The oft-quoted expression of Gladstone is, however, more rhetorical

than accurate. The Constitution of the United States was not

"struck off at a given time," but as declared by Bancroft, "the

materials for its building were the gifts of the ages." In the

words of Lieber, "What the ancients said of the avenging gods, that

they were shod with wool, is true of great ideas in government.

They approach slowly. Great truths dwell a long time with small

minorities."

The period following the treaty of peace with Great Britain in

1783, which terminated the War of the Revolution, has been not

inaptly designated "the critical period of American history." The

Revolutionary Government, under which Washington had been chosen

to the chief command of the colonial forces, the early battles

fought, and the Declaration of Independence promulgated, had

been superseded in 1781 by a Government created under the Articles

of Confederation. The latter Government, while in a vital sense

a mere rope of sand, was a long step in the right direction; the

earnest of the more perfect union yet to follow.

Under the Government, more shadowy than real, thus created, the

closing battles of the Revolution were fought, independence achieved,

a treaty of peace concluded, and our recognition as a sovereign

Republic obtained from our late antagonist and other European

nations.

The Articles of Confederation, submitted for ratification by the

Colonial Congress to the individual States while the country was

yet in the throes of a doubtful struggle, fell far short of

establishing what in even crude form could properly be designated a

Government. The Confederation was wholly lacking in one essential

of all Governments: the power to execute its own decrees. Its

avowed purpose was to establish "a firm league of friendship," or,

as the name indicates, a mere confederation of the colonies.

The parties to this league were independent political communities,

and by express terms, each State was to retain all rights, sovereignty,

and jurisdiction not expressly delegated to the Confederation. In

a Congress consisting of a single House were vested the powers thus

grudgingly conferred. Its members were to be chosen by the States

as such; upon every question the vote was given by States, each,

regardless of population, having but a single vote. The revenues and

the regulation of foreign commerce were to remain under the control

of the respective States, and no provision was made for borrowing

money for the necessary maintenance of the general Government. In

a word, in so far as a Government at all, it was in the main one

of independent States, and in no sense that with which we are

familiar, a Government of the entire people. Whatever existed

of executive power was in a committee of the Congress; the only

provision for meeting the expenses of the late war and the interest

upon the public debt was by requisition upon the States, with no

shadow of power for its enforcement.

Under the conditions briefly mentioned, with the United States

of America a byword among the nations, the now historic Convention

of 1787 assembled in Philadelphia, in the room where eleven

years earlier had been promulgated the Declaration of Independence.

It consisted of fifty-five members; and without a dissenting voice,

Washington, a delegate from Virginia, was elected its President.

Not the least of his public services was now to be rendered in the

work of safeguarding the fruits of successful revolution by a stable

Government. Chief among the associates with whom he was daily

in earnest, anxious counsel in the great assemblage, were men whose

names live with his in history. If Franklin, Wilson, Sherman,

King, Randolph, Rutledge, Mason, Pinckney, Hamilton, Madison,

and their associates had rendered no public service other than

as builders of the Constitution, that alone would entitle them

to the measureless gratitude of all future generations of their

countrymen.

When they were assembled, the startling fact was at once apparent that,

under the Confederation, with its constituent States at times in

almost open hostility to one another, the country was gradually

drifting into a condition of anarchy.

It is our glory to-day, and will be that of countless on-coming

generations, that the men of '87 were equal to the stupendous

emergency. Regardless of instructions, expressed or implied,

the master spirits of the Convention, looking beyond local prejudices

and State environment, and appealing to time for vindication, with

a ken that now seems more than human, discerned the safety, the

well-being, the glory of their countrymen, bound up in a general

Government of plenary powers, a Government "without a seam in its

garment, to foreign nations."

To this end the proposition submitted by Paterson of New Jersey,

in the early sittings of the Convention, for a mere enlargement of

the powers of the Confederation, was decisively rejected. With

the light that could be gleaned from the pages of Montesquieu, the

suggestive lessons to be drawn from the fate of the short-lived

republics whose wrecks lay along the pathway of history, and from the

unwritten Constitution of the mother country, as their only guides,

the leaders of the Convention were at once in the difficult role

of constructive statesmen. The Herculean task to which with

unwearied effort they now addressed themselves was that of "builders"

of the Constitution; the establishers, for the ages, of the

fundamental law for a free people.

One of the perils which early beset the Convention, and whose

spectre haunted its deliberations till the close, was the hostility

engendered by the dread and jealousy of the smaller toward the

larger States. This fact will in some measure explain what in

later years have been denominated the anomalies of the Constitution.

To a correct understanding of the motives of the builders, and

an appreciation of their marvellous accomplishment, it must not be

forgotten that "The foundations of the Constitution were laid in

compromise." The men of '87 had but recently emerged from the

bloody conflict through which they had escaped the domination of

kingly power. With the tyranny of George the Third yet burning in

their memories, it is not to be wondered that the Revolutionary

patriots of the less populous States were loath to surrender rights,

deemed, by them, secure under their local governments; that they

dreaded the establishment of what they apprehended might prove

an overshadowing--possibly unlimited--central authority.

The creation of a general Government, with its three separate

and measurably independent departments, happily concluded, with

the delegated powers of each distinctly enumerated, the salient

question as to the basis of representation in the Congress at once

pressed for determination. Upon the question of provision for a

chief executive, and his investment with the powers necessarily

incident to the great office, there was after much debate a practical

consensus of opinion. And practical unanimity in the end prevailed

regarding the judicial department, with its great court without

a prototype at its creation, and even yet without a counterpart in

foreign Governments.

The rock upon which the Convention barely escaped early dissolution,

was the basis of representation in the Congress created under

the great co-ordinate legislative department. The model for our

Senate and House of Representatives was unquestionably the British

Parliament. This statement is to be taken with weighty qualifications;

for hereditary or ecclesiastical representation, as in the House

of Lords, is wholly unknown in our system of government. The

significant resemblance is that of our Lower House to the

British Commons. In these respective chambers, the people, as

such, have representation.

The earnest, at times violent, contention of the smaller States,

in our historic Convention, was for equal representation in both

branches of the proposed national legislature. This was strenuously

resisted by the larger States under the powerful leadership of

Madison of Virginia, and Wilson of Pennsylvania. Their equally

earnest, and by no means illogical contention was for popular

representation in each House, as outlined in the Virginia plan

which had been taken as the framework of the proposed Constitution.

The opposing views appeared wholly irreconcilable, and for a time the

parting of the ways seemed to have been reached. Threats of

dissolution were not uncommon in the Chamber, and for many days

the spirit of despair brooded over the Convention. A delegate from

Maryland vehemently declared: "The Convention is on the verge

of dissolution, scarcely held together by the strength of a hair."

Well has it been said: "In even the contemplation of the fearful

consequence of such a calamity, the imagination stands aghast."

At the crucial moment mentioned, Sherman and Ellsworth presented

upon behalf of Connecticut the first and most far-reaching of

the great compromises of the Constitution. The Connecticut plan

was in brief to the effect that in fixing the ratio of representation

there should be recognition alike of the federal and of the national

feature in government, in a word, that in the Lower House the

national, and in the upper the federal principle should have

full recognition. This was a departure from the Virginia plan

to the extent that it in effect proposed the establishment of a

federal republic,--in the concrete, that the House should be composed

of representatives chosen directly by the people from districts of

equal population; while representation in the Senate should be that

of the States, each, regardless of population, to have two members,

to be chosen at stated periods by their respective legislatures.

After heated debate, this compromise was carried by a bare majority,

and the provision for popular representation in the House, and

equal State representation in the Senate, became engrafted upon

our Federal Constitution. This feature, an eminent foreign writer has

declared, "is the chief American contribution to the common treasures

of political civilization." The eminent writer, De Tocqueville,

has well said: "The principle of the independence of the States

triumphed in the formation of the Senate, and that of the sovereignty

of the nation in the composition of the House of Representatives."

The success of the Connecticut plan made possible that of other

essential compromises which followed; and the result was, as the

sublime consummation of wise deliberation and patriotic concession,

the establishment of the Government of the United States.

It is the proud boast of the Briton, that "the British Constitution

has no single date from which its duration is to be reckoned,

and that the origin of English law is as undiscoverable as that of

the Nile." Our Government, buttressed upon a written Constitution

of enumerated and logically implied powers, had its historic

beginning upon that masterful day, April 30, 1789, when Washington

took solemn oath of office as our first President.

The Senate of the United States has been truly declared "the greatest

deliberative body known to men." By Constitutional provision it

consists of two members from each State, chosen by the Legislature

thereof, for the term of six years. No person has the legal

qualification for Senator "unless he shall have attained the age

of thirty years, be an inhabitant of the State for which he is

chosen, and have been nine years a citizen of the United States."

No State, without its consent, can ever be deprived, even by

Constitutional amendment, of its equal representation in the Senate.

Nevada with a population of less than forty thousand has her equal

voice with New York with a population exceeding seven million.

This anomaly was occasioned by concession by the larger to the

smaller States in the Convention of 1787, a concession which

made possible the establishment of the federal Union.

One essential difference between the House of Representatives

and the Senate is that to the latter "the previous question" is

unknown; no method existing for terminating debate, other than

by unanimous consent. Here, unlimited discussion and amendment

can have their perfect work. Within the last three or four decades

many fruitless attempts have been made to introduce a modified

"previous question" or _cloture,_ by which the Senate could be

brought to an immediate vote. At first blush such change might

seem desirable, but experience has demonstrated the wisdom of

the method to which there has been such steady adherence. It

secures time for consideration and full discussion upon every

question. In the end the vote will be taken. Debate is rarely

prolonged beyond reasonable limit. Not infrequently the public

welfare is imperilled by too much, rather than too little, legislation.

It was the belief of Jefferson that government should touch the

citizen at the fewest possible points. The quaint lines of the

old English poet have lost nothing of their significance:

"How small, of all that human hearts endure,

That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!"

