Mr. Lincoln was welcomed to Tazewell county and introduced to the audience by Judge Bush in a short and eloquently delivered speech, full of good sense and good taste; and when he came forward was greeted with hearty applaused2 He commenced by alluding to the many years in which he had been intimately acquainted with most of the citizens of old Tazewell county, and expressed the pleasure which it gave him to see so many of them present. He then alluded to the fact that Judge Douglas, in a speech to them on Saturday had, as he was credibly informed, made a variety of extraordinary statements concerning him.3 He had known Judge Douglas for twenty-five years, and was not now to be astonished by any statement which he might make, no matter what it might be. He was surprised, however, that his old political enemy but personal friend, Mr. John Haynes—a gentleman whom he had always respected as a person of honor and veracity—should have made such statements about him as he was said to have made in a speech introducing Mr. Douglas to a Tazewell audience only three days before. He then rehearsed those statements, the substance of which were that Mr. Lincoln, while a member of Coegress, helped starve his brothers and friends in the Mexican war by voting against the bills appropriating them money, provisions and medical attendance. He was grieved and astonished that a man whom he had heretofore respected so highly, should have been guilty of such false statements, and he hoped Mr. Haynes was present that he might hear his denial of them. He was not a member of Congress, he said, until after the return of Mr. Haynes’s brothers and friends from the Mexican War to their Tazewell county homes—was not a member of Congress until after the war hae practically closed.4 He then went into a detailed statement of his election to Congress, and of the votes which he gave, while a member of that body, having any connection with the Mexican war. He showed that upon all occasions he voted for the supply bills for the army, and appealed to the official record for a confirmation of his statement.

Mr. Lincoln then proceeded to notice, successive, the charges made against him by Douglas in relation to the Illinois Central railroad, in relation to an attempt to Abolitionize the Whig party and in relation to negro equality.5 As our present space is limited, we propose to notice his remarks under these heads hereafter.

After finishing his allusions to the special charges brought against him by his antagonist, Mr. Lincoln branched out into one of the most telling and powerful speeches he has made during the campaign. It was the most forcible argument against Mr. Douglas’s Democracy, and the best vidication of and eloquent plea for Republicanism, that we ever listentened to from any man.6