Douglas Charges Against Lincoln -- Not one of them sustained.

2

Sept. 25, 1858

Douglas is as persistent in the urging of his false and slanderous charges against Lincoln and the Republicans, as a blind bat is in flying against stone walls.

First, he charged Lincoln with being in favor of placing the Negro on a legal, political and social equality with a white man. This Lincoln has disavowed as often as it has been charged, and yet Douglas persists in the charge with a degree of recklessness for truth that is astonishing.

He charged Lincoln with a disposition to "forcibly resist" the decisions of the Supreme Court. This Lincoln denied, and explained that his opposition to the Dred Scott decision was not a "forcible resistance," but a peaceable argument against its doctrine, with a view to its ultimate reversal. And yet Douglas, with a persistency to falsify that is as dishonorable in a statesman as it is wicked in a man, continues to repeat the original charge.

He charged Lincoln with ultra Abolition sentiments, of warring against the South, and of desiring to dissolve the Union. Lincoln has time and again defined his position, and shown quite plainly and conclusively that he stands on truly conservative, Union loving grounds, as regards the clashing interest between the North and the South -- that the extent of his active hostility to Slavery is to keep it out of the free territories of the Union, and that the extent of his hostility to the South is a desire to place the institution of Slavery on such a basis that it may be confined to its present limits, and that all efforts to extend it into the domains of Freedom may cease. Notwithstanding this explicit enunciation of his sentiments, Douglas still stoutly continues to accuse him of Abolition and Disunionism.

He charged Lincoln with having, while in Congress, voted against supplies for the poor soldiers who fought in the Mexican war. Lincoln has shown this to be totally and foolishly false. And yet Douglas continues to make the charge, with obstinate unscrupulousness.

He charged Lincoln with being in favor of a despotic uniformity of government and institutions throughout the nation, and being opposed to the sacred doctrines of State Rights and State Sovereignty. Lincoln has a hundred times refuted and exploded the charge. But still does the villifying Little Giant persist in it.

In short, Senator Douglas and his organs and fuglers have yet to bring forward a solitary sound argument to prove that ABRAHAM LINCOLN is not a most proper and able man to represent the State of Illinois in the Federal Senate. They have made many charges, but none of them have been sustained -- not one.

And we now challenge the little champion, and any of his blind and devoted worshippers, to produce one good, sound reason, argument or charge, to prove to the satisfaction of any rational, candid man, that Abraham Lincoln is not a better man, or an honester politician, or that he would not prove a more able and faithful Senator, than Douglas has proved himself. The challenge is open to the whole Douglas faction, and we dare the least or greatest of them to respond to it, and submit the matter to a jury of twelve unbiased, intelligent and candid men to be found in the United States, for their decision. -- [Chicago Journal]