The House of Representatives has in large degree ceased to be a

deliberative body. Under the iron rule of the "previous question"

measures of importance are hurriedly passed without the possibility

of discussion or amendment. The rights of the minority are at

times but as the dust in the balance.

Unlike the House of Lords, the Senate is in reality an important

factor in legislation. As is well known in recent years, government

in Great Britain is virtually that of the House of Commons, in

large measure through a cabinet practically of its own appointment.

The King is little more than a ceremonial figure-head, and the

House of Lords is almost in a death struggle for existence. The

end would probably come by serious attempt upon its part to thwart

the popular will as expressed through the House of Commons. The

power of Edward the Seventh is but a shadow of that exercised almost

without let or hindrance by the predecessors of Queen Victoria.

The veto power, so potent an instrumentality in the hands of the

American President, is to all intents a dead letter in the mythical

British Constitution. For a century and a half it has remained in

practical abeyance. It is believed that its attempted exercise at

this day would produce revolution; possibly endanger the existence

of the throne.

By means of what is known as a suspension of the rules, under

the operation of the "previous question," much important legislation

is enacted in our House of Representatives, without the minority

having the privilege of debate, or amendment, or even the necessary

time to a full understanding of the pending measure. The constantly

recurring "River and Harbor Bill," with its enormous sum total

of appropriations, is a striking object lesson of the vicious

character of such methods.

In the light of what has been suggested, the wisdom displayed in

the establishment of the bicameral, or two-chamber system, in

our legislative scheme, is strikingly apparent. At the time of

its creation, it had no counterpart in any of the Governments of

continental Europe. Its only prototype, in so far as it was such,

was the British House of Lords as already indicated.

Save only in the right to originate revenue bills, the power of

the Senate is concurrent with that of the House in all matters

of legislation; and these are wisely subject to amendment by the

Senate. The presiding officer of the Senate is the Vice-President

of the United States, and in his absence a Senator chosen as

President _pro tempore._

In the event of a failure on the part of the people to elect a

President or a Vice-President of the United States, through electors

duly appointed at the stated time, the duty of such election devolves

upon the House and the Senate acting independently of each other.

The choice of President is limited to the three candidates who have

received the highest number of votes in the several electoral

colleges. The determination is by the House of Representatives,

the vote being by States. In such event the vote of Nevada

would again count equally with that of New York. In the contingency

mentioned, of a failure to elect a Vice-President, the election

devolves upon the Senate, each Senator having a personal vote; and

the person chosen must by Constitutional requirement be one of the

two receiving the highest number of electoral votes. In 1836, Mr.

Van Buren of New York received a majority of the electoral votes

for President; but no person receiving a majority for the second

office, Colonel Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, one of the two

persons eligible, was chosen by the Senate. No similar instance

has occurred in our history.

In the Presidential election of 1800, and in that of 1824, the

ultimate determination was by the House of Representatives. In

the former, Jefferson and Burr each received seventy-three electoral

votes, without specification as to whether intended for the first or

second office. The protracted struggle which followed resulted in

the choice of Jefferson for the higher office. This fortunate

termination was in large measure through the influence of Alexander

Hamilton, and was the initial step in the bitter personal strife

which eventuated in his early death at the hands of Burr. In

the light of events, we may well believe that not the least of the

public services of Hamilton was his unselfish interposition at the

critical moment mentioned. The possibility of similar complication

again arising in the election of the President was soon thereafter

obviated by the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution.

Seldom in Presidential contests has there been such an array of

great names presented as in that of 1824. The era of good feeling

which characterized the administration of Monroe found sudden

termination in the rival candidacy of two members of his cabinet, for

the succession--Mr. Adams, Secretary of State, and Mr. Crawford, of

the Treasury. The other aspirants were Clay, the brilliant Speaker

of the House of Representatives, and Jackson, with laurels yet

fresh from the battlefield of New Orleans. Mr. Clay receiving the

smallest number of electoral votes, and no candidate the

majority thereof, the selection again devolved upon the House,

resulting eventually in the choice of John Quincy Adams.

In the two Presidential contests last mentioned, the Senate had no

part in the final adjustment. An occasion, however, arose nearly a

half-century later, involving the succession to the Presidency, in

which the Senate, equally with the House, was an important factor in

the final determination. The country has known few periods of

profounder anxiety to thoughtful men, or of greater peril to stable

government, than the feverish hours immediately succeeding the

Presidential contest of 1876. The shadow cast by the Hayes-Tilden

contest even yet, in a measure, lingers. As a Representative in

Congress at the time, I was deeply impressed with the gravity of

the situation. In the instances first mentioned it was the mere

question of the failure of any candidate to receive a majority

of the electoral votes. The framers of the Constitution had wisely

provided for such contingency by action of the House in manner

indicated. The far more serious question now confronting was, For

whom had the disputed States of Florida and Louisiana cast their

votes? The settlement of this question virtually determined which

candidate should be inaugurated President. Conflicting certificates

from the States named had been forwarded to the seat of government,

and were in keeping of the officer designated by law as the custodian

of the electoral returns from the several States. The contingency

which had now arisen was one for which there was no provision.

The sole function of the joint session of the Senate and the House

was "to open all the certificates and count the votes." This

was "the be all and end all" of its authority. Upon the arising

of any question demanding a vote, or even deliberation, the members

of the joint session could only return to their separate chambers.

They could act only in their separate capacities. In a word,

the perilous exigency presented was, the friends of one candidate having

a majority in the Senate, and of the other in control of the House;

conflicting certificates presented, upon which hinged the result, and

the tension throughout the entire country assuming alarming

proportions. Coupled with the question of peaceable succession to

the great office was that of the durability of popular government.

Tremendous issues, upon which depended unfathomable consequences, pressed

for settlement; and no tribunal was in existence for their

determination.

The sober second thought of those upon whom was then cast the

responsibility asserted itself at the opportune moment, and a

commission consisting of an equal number of Senators, Representatives,

and Judges of the Great Court was created. This commission--

extra-Constitutional, as was believed by many--decided as to the

validity of the conflicting certificates, and in effect determined

as to the Presidential succession.

The justification of the act creating the commission might well

rest upon the fact that an overshadowing emergency had arisen,

where necessity becomes the paramount law. "The pendulum of history

swings in centuries," and a single term of the great office weighed

little in view of the perils that surely awaited a failure to secure

peaceful adjustment.

I may be pardoned for adding that in the retrospect of a life,

no longer a short one, I have no regrets that my humble voice

and vote were given for peaceable and lawful adjustment of a perilous

controversy, that cast its dark shadow across our national pathway

--such a one, as, please God, our country may never witness again.

Unquestionably the least satisfactory of the devices of our Federal

Constitution is that for the election of President and Vice-President

through the instrumentality of colleges of electors chosen by

the several States. Upon this subject notes of warning have

been many times sounded by eminent statesmen of the past. In view

of the hazardous complications through which we have happily passed,

and of those which may possibly beset our future pathway as a

nation, it would indeed be the part of wisdom, if by Constitutional

amendment a less complicated and cumbrous instrumentality could be

devised for ascertaining and making effective the popular will

in the selection of President and Vice-President of the United

States.

One of the apprehensions of the framers of the Constitution was

that of executive usurpation of functions lawfully pertaining to

the co-ordinate department of the Government. This was measurably

guarded against by the provision requiring appointment to high

office to be by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.

While the President by the exercise of the veto power possesses

a negative upon legislation, the Senate by virtue of the provision

quoted has an equally effective negative upon executive appointments

to important office.

To the President is confided primarily the treaty-making power.

Treaties are the law of the land, and their observance in spirit

as well as letter touches the national honor. Upon this often

depends the issue of peace or war. Before becoming effective their

ratification by a two-thirds vote of the Senate is indispensable.

From these and other safeguards strikingly appear what are known

as "the checks and balances" of the Constitution.

An important function of the Senate yet to be mentioned is that of

sitting as a high court of impeachment. The President, Vice-President,

and other high officials are amenable to its jurisdiction. The

initial step, however, in such procedure is by the House of

Representatives, as the grand inquest of the nation, presenting

articles of impeachment, the Senate possessing the sole power of

trial. Six times only in our history has the Senate been resolved

into a Court of Impeachment, and only twice--in the case of district

judges--has there been a conviction. The earliest trial, more than

a century ago, was that of a supreme justice, Chase of Maryland.

Apart from the high official position of the accused, and the august

tribunal before which he was arraigned, this trial is of

historic interest from the fact that it involved the once famous

Alien and Sedition Laws; that John Randolph was chief of the managers

on the part of the House; Pinckney, Martin, and William Wirt of

counsel for the defence; and Vice-President Aaron Burr, the presiding

officer of the court.

The trial of Belknap, Secretary of War, is still within the memory

of many. As a member of the House, I attended it from the beginning.

It appearing from the evidence that Belknap had resigned his office

before the presentation of the articles of impeachment, he was

acquitted. The fate of General Belknap was indeed a sad one, that

of a hitherto honorable career suddenly terminated under a cloud.

Morally guiltless himself, his chivalric assumption of responsibility

for the act of one near to him, and his patiently abiding the

consequence, has invested with something of pathos, and even romance,

the memory of his trial.

An impeachment that has left its deep impress upon history, and

before which all others pale into insignificance, was that of

President Johnson, charged by the House of Representatives with

the commission of "high crimes and misdemeanors." He had been

elected to the second place upon the ticket with Mr. Lincoln in

1864, and upon the death of the latter, succeeded to the Presidency.

