them so. Now, I have no means of totally disproving such charges as this which the Judge makes. A man cannot prove a negative; but he has a right to claim that when a man makes an affirmative charge, he must offer some proof to show the truth of what he says. I certainly cannot introduce testimony to show the negative about things, but I have a right to claim that if a man says he knows a thing, then he must show how he knows it. I always have a right to claim this, and it is not satisfactory to me that he may be "conscientious" on the subject [cheers and laughter].
Now, gentlemen, I hate to waste my time on such things; but in regard to that general Abolition tilt that Judge Douglas makes, when he says that I was engaged at that time in selling out and Abolitionizing the old Whig party, I hope you will permit me to read a part of a printed speech that I made then[1] at Peoria, which will show altogether a different view of the position I took in that contest of 1854.
A Voice.—"Put on your specs."
Mr. Lincoln.—Yes, sir, I am obliged to do so; I am no longer a young man [laughter].
"This is the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.[2] The foregoing history may not be precisely accurate in every particular, but I am sure it is sufficiently so for all the uses I shall attempt to make of it, and in it we have before us the chief materials enabling us to correctly judge whether the repeal of the Missouri Compromise is right or wrong.
"I think, and shall try to show, that it is wrong,—wrong in its direct effect, letting slavery into Kansas and Nebraska, and wrong in its prospective principle, allowing it to spread to every other part of the wide world where men can be found inclined to take it.
"This declared indifference, but, as I must think, covert real zeal for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world,—enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites; causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty,—criticising the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest.
"Before proceeding let me say, I think I have no prejudice against the
- ↑ Reads: "when" for "then."
- ↑ This extract from Mr. Lincoln's Peoria speech of 1854 was read by him in the Ottawa debate, but was not reported fully or accurately in either Times or Press Tribune. It is inserted now as necessary to a complete report of the debate. (This note appeared in the Foliet, Foster & Co. edition, 1860. The whole quotation was omitted in the Press and Tribune to the paragraph beginning "When Southern people tell...." and the omission was noted, and even the rest was quoted very incorrectly.—Editor.
