. I say to them again: "Go it,
husband!--Go it, bear!"

There is one other thing I will mention before I leave this branch of the
discussion,--although I do not consider it much of my business, anyway. I
refer to that part of the Judge's remarks where he undertakes to involve
Mr. Buchanan in an inconsistency. He reads something from Mr. Buchanan,
from which he undertakes to involve him in an inconsistency; and he gets
something of a cheer for having done so. I would only remind the Judge
that while he is very valiantly fighting for the Nebraska Bill and the
repeal of the Missouri Compromise, it has been but a little while since
he was the valiant advocate of the Missouri Compromise. I want to know
if Buchanan has not as much right to be inconsistent as Douglas has? Has
Douglas the exclusive right, in this country, of being on all sides of
all questions? Is nobody allowed that high privilege but himself? Is he to
have an entire monopoly on that subject?

So far as Judge Douglas addressed his speech to me, or so far as it was
about me, it is my business to pay some attention to it. I have heard the
Judge state two or three times what he has stated to-day, that in a speech
which I made at Springfield, Illinois, I had in a very especial manner
complained that the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case had decided that
a negro could never be a citizen of the United States. I have omitted by
some accident heretofore t