Radical differences with the majority in the Congress, upon questions

vital and far-reaching, ultimately culminated in the presentation of

articles of impeachment. Partisan feeling was at its height,

and the excitement throughout the country intense. The trial

was protracted for many weeks without jot or tittle of abatement

in the public interest. The chief managers on the part of the

House were Benjamin F. Butler and Thaddeus Stevens. The array

of counsel for the accused included the names of Benjamin R. Curtis,

Henry Stanberry, and William M. Evarts. The Senate, in its high

character of a court, was presided over for the first and only time

by the Chief Justice of the United States. The trial was conducted

with marked decorum; every phase of questions touching the exercise

of executive authority, or lawful discretion, was fully discussed,

the very springs of legislative power, and its limitation under

Constitutional government, were laid bare--all with an eloquence

unparalleled save only in the wondrous efforts of Sheridan, Fox,

and Burke in the historic impeachment of Warren Hastings before

the British House of Lords. The spectacle presented was one

that challenged the attention and wonder of the nations; that of

the chief magistrate of a great republic at the bar of justice,

calmly awaiting judgment without popular disturbance or attempted revolt,

under the safeguards of law and its appointments. The highest test

of the virtue of our system of representative government, and of

the unfaltering devotion of our people to its prescribed methods, is

to be found in the fact, that during the protracted trial the

various departments proceeded with wonted regularity; the verdict of

the Senate was acquiesced in without manifestation of hostility;

partisan passion soon abated and the great impeachment peaceably

relegated to the domain of history.

The House of Representatives has an official life of short duration.

Its reorganization is biennial. The Senate is enduring. Always

organized, it is the continuing body of our national legislature.

Its members change, but the Senate continues the same now, as in

the first hour of the Republic.

In his last great speech in the Senate, Mr. Webster said:

"It is fortunate that there is a Senate of the United States; a

body not yet moved from its propriety, not lost to a full sense of

its own dignity and its own high responsibilities, and a body to

which the country looks with confidence for wise, moderate, patriotic,

and healing counsels."

Upon the first assembling of the Senate in its present magnificent

chamber nearly half a century ago, the Vice-President closed his

eloquent dedicatory address with the words:

"Though these marble walls moulder into ruins, the Senate in another

age may bear into a new and larger chamber the Constitution vigorous

and inviolate, and the last generation of posterity shall witness the

deliberations of the representatives of American States still

united, prosperous, and free."

VI

A TRIBUTE TO LINCOLN

THE WRITER'S SPEECH AT THE LINCOLN CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, 1909

--PATRIOTIC CHARACTER OF THE MEETING--LEADING HISTORICAL EVENTS

BETWEEN 1809 AND 1909--BIRTH OF LINCOLN--TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION OF

ILLINOIS--BIRTH OF DARWIN AND GLADSTONE--CAREER OF NAPOLEON--WAR

OF 1812--THE SLAVERY QUESTION--SEIZURE AND SURRENDER OF MASON

AND SLIDELL--EMANCIPATION OF SLAVES.

February 12, 1909, will long be remembered as the day of the

celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Abraham

Lincoln. For on that day was the culmination of a celebration

which, in various parts of the country, had begun at least a

week before. Rarely has there been an occasion of so much decoration,

so many addresses, or so much patriotism. The largest celebration

occurred in New York City, but that of Chicago, if not so large,

was at least as interesting and impressive, for in it and surrounding

parts of Illinois some of the most memorable events in the life of

Lincoln took place. Yet these manifestations were not a whit more

patriotic than those of many small towns and villages.

Every hamlet, every town, and every city of the United States seemed

to be imbued with a desire to do honor to the memory of the man

Lincoln. Every newspaper and every magazine of whatever name or

order was filled with pictures, anecdotes, and sketches of the life

of "Honest Abe." Books galore were published emphasizing every

phase of his life, character, work, and influence; and they sold

well.

My contribution to this occasion was the following speech delivered

at Bloomington, Illinois, February 12:

"We have assembled to commemorate one of the epoch-making events

in history. In the humblest of homes in the wilds of a new and

sparsely settled State, Abraham Lincoln was born one hundred years

ago, this day.

"The twelfth day of February, like the twenty-second day of the

same month, is one of the sacred days in the American calendar.

It is well that this day be set apart from ordinary uses, the

headlong rush in the crowded mart suspended, the voice of fierce

contention in legislative halls be hushed, and that the American

people--whether at home, in foreign lands, or upon the deep--honor

themselves by honoring the memory of the man of whose birth this

day is the first centennial.

"This coming together is no idle ceremony, no unmeaning observance.

To this man, more than to any other, are we indebted for the supreme

fact that ninety millions of people are at this hour, in the loftiest

sense of the expression, fellow-citizens of a common country. Some

of us, through the mists of half a century, distinctly recall

the earnest tones in which Mr. Lincoln in public speech uttered

the words, 'My fellow-citizens.' Truly the magical words

'fellow-citizens' never fail to touch a responsive chord in the

patriotic heart. Was it the gifted Prentiss who at a critical

moment of our history exclaimed:

"'For whether upon the Sabine or the St. John's; standing in

the shadow of Bunker Hill or amid the ruins of Jamestown; near

the great northern lakes or within the sound of the Father of

Waters flowing unvexed to the sea; in the crowded mart of the

great metropolis or upon the western verge of the continent,

where the restless tide of emigration is stayed only by the

ocean--everywhere upon this broad domain, thank God, I can still

say "fellow-citizens"!'

"Let us pause for a moment and briefly note some of the marvellous

results wrought out by the toil, strife, and sacrifice of the

century whose close we commemorate. The Year of Our Lord 1809 was

one of large place in history. The author of the Declaration of

Independence was upon the eve of final retirement from public place,

and the Presidential term of James Madison just beginning, when in

a log cabin near the western verge of civilization the eyes of

Abraham Lincoln first opened upon the world. The vast area

stretching from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean was under

the dominion of Spain. Two decades only had passed since the

establishment of the United States Government under the Federal

Constitution, and the inauguration of Washington as its first

President. Lewis and Clark had but recently returned from the now

historic expedition to the Columbia and the Oregon,--an expedition

fraught with momentous consequences to the oncoming generations of

the Republic. Only five years had passed since President Jefferson

had purchased, for fifteen millions of dollars from Napoleon

Bonaparte, the Louisiana country, extending from the Gulf of Mexico

to the frozen lakes, out of which were to be carved sixteen

magnificent States to become enduring parts of the American

Republic. From the early Colonial settlements that fringed the

Atlantic, a tide of hardy emigration was setting in to the westward,

and, regardless of privation or danger, laying the sure foundation

of future commonwealths. Four States only had been admitted into the

Federal Union, and the population of the entire country was less

than that of the State of New York to-day. This same year witnessed

the first organization of Illinois into a distinct political

community and its creation, by act of Congress, as the Territory

of Illinois, with a white population less than one-twentieth of

that of this good county to-day. The United States having

barely escaped a war with France,--our ally in securing our

independence,--was earnestly struggling for distinct place among

the nations.

"No less significant, and fraught with deep consequences, were

events occurring in the Old Worlds. The year 1809 witnessed the

birth of Darwin and Gladstone. The despotism of the Dark Ages

still brooded over Continental Europe, and whatever savored of

popular public rule--even in its mildest form--was yet in the

distant future. Alexander the First was on the throne of Russia,--

and her millions of serfs were oppressed as by the iron hand of

the Caesars. The splendid German Empire of to-day had no place on

the map of the world; its present powerful constituencies were

antagonistic provinces and warring independent cities. Napoleon

Bonaparte--'calling Fate into the lists'--by a succession of

victories unparalleled in history had overturned thrones, compelled

kings upon bended knee to sue for peace, and substituted those

of his own household for dynasties that reached back the entire

length of human history. With his star still in the ascendant,

disturbed by no forecast of the horrid nightmare of the retreat

from Moscow, 'with legions scattered by the artillery of the snows

and the cavalry of the winds,' tortured by no dream of Leipsic, of

Elba, of Waterloo, of St. Helena, he was still the 'man of destiny,'

--relentlessly pursuing the _ignis fatuus_ of universal empire.

"The year that witnessed the birth of Abraham Lincoln witnessed

the gathering of the disturbing elements that were to precipitate the

second war with the mother country. England--with George the Third

still upon the throne--by insulting and cruel search of American

vessels upon the high seas, was rendering inevitable the declaration

of war by Congress,--a war of humiliation upon our part by the

disgraceful surrender of Hull at Detroit and the wanton burning of

our Capitol, but crowned with honor by the naval victories of

Lawrence, Decatur, and Perry, and eventually terminated by the

capture of the British army at New Orleans. As an object lesson

of the marvels of the closing century, an event of such momentous

consequence to the world as the formulation of the Treaty of Ghent,

by which peace was restored between England and America, would to-day

be known at every fireside a few hours after its occurrence. And yet,

within the now closing century, the battle of New Orleans was fought

twenty-three days after the Treaty of Ghent, coming by slow-sailing

vessels across the Atlantic, had received the signature of our

commissioners; all unsettled accounts squared eternally between America

and Great Britain; and the United States, by valor no less than by

diplomacy, exalted to honored and enduring place among the nations.

"The fifty-six years that compassed the life of Abraham Lincoln

were years of transcendent significance to our country. While

he was yet in his rude cradle the African slave trade had just

terminated by constitutional inhibition. While Lincoln was still in

attendance upon the old field school, Henry Clay--yet to be known as

the 'great pacificator'--was pressing the admission of Missouri

into the Union under the first compromise upon the question of

slavery since the adoption of the Federal Constitution. From

the establishment of the Government the question of human

slavery was the one perilous question,--the one constant menace to

national unity, until its final extinction amid the flames of war.

Marvellous to man are the purposes of the Almighty. What seer

could have foretold that, from this humblest of homes upon the

frontier, was to spring the man who at the crucial moment should

cut the Gordian knot, liberate a race, and give to the ages enlarged

and grander conception of the deathless principles of the declaration

of human rights?

"'Often do the spirits of great events

Stride on before the events,

And in to-day already walks to-morrow.'

"The first inauguration of President Lincoln noted the hour of

breaking with the past. It was a period of gloom, when the very

foundations were shaken, when no man could foretell the happening of

the morrow, when strong men trembled at the possibility of the

destruction of our Government.

"Pause a moment, and recall the man who, under the conditions

mentioned, on the fourth of March, 1861, entered upon the duties

of the great office to which he had been chosen. He came from the

common walks of life--from what, in other countries, would be called

the great middle class. His early home was one of the humblest,

where he was a stranger to the luxuries and to many of the ordinary

comforts of life. His opportunities for education were only such as

were common in the remote habitations of our Western country one

century ago.

"Under such conditions, began a career which in grandeur and

achievement has but a single counterpart in our history. And what

a splendid commentary this upon our free institutions,--upon the

sublime underlying principle of popular government! How inspiring

to the youth of high aims every incident of the pathway that led

from the frontier cabin to the Executive Mansion,--from the humblest

position to the most exalted yet attained by man! In no other

country than ours could such attainment have been possible for the

boy whose hands were inured to toil, whose bread was eaten under

the hard conditions that poverty imposes, whose only heritage

was brain, integrity, lofty ambition, and indomitable purpose.

Let it never be forgotten that the man of whom I speak possessed

an integrity that could know no temptation, a purity of life that was

never questioned, a patriotism that no sectional lines could limit,

and a fixedness of purpose that knew no shadow of turning.

"The decade extending from our first treaty of peace with Great

Britain to the inauguration of Washington has been truly denominated

the critical period of our history. The eloquence of Adams and

Henry had precipitated revolution; the unfaltering courage of

Washington and his comrades had secured independence; but the more

difficult task of garnering up the fruits of victory by stable

government was yet to be achieved. The hour for the constructive

statesman had arrived, and James Madison and his associates, equal to

the great emergency, formulated the Federal Constitution.

"No less critical was the period that bounded the active life of

the man whose memory we honor to-day. One perilous question to

national unity which for nearly three-quarters of a century had

been the subject of repeated compromise by patriotic statesmen;

the apple of discord producing sectional antagonism, whose shadow had

darkened our national pathway from the beginning,--was now for weal

or woe to find determination. Angry debate in the Senate and upon

the forum was now hushed, and the supreme question that took hold of

national life was to find enduring arbitrament in the dread tribunal

of war.

"It was well that in such an hour, with such tremendous issues

in the balance, a steady hand was at the helm; that a conservative

statesman--one whose mission was to save, not to destroy--was in

the high place of responsibility and power. It booted little then

that he was untaught of schools, unskilled in the ways of courts, but

it was of supreme moment that he could touch responsive chords

in the great American heart, all-important that his very soul

yearned for the preservation of the Government established through

the toil and sacrifice of the generation that had gone. How

hopeless the Republic in that dark hour, had its destiny hung upon

the statecraft of Talleyrand, the eloquence of Mirabeau, or the

genius of Napoleon! It was fortunate indeed that the ark of our

covenant was then borne by the plain, brave man of conciliatory

spirit and kind words, whose heart, as Emerson has said, 'was as

large as the world, but nowhere had room for the memory of a wrong.'

"Nobler words have never fallen from human lips than the closing

sentences of his first inaugural uttered on one of the pivotal days

of human history, immediately after taking the oath to preserve,

protect, and defend his country:

"'I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. Though

passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.

The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and

patriot's grave to every heart and hearthstone of this broad land,

will yet swell the chorus of the Union when touched as they will

be by the better angels of our nature.'

"In the light of what we now know so well, nothing is hazarded

in saying that the death of no man has been to his country so

irreparable a loss, or one so grievous to be borne, as that of

Abraham Lincoln. When Washington died his work was done, his life

well rounded out. Save one, the years allotted had been passed.

Not so with Lincoln. To him a grander task was yet in waiting,

one no other could so well perform. The assassin's pistol proved the

veritable Pandora's box from which sprung evils untold,--whose

consequences have never been measured.--to one-third of the States

of our Union. But for his untimely death how the current of history

might have been changed,--and many a sad chapter remained unwritten!

How earnestly he desired a restored Union, and that the blessings of

peace and of concord should be the common heritage of every section,

is known to all.

"When in the loom of time have such words been heard above the din

of fierce conflict as his sublime utterances but a brief time before

his tragic death--

"'With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness

in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on

to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds; to

care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow

and his orphan, to do all which may achieve a lasting peace

among ourselves, and with all nations.'

"No fitter occasion than this can ever arise in which to refer

to two historical events that at crucial moments tested to the

utmost the safe and far-seeing statesmanship of President Lincoln.

The first was the seizure upon the high seas of Mason and Slidell,

the accredited representatives from the Southern Confederacy to

the courts of England and France, respectively. The seizure was

in November, 1861, by Captain Wilkes of our navy; and the envoys

named were taken by him from the _Trent,_ a mail-carrying steamer of

the British Government. The act of Captain Wilkes met with

enthusiastic commendation throughout the entire country; he was

voted the thanks of Congress, and his act publicly approved by the

Secretary of the Navy.

"The demand by the British government for reparation upon the part

of the United States was prompt and explicit. The perils that then

environed us were such as rarely shadow the pathway of nations.

Save Russia alone, our Government had no friend among the crowned heads

of Europe. Menaced by the peril of the recognition of the Southern

Confederacy by England and France, with the very stars apparently warring

against us in their courses, the position of the President was

in the last degree trying. To surrender the Confederate envoys

was in a measure humiliating and in opposition to the popular

impulse; their retention, the signal for the probable recognition of

the Southern Confederacy by the European powers, and the certain

and immediate declaration of war by England.

"The good genius of President Lincoln--rather his wise, just,

far-seeing statesmanship--stood him well in hand at the critical

moment. Had a rash and impulsive man then held the executive

office, what a sea of troubles might have overwhelmed us! How the

entire current of our history might have been changed!

"The calm, wise President, in his council chamber, aided by his

closest official adviser, Secretary Seward, discerned clearly

the path of national safety and of honor. None the less was the

act of the President one of justice, one that will abide the

sure test of time. Upon the real ground that the seizure of the

envoys was in violation of the Law of Nations, they were eventually

surrendered, and war with England, as well as the immediate danger

of recognition of the Confederacy, averted. Let it not be forgotten

that this very act of President Lincoln was a triumphant vindication

of our Government in its second war with Great Britain--a war waged

as a protest on our part against British seizure and impressment

of American citizens upon the high seas.

"The other incident, to which I briefly refer, was the proclamation

of emancipation. As a war measure of stupendous significance in

the national defence, as well as of justice to the enslaved,

such proclamation, immediate in time and radical in terms, had

to greater or less degree been urged upon the President from the

outbreak of the Rebellion. That slavery was to perish amid the

great upheaval became in time the solemn conviction of all thoughtful

men. Meanwhile there were divided counsels among the earnest

supporters of the President as to the time the masterful act 'that

could know no backward steps' should be taken. Unmoved amid divided

counsels, and at times fierce dissensions, the calm, far-seeing

executive, upon whom was cast the tremendous responsibility,

patiently bided his time. Events that are now the masterful theme

of history crowded in rapid succession, the opportune moment arrived,

the hour struck, the proclamation that has no counterpart fell upon

the ears of the startled world, and, as by the interposition of a

mightier hand, a race was lifted out of the depths of bondage.

"To the one man at the helm it seemed to have been given to know

the day and the hour. At the crucial moment, in one of the exalted

days of human history,

"'He sounded forth the trumpet that has never called

retreat.'

"The men who knew Abraham Lincoln, who saw him face to face, who

heard his voice in public assemblage, have with few exceptions

passed to the grave. Another generation is upon the busy stage.

The book has forever closed upon the dreadful pageant of civil

strife. Sectional animosities, thank God, belong now only to

the past. The mantle of Peace is over our entire land, and prosperity

within our borders.

"'The war-drum throbs no longer,

And the battle flags are furled

In the parliament of men,

The federation of the world.'

"Through the instrumentality, in no small measure, of the man whose

memory we now honor, the Government established by our fathers,

untouched by the finger of Time, has descended to us. The

responsibility of its preservation and transmission rests upon the

successive generations as they come and go. To-day, at this

auspicious hour sacred to the memory of Lincoln, let us, his

countrymen, inspired by the sublime lessons of his wondrous life, and

grateful to God for all He has vouchsafed to our fathers and to us

in the past, take courage and turn our faces resolutely, hopefully,

trustingly to the future. I know of no words more fitting with

which to close this humble tribute to the memory of Abraham Lincoln,

than those inscribed upon the monument of Moliere:

"'Nothing was wanting to his glory; he was wanting to

ours.'"

VII

STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS

DOUGLAS'S HARDSHIPS IN YOUTH--HE IS ADMITTED TO THE BAR--JACKSON'S

TRIUMPH OVER ADAMS IN 1828--DOUGLAS ENTERS THE ARENA OF DEBATE

AT THE AGE OF 22--BECOMES ATTORNEY-GENERAL--CHOSEN TO THE TENTH

GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF ILLINOIS--BECOMES SECRETARY OF STATE IN ILLINOIS

--DEFENDS JACKSON'S DECLARATION OF MARTIAL LAW AT NEW ORLEANS--

TAKES PART IN THE OREGON BOUNDARY DEBATE--ADVOCATES THE ANNEXATION

OF TEXAS--IS ELECTED TO THE SENATE--ADVOCATES THE ADMISSION OF

CALIFORNIA AS A FREE STATE--HE PROCURES A LAND GRANT TO THE ILLINOIS

CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY--IN DEBATING THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA BILL

HE CONTENDS FOR POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY--ORIGIN OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

--DOUGLAS LOSES THE FRIENDSHIP OF THE SOUTH--DEBATES BETWEEN DOUGLAS

AND LINCOLN--LINCOLN'S EARLY HISTORY--DOUGLAS'S REASONS FOR

ADVOCATING POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY--LINCOLN'S REPLY--THE SLAVERY QUESTION

--THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY RENT ASUNDER--CONSEQUENT FAILURE OF DOUGLAS

TO WIN THE PRESIDENCY--HIS DEATH.

History has been defined, "the sum of the biographies of a few

strong men." Much that is of profound and abiding interest in

American history during the two decades immediately preceding

our Civil War is bound up in the biography of the strong man of

whom I write. Chief among the actors, his place was near the middle

of the stage during that eventful and epoch-making period.

Stephen A. Douglas was born in Brandon, Vermont, April 23, 1813,

and died in Chicago, Illinois, June 3, 1861. Between the dates

given lie the years that up a crowded, eventful life. Left penniless

by the death of his father, he was at a tender age dependent upon his

own exertions for maintenance and education. At the age of fifteen

he apprenticed himself to a cabinet-maker in the town of Middlebury

in his native State. Naturally of delicate organization, he was

unable long to endure the physical strain of this calling, and

at the close of two years' service he returned to his early home.

Entering an academy in Brandon, he there for a time pursued with

reasonable diligence the studies preparatory to a higher course.

Supplementing the education thus acquired, by a brief course of

study in an academy at Canandaigua, New York, at the age of twenty

he turned his footsteps westward.

One of his biographers says:

"It is doubtful if among all the thousands who in those early days

were constantly faring westward from New England, Virginia, and

the Carolinas, there ever was a youth more resolutely and boldly

addressed to opportunity than he. Penniless, broken in health,

almost diminutive in physical stature, and unknown, he made his

way successively to Cincinnati, Louisville, and St. Louis, in search

of employment, literally of bread."

By a sudden turn in fortune's wheel his lot was cast in Central

Illinois, where his first vocation was that of teacher of a village

school. Yet later--after laborious application--admitted to the

bar, he courageously entered upon his marvellous career.

His home was Jacksonville, and to the hardy pioneers of Morgan and

neighboring counties, it was soon revealed that notwithstanding

his slight stature and boyish appearance the youthful Douglas was at

once to be taken fully into the account. Self-reliant to the very

verge, he unhesitatingly entered the arena of active professional and

political strife with foemen worthy the steel of veterans at the

bar, and upon the hustings.

The issues were sharply drawn between the two political parties

then struggling for ascendancy, and Central Illinois was the home of

as brilliant an array of gifted leaders as the Whig party at any

time in its palmiest days had known. Hardin, Stuart, Browning,

Logan, Baker, Lincoln were just then upon the threshold of careers

that have given their names honored and enduring place upon the

pages of our history. Into the safe keeping of the leaders just

named, were entrusted in large degree the advocacy of the principles

of the now historic party, and the political fortunes of its great

chieftain, Henry Clay.

As is well known, the principal antagonist of the renowned Whig

chieftain was Andrew Jackson. Earlier in their political careers,

both had been earnest supporters of the administration of President

Monroe, but at its close the leaders last named, with Adams and

Crawford, were aspirants to the great office. No candidate receiving

a majority of the electoral votes and the selection by Constitutional

requirement devolving upon the House of Representatives, Mr. Adams

was eventually chosen. His election over his principal competitor,

General Jackson, was largely through the influence of Mr. Clay;

and the subsequent acceptance by the latter of the office of

Secretary of State gave rise to the unfounded but vehement cry

of "Bargain and corruption," which followed the Kentucky statesman

through two presidential struggles of later periods, and died wholly

away only when the clods had fallen upon his grave.

Triumphant in his candidacy over Adams in 1828, President Jackson,

four years later, encountered as his formidable competitor his

colossal antagonist--the one man for whom he had no forgiveness,

even when the shadows were gathering about his own couch.

"The early and better days of the Republic" is by no means an

unusual expression in the political literature of our day. Possibly

all the generations of men have realized the significance of the

words of the great bard:

"Past and to come seem best;

Things present worst.

We are time's subjects."

And yet, barring the closing months of the administration of the

elder Adams, this country has known no period of more intense party

passion, or of more deadly feuds among political leaders, than was

manifested during the presidential contest of 1832. The Whig party,

with Henry Clay as its candidate and its idol, was for the first

time in the field. Catching something of the spirit of its imperious

leader, its campaign was recklessly aggressive. The scabbard was

thrown away, and all the lines of retreat cut off from the beginning.

No act of the party in power escaped the lime-light; no delinquency,

real or imaginary, of Jackson--its candidate for re-election--

but was ruthlessly drawn into the open day. Even the domestic

hearthstone was invaded and antagonisms engendered that knew no

surcease until the last of the chief participants in the

eventful struggle had descended to the tomb.

The defeat of Clay but intensified his hostility toward his successful

rival, and with a following that in personal devotion to its leader

has scarcely known a parallel, he was at once the peerless front

of a powerful opposition to the Jackson administration.

Such were the existing political conditions throughout the country

when Stephen A. Douglas, at the age of twenty-two, first entered

the arena of debate. It would not be strange if such environment left

its deep impress, and measurably gave direction to his political

career. The period of probation and training so essential to

ordinary men was unneeded by him. Fully equipped--and with a

self-confidence that has rarely had a counterpart--he was from the

beginning the earnest defender of the salient measures of the

Democratic administration, and the aggressive champion of President

Jackson. Absolutely fearless, he took no reckoning of the opposing

forces, and regardless of the prowess or ripe experience of

adversaries, he at all times, in and out of season, gladly welcomed

the encounter. To this end, he did not await opportunities, but

eagerly sought them.

His first contest for public office was with John J. Hardin, by no

means the least gifted of the brilliant Whig leaders already

mentioned. Defeated by Douglas in his candidacy for re-election

to the office of Attorney General, Colonel Hardin at a later day

achieved distinction as a Representative in Congress, and at the

early age of thirty-seven fell while gallantly leading his regiment

upon the bloody field of Buena Vista. In the catalogue of men

worthy of remembrance, there is to be found the name of no braver,

manlier man, than that of John J. Hardin.

With well-earned laurels as public prosecutor, Douglas resigned,

after two years' incumbency of that office, to accept that of

Representative in the State Legislature. The Tenth General Assembly

--to which he was chosen--was the most notable in Illinois history.

Upon the roll of members of the House--in the old Capitol at Vandalia

--are names inseparably associated with the history of the State

and the nation. From its list were yet to be chosen two Governors

of the commonwealth, one member of the Cabinet, three Justices

of the Supreme Court of the State, eight Representatives in Congress,

six Senators, and one President of the United States. That

would indeed be a notable assemblage of law-makers in any country or

time, that included in its membership McClernand, Edwards,

Ewing, Semple, Logan, Hardin, Browning, Shields, Baker, Stuart,

Douglas, and Lincoln.

In this assembly, Douglas encountered in impassioned debate, possibly

for the first time, two men against whom in succession he was soon

to be opposed upon the hustings as candidate for Congress; and

later as an aspirant to yet more exalted stations, another, with

whose name--now "given to the ages"--his own is linked inseparably

for all time.

The most brilliant and exciting contest for the national House

of Representatives the State has known--excepting possibly that of

Cook and McLean a decade and a half earlier--was that of 1838

between John T. Stuart and Stephen A. Douglas. They were the

recognized champions of their respective parties. The district

embraced two-thirds of the area of the State, extending from the

counties immediately south of Sangamon and Morgan, northward to

Lake Michigan and the Wisconsin line. Together on horseback, often

across unbridged streams, and through pathless forest and prairie,

they journeyed, holding joint debates in all the county seats of

the district--including the then villages of Jacksonville, Springfield,

Peoria, Pekin, Bloomington, Quincy, Joliet, Galena, and Chicago.

That the candidates were well matched in ability and eloquence

readily appears from the fact that after an active canvass of

several months, Major Stuart was elected by a majority of but eight

votes. By re-elections he served six years in the House of

Representatives and was one of its ablest and most valuable members.

In Congress, he was the political friend and associate of

Crittenden, Winthrop, Clay, and Webster. Major Stuart lives in my

memory as a splendid type of the Whig statesman of the Golden Age.

Courteous and kindly, he was at all times a Kentucky gentleman

of the old school if ever one trod this blessed earth.

Returning to the bar after his defeat for Congress, Douglas was,

in quick succession, Secretary of State by appointment of the

Governor, and Judge of the Circuit and Supreme Courts by election by

the Legislature. The courts he held as _nisi prius_ judge were in

the Quincy circuit, and the last-named city for a time his home.

His associates upon the Supreme Bench were Justices Treat, Caton, Ford,

Wilson, Scates, and Lockwood. His opinions, twenty-one in number,

will be found in Scammon's Reports. There was little in any of

the causes submitted to test fully his capacity as lawyer or

logician. Enough, however, appears from his clear and concise

statements and arguments to justify the belief that had his life

been unreservedly given to the profession of the law, his

talents concentrated upon the mastery of its eternal principles,

he would in the end have been amply rewarded "by that mistress who

is at the same time so jealous and so just." This, however, was

not to be, and to a field more alluring his footsteps were now

turned. Abandoning the bench to men less ambitious, he was soon

embarked upon the uncertain and delusive sea of politics.

His unsuccessful opponent for Congress in 1842 was the Hon. Orville

H. Browning, with whom, in the State Legislature, he had measured swords

over a partisan resolution sustaining the financial policy of

President Jackson. "The whirligig of time brings in his revenges,"

and it so fell out that near two decades later it was the fortune of

Mr. Browning to occupy a seat in the Senate as the successor of

Douglas--"touched by the finger of death." At a later day, Mr.

Browning, as a member of the Cabinet of President Johnson, acquitted

himself with honor in the discharge of the exacting duties of

Secretary of the Interior. So long as men of high aims, patriotic

hearts, and noble achievements are held in grateful remembrance,

his name will have honored place in our country's annals.

The career upon which Douglas now entered was the one for which he

was pre-eminently fitted, and to which he had aspired from the

beginning. It was a career in which national fame was to be

achieved, and--by re-elections to the House, and later to the Senate

--to continue without interruption to the last hour of his life.

He took his seat in the House of Representatives, December 5, 1843,

and among his colleagues were Semple and Breese of the Senate, and

Hardin, McClernand, Ficklin, and Wentworth of the House. Mr.

Stephens of Georgia,--with whom it was my good fortune to serve in

the forty-fourth and forty-sixth Congresses--told me that he entered

the House the same day with Douglas, and that he distinctly recalled

the delicate and youthful appearance of the latter as he advanced to

the Speaker's desk to receive the oath of office. Conspicuous

among the leaders of the House in the twenty-eighth Congress were

Hamilton Fish, Washington Hunt, Henry A. Wise, Howell Cobb, Joshua

R. Giddings, Linn Boyd, John Slidell, Barnwell Rhett, Robert C.

Winthrop, the Speaker, Hannibal Hamlin, elected Vice-President upon

the ticket with Mr. Lincoln in 1860, Andrew Johnson, the successor

of the lamented President in 1865, and John Quincy Adams, whose

brilliant career as Ambassador, Senator, Secretary of State, and

President, was rounded out by nearly two decades of faithful service

as a Representative in Congress.

The period that witnessed the entrance of Douglas into the great

Commons was an eventful one in our political history. John Tyler,

upon the death of President Harrison, had succeeded to the great

office, and was in irreconcilable hostility to the leaders of

his party upon the vital issues upon which the Whig victory of 1840

had been achieved. Henry Clay--then at the zenith of his marvellous

powers--merciless in his arraignment of the Tyler administration, was

unwittingly breeding the party dissentions that eventually compassed

his own defeat in his last struggle for the Presidency. Daniel

Webster, regardless of the criticism of party associates, and after

the retirement of his Whig colleagues from the Tyler cabinet, still

remained at the head of the State Department. His vindication, if

needed, abundantly appears in the treaty by which our northeastern

boundary was definitely adjusted, and war with England happily

averted.

In the rush of events, party antagonisms, in the main, soon fade

from remembrance. One, however, that did not pass with the occasion,

but lingered even to the shades of the Hermitage, was unrelenting

hostility to President Jackson. For his declaration of martial law in

New Orleans just prior to the battle--with which his own name is

associated for all time--General Jackson had been subjected to a heavy

fine by a judge of that city. Repeated attempts in Congress looking to

his vindication and reimbursement, had been unavailing. Securing the

floor for the first time, Douglas--upon the anniversary of the great

victory--delivered an impassioned speech in vindication of Jackson

which at once challenged the attention of the country, and gave him high

place among the great debaters of that memorable Congress. In

reply to the demand of an opponent for a precedent for the proposed

legislation, Douglas quickly responded:

"Possibly, sir, no case can be found on any page of American history

where the commanding officer has been fined for an act absolutely

necessary to the salvation of his country. As to precedents, let us make

one now that will challenge the admiration of the world and stand the

test of all the ages."

After a graphic description of conditions existing in New Orleans at

the time of Jackson's declaration of martial law, "the city filled

with traitors, anxious to surrender; spies transmitting information

to the camp of the enemy, British regulars--four-fold the number

of the American defenders--advancing to the attack--in this terrible

emergency, necessity became the paramount law, the responsibility was

taken, martial law declared, and a victory achieved unparalleled

in the annals of war; a victory that avenged the infamy of the

wanton burning of our nation's Capitol, fully, and for all time."

The speech was unanswered, the bill passed, and probably Douglas

knew no prouder moment than when, a few months later, upon a visit

to the Hermitage, he received the earnest thanks of the venerable

commander for his masterly vindication.

Two of the salient and far-reaching questions confronting the

statesmen of that eventful Congress pertained to the settlement of

the Oregon boundary question, and to the annexation of the republic

of Texas. The first-named question--left unsettled by the treaty of

Ghent--had been for two generations the apple of discord between

the American and British governments. That it at a critical moment

came near involving the two nations in a war is a well-known fact

in history. The platform upon which Mr. Polk had, in 1844, been

elected to the Presidency, asserted unequivocally the right of the

United States to the whole of the Oregon Territory. The boundary line

of "fifty-four-forty" was in many of the States the decisive party

watchword in that masterful contest.

Douglas, in full accord with his party upon this question, ably

canvassed Illinois in earnest advocacy of Mr. Polk's election.

When, at a later day, it was determined by the President and his

official advisers to abandon the party platform demand of "fifty-four

degrees and forty minutes" as the only settlement of the

disputed boundary, and accept that of the parallel of forty-nine

degrees--reluctantly proposed by Great Britain as a peaceable final

settlement--Mr. Douglas earnestly antagonizing any concession, was

at once in opposition to the administration he had assisted to

bring into power. Whether the part of wisdom was a strict adherence

to the platform dicta of "the whole of Oregon," or a reasonable

concession in the interest of peaceable adjustment of a dangerous

question, was long a matter of vehement discussion. It suffices that

the treaty with Great Britain establishing our northwestern boundary

upon the parallel last named was promptly ratified by the Senate, and

the once famous Oregon question peaceably relegated to the realm

of history.

A question--sixty odd years ago--equal in importance with that

of the Oregon boundary was the annexation of Texas. The "Lone Star

State" had been virtually an independent republic since the decisive

victory of General Houston over Santa Ana in 1837 at San Jacinto, and

its independence as such had been acknowledged by our own and

European governments. The hardy settlers of this new Commonwealth

were in the main emigrants from the United States, and earnestly

solicitous of admission into the Federal Union. The question of

annexation entered largely into the Presidential canvass of 1844, and

the "lone star" upon Democratic banners was an important factor in

securing the triumph of Mr. Polk in that bitterly contested

election. In the closing hours of the Tyler administration,

annexation was at length effected by joint resolution of Congress,

and Texas passed at once from an independent republic to a State

of the American Union. This action of Congress, however, gave deep

offence to the Mexican government, and was the initial in a series

of stirring events soon to follow. The Mexican invasion, the

brilliant victories won by American valor, and the treaty of peace

--by which our domain was extended westward to the Pacific--

constitute a thrilling chapter in the annals of war. Brief in

duration, the Mexican War was the training school for men whose

military achievements were yet to make resplendent the pages of

history. Under the victorious banners of the great commanders,

Taylor and Scott, were Thomas and Beauregard, Shields and Hill,

Johnston and Sherman, McClellan and Longstreet, Hancock and Stonewall

Jackson, Lee and Grant. In the list of heroes were eight future

candidates for the Presidency, three of whom--Taylor, Pierce,

and Grant--were triumphantly elected.

Meanwhile, at the nation's Capitol was held high debate over

questions second in importance to none that have engaged the profound

consideration of statesmen--that literally took hold of the issues

of war, conquest, diplomacy, peace, empire. From its inception,

Douglas was an unfaltering advocate of the project of annexation, and

as chairman of the Committee on Territories, bore prominent part

in the protracted and exciting debates consequent upon the passage

of that measure in the House of Representatives. In his celebrated

colloquy with Mr. Adams he contended that the joint resolution

he advocated was in reality only for the re-annexation of territory

originally ours under the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. That something

akin to the spirit of "manifest destiny" brooded over the discussion

may be gathered from the closing sentences of his speech:

"Our Federal system is admirably adapted to the whole continent;

and while I would not violate the laws of national or treaty

stipulations, or in any manner tarnish the national honor, I would

exert all legal and honorable means to drive Great Britain and the

last vestige of royal authority from the continent of North America,

and extend the limits of the republic from ocean to ocean."

Elected to the Senate at the age of thirty-four, Douglas took

his seat in that august body in December, 1847. On the same day

Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office as a member from Illinois in

the House of Representatives. The Senate was presided over by the

able and accomplished Vice-President, George M. Dallas. Seldom

has there been a more imposing list of great names than that which

now included the young Senator from Illinois. Conspicuous among

the Senators of the thirty States represented, were Dix of New

York, Dayton of New Jersey, Hale of New Hampshire, Clayton of

Delaware, Reverdy Johnson of Maryland, Mason of Virginia, King

of Alabama, Davis of Mississippi, Bell of Tennessee, Corwin of

Ohio, Crittenden of Kentucky, Breese of Illinois, Benton of Missouri,

Houston of Texas, Calhoun of South Carolina, and Webster of

Massachusetts. It need hardly be said that the debates of that

and the immediately succeeding Congress have possibly never been

surpassed in ability and eloquence by any deliberative assembly.

The one vital and portentous question--in some one of its many

phases--was that of human slavery. This institution--until its

final extinction amid the flames of war--cast its ominous shadow

over our nation's pathway from the beginning. From the establishment

of the Government under the Federal Constitution to the period

mentioned, it had been the constant subject of compromise and

concession.

Henry Clay was first known as "the great pacificator" by his tireless

efforts in the exciting struggle of 1820, over the admission of

Missouri--with its Constitution recognizing slavery--into the

Federal Union. Bowed with the weight of years, the Kentucky

statesman, from the retirement he had sought, in recognition of

the general desire of his countrymen, again returned to the theatre

of his early struggles and triumphs. The fires of ambition had

burned low by age and bereavement, but with earnest longing that

he might again pour oil upon the troubled waters, he presented

to the Senate, as terms of final peaceable adjustment of the slavery

question, the once famous compromise measures of 1850.

The sectional agitation then at its height was measurably the result

of the proposed disposition of territory acquired by the then recent

treaty with Mexico. The advocates and opponents of slavery extension

were at once in bitter antagonism, and the intensity of feeling

such as the country had rarely known.

The compromise measures--proposed by Mr. Clay in a general bill

--embraced the establishment of Territorial Governments for Utah

and New Mexico, the settlement of the Texas boundary, an amendment

to the Fugitive Slave Law, and the admission of California as a

free State. In entire accord with each proposition, Douglas had--by

direction of the Committee on Territories, of which he was the

chairman--reported a bill providing for the immediate admission of

California under its recently adopted free State Constitution.

Separate measures embracing the other propositions of the general bill

were likewise duly reported. These measures were advocated by the

Illinois Senator in a speech that at once won him recognized place

among the great debaters of that illustrious assemblage. After

many weeks of earnest, at times vehement, debate, the bills in the

form last mentioned were passed, and received the approval of

the President. Apart from the significance of these measures as

a peace offering to the country, their passage closed a memorable era

in our history. During their discussion Clay, Calhoun, and Webster

--"the illustrious triumvirate"--were heard for the last time in

the Senate. Greatest of the second generation of our statesmen,

associated in the advocacy of measures that in the early day of

the Republic had given us exalted place among the nations,

within brief time of each other, "shattered by the contentions

of the Great Hall, they passed to the chamber of reconciliation and

of silence."

Chief in importance of his public services to his State was that

of Senator Douglas in procuring from Congress a land grant to aid in

the construction of the Illinois Central Railroad. It is but

justice to the memory of his early colleague, Senator Breese, to

say that he had been the earnest advocate of a similar measure in a

former Congress. The bill, however, which after persistent opposition

finally became a law, was introduced and warmly advocated by Senator

Douglas. This act ceded to the State of Illinois--subject to

the disposal of the Legislature thereof--"for the purpose of aiding

in the construction of a railroad from the southern terminus of

the Illinois and Michigan Canal to a point at or near the junction

of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, with a branch of the same to

Chicago, and another to Dubuque, Iowa, every alternate section

of land designated by even numbers for six sections in width on

each side of said road, and its branches." It is difficult at this

day to realize the importance of this measure to the then sparsely

settled State. The grant in aggregate was near three million acres,

and was directly to the State. After appropriate action by the

State Legislature, the Illinois Central Railroad Company was duly

organized--and the road eventually constructed.

A recent historian has truly said:

"For this, if for no other public service to his State, the name

of Douglas was justly entitled to preservation by the erection

of that splendid monumental column which, overlooking the blue

waters of Lake Michigan, also overlooks for long distance that iron

highway which was in no small degree the triumph of his legislative

forecast and genius."

The measure now to be mentioned aroused deeper attention--more

anxious concern--throughout the entire country than any with which

the name of Douglas had yet been closely associated. It pertained

directly to slavery, the "bone of contention" between the North

and the South, the one dangerous quantity in our national politics

from the establishment of the Government. Beginning with its

recognition--though not in direct terms--in the Federal Constitution,

it had through two generations, in the interest of peace, been the

subject of repeated compromise.

As chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories, Douglas in the

early days of 1854 reported a bill providing for the organization of

the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas. This measure, which so

suddenly arrested public attention, is known in our political

history as the "Kansas-Nebraska Bill." Among its provisions was

one repealing the Missouri Compromise or restriction of 1820. The

end sought by the repeal was, as stated by Douglas, to leave the

people of said Territories respectively to determine the question of

the introduction or exclusion of slavery for themselves; in

other words, "to regulate their domestic institutions in their own

way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States."

The principle strenuously contended for was that of "popular

sovereignty" or non-intervention by Congress, in the affairs of

the Territories. In closing the protracted and exciting debate

just prior to the passage of the bill in the Senate, he said:

"There is another reason why I desire to see this principle recognized

as a rule of action in all time to come. It will have the effect to

destroy all sectional parties and sectional agitation. If you

withdraw the slavery question from the halls of Congress and the

political arena, and commit it to the arbitrament of those who are

immediately interested in and alone responsible for its consequences,

there is nothing left out of which sectional parties can be organized.

When the people of the North shall all be rallied under one banner,

and the whole South marshalled under another banner, and each

section excited to frenzy and madness by hostility to the institutions

of the other, then the patriot may well tremble for the perpetuity

of the Union. Withdraw the slavery question from the political

arena and remove it to the States and Territories, each to decide for

itself, and such a catastrophe can never happen."

These utterances of little more than half a century ago, fall

strangely upon our ears at this day. In the light of all that has

occurred in the long reach of years, how significant the words,

"No man is wiser than events"! Likewise, "The actions of men are to

be judged by the light surrounding them at the time--not by the

knowledge that comes after the fact." The immediate effect of the

passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was directly the reverse of

that so confidently predicted by Douglas. The era of concord

between the North and the South did not return. The slavery

question--instead of being relegated to the recently organized

Territories for final settlement--at once assumed the dimensions

of a great national issue. The country at large--instead of a

single Territory--became the theatre of excited discussion. The

final determination was to be not that of a Territory, but of

the entire people.

One significant effect of the passage of the bill was the immediate

disruption of the Whig party. As a great national organization

--of which Clay and Webster had been eminent leaders, and Harrison

and Taylor successful candidates for the Presidency--it now passes

into history. Upon its ruins, the Republican party at once came

into being. Under the leadership of Fremont as its candidate, and

opposition by Congressional intervention to slavery extension as

its chief issue, it was a formidable antagonist to the Democratic party,

in the Presidential contest of 1856. Mr. Buchanan had defeated

Douglas in the nominating convention of his party that year.

His absence from the country as Minister to England, during the

exciting events just mentioned, it was thought would make him a

safer candidate than his chief competitor, Douglas. He had been

in no manner identified with the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, or the stormy

events which immediately followed its passage. In his letter of

acceptance, however, Mr. Buchanan had given his unqualified approval

of his party platform, which recognized and adopted "the principle

contained in the organic law establishing the Territories of Nebraska

and Kansas as embodying the only sound and safe solution of the

slavery question." Upon the principle here declared, issue was

joined by his political opponents, and the battle fought to the

bitter end.

Although Douglas had met personal defeat in his aspiration to

the Presidency, the principle of non-intervention by Congress in

the affairs of the Territories, for which he had so earnestly

contended, had been triumphant both in the convention of the party,

and at the polls. This principle, in its application to Kansas,

was soon to be put to the test. From its organization, that

Territory had been a continuous scene of disorder, often of violence.

In rapid succession three Governors appointed by the President had

resigned and departed the Territory, each confessing his inability

to maintain public order. The struggle for mastery between the

Free State advocates and their adversaries arrested the attention of

the entire country. It vividly recalled the bloody forays read of

in the old chronicles of hostile clans upon the Scottish border.

The parting of the ways between Senator Douglas and President

Buchanan was now reached. The latter had received the cordial

support of Douglas in the election which elevated him to the

Presidency. His determined opposition to the re-election of Douglas

became apparent as the Senatorial canvass progressed. The incidents

now to be related will explain this hostility, as well as bring to

the front one of the distinctive questions upon which much stress was

laid in the subsequent debates between Douglas and Lincoln.

A statesman of national reputation, the Hon. Robert J. Walker, was

at length appointed Governor of Kansas. During his brief administration

a convention assembled without his co-operation at Lecompton,

and formulated a Constitution under which application was soon made

for the admission of Kansas into the Union. This convention was

in part composed of non-residents, and in no sense reflected the

wishes of the majority of the _bona fide_ residents of the Territory.

The salient feature of the Constitution was that establishing

slavery. The Constitution was not submitted to the convention

to popular vote, but in due time forwarded to the President, and

by him laid before Congress, accompanied by a recommendation for

its approval, and the early admission of the new State into the

Union.

When the Lecompton Constitution came before the Senate, it at once

encountered the formidable opposition of Senator Douglas. In

unmeasured terms he denounced it as fraudulent, as antagonistic to

the wishes of the people of Kansas, and subversive of the basic

principle upon which the Territory had been organized. In the

attitude just assumed, Douglas at once found himself in line

with the Republicans, and in opposition to the administration he

had helped place in power. The breach thus created was destined

to remain unhealed. Moreover, his declaration of hostility to the

Lecompton Constitution was the beginning of the end of years of

close political affiliation with Southern Democratic statesmen.

From that moment Douglas lost prestige as a national leader of his

party. In more than one-half of the Democratic States he ceased to

be regarded as a probable or even possible candidate for the

Presidential succession. The hostility thus engendered followed

him to the Charleston convention of 1860, and throughout the exciting

Presidential contest which followed. But the humiliation of defeat

--brought about, as he believed, by personal hostility to himself--

was yet in the future. In the attempted admission of Kansas under

the Lecompton Constitution, Douglas was triumphant over the

administration and his former political associates from the South.

Under what was known as the "English Amendment," the obnoxious

Constitution was referred to the people of Kansas, and by them

overwhelmingly rejected.

The close of this controversy in the early months of 1858 left

Douglas in a position of much embarrassment. He had incurred

the active hostility of the President, and in large measure of his

adherents, without gaining the future aid of his late associates

in the defeat of the Lecompton Constitution. His Senatorial term was

nearing its close, and his political life depended upon his

re-election. With a united and aggressive enemy, ably led, in his

front; his own party hopelessly divided--one faction seeking his

defeat--it can readily be seen that his political pathway was by no

means one of peace. Such, in brief outline, were the political

conditions when, upon the adjournment of Congress, Douglas returned

to Illinois in July, 1858, and made public announcement of his

candidacy for re-election.

In his speech at Springfield, June 17, accepting the nomination of

his party for the Senate, Mr. Lincoln had uttered the words which have

since become historic. They are quoted at length, as they soon

furnished the text for his severe arraignment by Douglas in debate.

The words are:

"We are now far into this fifth year since a policy was initiated

with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end

to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that

agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented.

In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been

reached and passed. 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.'

I believe this country cannot endure permanently half slave and

half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved--I do not

expect the house to fall--but I do expect it will cease to be

divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either

the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it

and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that

it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates

will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the

States, old as well as new, North as well as South."

This, at the time, was a bold utterance, and, it was believed by

many, would imperil Mr. Lincoln's chances for election. Mr. Blaine

in his "Twenty Years of Congress," says:

"Mr. Lincoln had been warned by intimate friends to whom he had

communicated the contents of his speech in advance of its delivery,

that he was treading on dangerous ground, that he would be

misinterpreted as a disunionist, and that he might fatally damage the

Republican party by making its existence synonymous with a destruction

of the Government."

The opening speech of Senator Douglas at Chicago a few days later--

sounding the keynote of his campaign--was in the main an arraignment

of his opponent for an attempt to precipitate an internecine

conflict, and array in deadly hostility the North against the South.

He said:

"In other words, Mr. Lincoln advocates boldly and clearly a war of

sections, a war of the North against the South, of the free

States against the slave States--a war of extermination--to be

continued relentlessly until the one or the other shall be subdued,

and all the States shall either become free or become slave."

The two speeches, followed by others of like tenor, aroused public

interest in the State as it had never been before. The desire

to hear the candidates from the same platform became general. The

proposal for a joint debate came from Mr. Lincoln on July 24 and

was soon thereafter accepted. Seven joint meetings were agreed

upon, the first to be at Ottawa, August 21, and the last at Alton,

October 15. The meetings were held in the open, and at each place

immense crowds were in attendance. The friends of Mr. Lincoln

largely preponderated in the northern portion of the State, those of

Douglas in the southern, while in the centre the partisans of

the respective candidates were apparently equal in numbers. The

interest never flagged for a moment from the beginning to the close.

The debate was upon a high plane; each candidate enthusiastically

applauded by his friends, and respectfully heard by his opponents.

The speakers were men of dignified presence, their bearing such as

to challenge respect in any assemblage. There was nothing of

the "grotesque" about the one, nothing of the "political juggler" about

the other. Both were deeply impressed with the gravity of the

questions at issue, and of what might prove their far-reaching

consequence to the country.

Kindly reference by each speaker to the other characterized the

debates from the beginning. "My friend Lincoln," and "My friend

the Judge," were expressions of constant occurrence during the

debate. While each mercilessly attacked the political utterances of

the other, good feeling in the main prevailed. Something being

pardoned to the spirit of debate, the amenities were well observed.

They had been personally well known to each other for many years; had

served together in the Legislature when the State Capitol was at

Vandalia, and at a later date, Lincoln had appeared before the

Supreme Court when Douglas was one of the judges. The amusing

allusions to each other were taken in good part. Mr. Lincoln's

profound humor is now a proverb. It never appeared to better

advantage than during these debates. In criticising Mr. Lincoln's

attack upon Chief Justice Taney and his associates for the Dred

Scott decision, Douglas declared it to be an attempt to secure a

reversal of the high tribunal by an appeal to a town meeting.

It reminded him of the saying of Colonel Strode that the judicial system

of Illinois was perfect, except that "there should be an appeal

allowed from the Supreme Court to two justices of the peace."

Lincoln replied, "That was when you were on the bench, Judge."

Referring to Douglas's allusion to him as a kind, amiable, and

intelligent gentleman, he said:

"Then as the Judge has complimented me with these pleasant titles,

I was a little taken, for it came from a great man. I was not very

much accustomed to flattery and it came the sweeter to me. I

was like the Hoosier with the gingerbread, when he said he reckoned

he loved it better and got less of it than any other man."

In opening the debate at Ottawa, Douglas said:

"In the remarks I have made on the platform and the position of

Mr. Lincoln, I mean nothing personally disrespectful or unkind

to that gentleman. I have known him for twenty-five years. There

were many points of sympathy between us when we first got acquainted.

We were both comparatively boys, and both struggling with poverty in

a strange land. I was a school-teacher in the town of Winchester,

and he a flourishing grocery-keeper in the town of Salem. He

was more successful in his occupation than I was in mine, and hence

more fortunate in this world's goods. Lincoln is one of those

peculiar men who perform with admirable skill everything which they

undertake. I made as good a school-teacher as I could, and when a

cabinet-maker I made a good bedstead and table, although my old boss

said I succeeded better with bureaus and secretaries than anything

else. I met him in the Legislature and had a sympathy with him

because of the up-hill struggle we both had in life. He was

then just as good at telling an anecdote as now. He could beat

any of the boys wrestling or running a foot-race, in pitching quoits

or tossing a copper, and the dignity and impartiality with which

he presided at a horse-race or a fist-fight, excited the admiration

and won the praise of everybody. I sympathized with him because

he was struggling with difficulties, and so was I."

To which Lincoln replied:

"The Judge is woefully at fault about his friend Lincoln being a

grocery-keeper. I don't know as it would be a sin if I had been;

but he is mistaken. Lincoln never kept a grocery anywhere in

the world. It is true that Lincoln did work the latter part of

one Winter in a little still house up at the head of a hollow."

The serious phases of the debates will now be considered. The

opening speech was by Mr. Douglas. That he possessed rare power

as a debater, all who heard him can bear witness. Mr. Blaine in

his history says:

"His mind was fertile in resources. He was master of logic. In

that peculiar style of debate which in its intensity resembles a

physical combat, he had no equal. He spoke with extraordinary

readiness. He used good English, terse, pointed, vigorous. He

disregarded the adornments of rhetoric. He never cited historic

precedents except from the domain of American politics. Inside

that field, his knowledge was comprehensive, minute, critical. He

could lead a crowd almost irresistibly to his own conclusions."

Douglas was, in very truth, imbued with little of mere sentiment.

He gave little time to discussions belonging solely to the realm

of the speculative or the abstract. He was in no sense a dreamer.

What Coleridge has defined wisdom--"common sense, in an uncommon

degree"--was his. In phrase the simplest and most telling, he

struck at once at the very core of the controversy. Possibly no

man was ever less inclined "to darken counsel with words without

knowledge." Positive, and aggressive to the last degree, he never

sought "by indirections to find directions out." In statesmanship--

in all that pertained to human affairs--he was intensely practical.

With him, in the words of Macaulay, "one acre in Middlesex is worth

a principality in Utopia."

It is a pleasure to recall--after the lapse of half a century--the

two men as they shook hands upon the speaker's stand, just before the

opening of the debates that were to mark an epoch in American

history. Stephen A. Douglas! Abraham Lincoln! As they stood side

by side and looked out upon "the sea of upturned faces"--it was

indeed a picture to live in the memory of all who witnessed it.

The one stood for the old ordering of things, in an emphatic sense

for the Government as established by the fathers--with all its

compromises. The other, recognizing equally with his opponent the

binding force of Constitutional obligation, yet looking, away from

present surroundings, "felt the inspiration of the coming of the

grander day." As has been well said, "The one faced the past; the

other, the future."

The name of Lincoln is now a household word. But little can be

written of him that is not already known to the world. Nothing

that can be uttered or withheld can add to, or detract from, his

imperishable fame. But it must be remembered that his great

opportunity and fame came after the stirring events separated from

us by the passing of fifty years. It is not the Lincoln of history,

but Lincoln the country lawyer, the debater, the candidate of

his party for political office, with whom we have now to do. Born

in Kentucky, much of his early life was spent in Indiana, and

all his professional and public life up to his election to the

Presidency, in Illinois. His early opportunities for study,

like those of Douglas, were meagre indeed. Neither had had the

advantage of the thorough training of the schools. Of both it

might truly have been said, "They knew men rather than books." From

his log-cabin home upon the Sangamon, Mr. Lincoln had in his early

manhood volunteered, and was made captain of his company, in what was

so well known to the early settlers of Illinois as the Black

Hawk War. Later on, he was surveyor of his county, and three times

a member of the State Legislature. At the time of the debates with

Senator Douglas, Mr. Lincoln had for many years been a resident of

Springfield, and a recognized leader of the bar. As an advocate,

he had probably no superior in the State. During the days of

the Whig party he was an earnest exponent of its principles, and

an able champion of its candidates. As such, he had in successive

contests eloquently presented the claims of Harrison, Clay, Taylor,

and Scott to the Presidency. In 1846, he was elected a Representative

in Congress, and upon his retirement he resumed the active practice

of his profession. Upon the dissolution of the Whig party, he cast

in his fortunes with the new political organization, and was in

very truth one of the builders of the Republican party. At its

first national convention, in 1856, he received a large vote for

nomination to the Vice-Presidency, and during the memorable campaign

of that year canvassed the State in advocacy of the election of

Fremont and Dayton, the candidates of the Philadelphia convention.

In the year 1858--that of the great debates--Douglas was the better

known of the opposing candidates in the country at large. In a

speech then recently delivered in Springfield, Mr. Lincoln said:

"There is still another disadvantage under which we labor and to

which I will ask your attention. It arises out of the relative

positions of the two persons who stand before the State as candidates

for the Senate. Senator Douglas is of world-wide renown. All the

anxious politicians of his party have been looking upon him as

certainly at no distant day to be the President of the United

States. They have seen in his ruddy, jolly, fruitful face,

postoffices, land-offices, marshalships, and cabinet appointments,

and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out in wonderful

exuberance, ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands. On

the contrary, nobody has ever seen in my poor lank face that any

cabbages were sprouting out."

Both, however, were personally well known in Illinois. Each was

by unanimous nomination the candidate of his party. Douglas had

known sixteen years of continuous service in one or the other House

of Congress. In the Senate, he had held high debate with

Seward, Sumner, and Chase from the North, and during the last

session--since he had assumed a position of antagonism to the

Buchanan administration--had repeatedly measured swords with Tombs,

Benjamin, and Jefferson Davis, chief among the great debaters of

the South.

Mr. Lincoln's services in Congress had been limited to a single

term in the lower house, and his great fame was yet to be achieved,

not as a legislator, but as Chief Executive during the most critical

years of our history.

Such, in brief, were the opposing candidates as they entered the

lists of debate at Ottawa, on the twenty-first day of August, 1858.

Both were in the prime of manhood, thoroughly equipped for the

conflict, and surrounded by throngs of devoted friends. Both were

gifted with remarkable forensic powers and alike hopeful as to the

result. Each recognizing fully the strength of his opponent,

his own powers were constantly at their tension.

"the blood more stirs

To rouse a lion than to start a hare."

In opening, Senator Douglas made brief reference to the political

condition of the country prior to the year 1854. He said:

"The Whig and the Democratic were the two great parties then in

existence; both national and patriotic, advocating principles that

were universal in their application; while these parties differed in

regard to banks, tariff, and sub-treasury, they agreed on the

slavery question which now agitates the Union. They had adopted

the compromise measures of 1850 as the basis of a full solution of

the slavery question in all its forms; that these measures had

received the endorsement of both parties in their National Conventions

of 1852, thus affirming the right of the people of each State

and Territory to decide as to their domestic institutions for

themselves; that this principle was embodied in the bill reported by

me in 1854 for the organization of the Territories of Kansas and

Nebraska; in order that there might be no misunderstanding,

these words were inserted in that bill: 'It is the true intent

and meaning of this act, not to legislate slavery into any State

or Territory, or to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the

people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic

institutions in their own way, subject only to the Federal

Constitution.'"