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Kansas-Nebraska Act, and that I was active in support of the Compromise measures of 1850. I have heard bad faith attached to the Democratic party for that act too long to be willing to remain silent and seem to sanction it by tacit acquiescence.

CHAPTER XXIII.

PUBLIC DEMONSTRATIONS-COMMITTEE SERVICE PUBLIC LANDS.

IMMEDIATELY after the election in 1858, Judge Douglas, for the purpose of recruiting his health, le Chicago with his family for Washington by the way of the Mississippi river. When in St. Louis he was the recipient of many public honors and courtesies. On his way South, he was met some fifty miles north of Memphis by a delegation of the citizens of that prosperous city, who earnestly invited him to remain over there and partake of the hospitalities which it would be their pride as well as pleasure to extend to him and his family. Gratified beyond measure by this most unexpected greeting at the hands of the people of a southern city, he accepted the cordial invitation, and on the day after his arrival, addressed a very large assemblage of citizens, to whom he repeated the policy and principles he had advocated in the campaign that had just closed in Illinois. He declared that he could speak no sentiments in Tennessee that he could not speak as freely in Illinois, and that any opinions that could not be uttered in the one state as acceptably as in the other were necessarily unsound and anti-Democratic.

He on the next day proceeded down the river to New Orleans, where a grand reception awaited him. He reached there at night, and as the steamer neared the city he was greeted with a salute and an illumination. He was escorted to the hotel by the military and a vast concourse of people. At the hotel he was welcomed by the mayor as the guest of the city, and also welcomed by the Hon. Pierre Soulé on the part of the citizens. To these addresses, in which he was congratulated upon his recent victory in Illinois, he responded in a suitable manner.

On the 6th of December he addressed a mass meeting in Odd Fellows Hall, in a speech of which we have already given some extracts, and in which he repeated the famous doctrines so often defended by him in the Illinois campaign.

After leaving New Orleans he staid some days at Havana,

and then proceeded to New York by steamer. In the meantime the authorities of New York in anticipation of his arrival had unanimously voted that, "it is eminently due to this esteemed patriot and distinguished senator that the city of New York, through its constituted authorities, should extend to him a cordial welcome on his arrival, in order to express their admiration of the man, and of the principles which he has so long and so ably defended," and therefore appointed a committe to extend to Mr. Douglas the hospitalities of the city. When he reached New York he was met by committees of the city councils and escorted to the Everett House.

As soon as his presence in New York was ascertained, a meeting of citizens was held at Philadelphia to adopt measures for his reception there. The city council voted the use of Independence Hall for that purpose. On his arrival there on the 4th of January, 1859, he was escorted to the venerated hall, and was there formally welcomed by Mayor Henry on behalf of the authorities, and by W. E. Lehman, Esq., on behalf of the people. The speeches on this occasion have been preserved, and in a more comprehensive biography of Mr. Douglas will form a most interesting chapter.

When leaving Philadelphia he was accompanied by a large delegation of his friends, who continued with him until he had crossed the Susquehanna, when he was met by a committee of citizens of Baltimore, who, in behalf of the people of that city, welcomed him to the soil of Maryland.

In the evening of January the 5th, he was greeted with a serenade at the Gilmore House, and having been introduced to the assemblage of persons in Monument Square, addresssd them-returning his acknowledgments for the honors received by him, and again repeating the truths and arguments he had been accustomed to express to the people of Illinois.

On his arrival at Washington he was welcomed by thousands of the people of that city-people who held no office and expected none, and therefore had no dread of official frowns. On reaching his own house he made a suitable acknowledg ment for the kindness of his old friends and neighbors. His whole journey from Chicago to Washington was a succession of popular manifestations of admiration for the man who had had the boldness to maintain the right, and had the ability to overcome and vanquish all the opposition arrayed against him.

SERVICES ON COMMITTEES IN CONGRESS.

While Mr. Douglas was at Havana, Congress had assembled, and a caucus of the Democratic senators had arranged the Senate committees. In this arrangement Mr. GREEN, of Missouri, was named as chairman of the Committee on Territories in place of Mr. Douglas. This, it will be remembered, was done while Mr. Douglas was absent. No reason was given for it until late in the year, when Mr. Gwin stated the reason in his speech at Grass Valley, California.

When Mr. Douglas first took his seat in the House of Representatives he was assigned a place on the Committee on Elections, from which committee at that session he made the celebrated report upon the constitutional powers of Congress to regulate the manner and time of holding elections in the states. The Whig Congress of 1841 and 1842 had passed a law requiring the states to elect members of Congress by districts. New Hampshire, Georgia and some other states had disregarded this law and had elected their representatives by general ticket. The question whether the members thus elected against the provisions of the act of the previous Congress was one that was considered of great importance. Mr. Douglas made an elaborate report upon the subject, being a complete vindication of the rights of the states, and his report was adopted as the judgment of the house by a most decided majority. At the next session he was placed on the Judiciary Committee, from which he reported the bill extending the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the United States district and circuit courts to all cases arising on the lakes-thus giving to the internal commerce and navigation the same judicial protection that was enjoyed on the coast.

At the opening of the next Congress, Mr. Douglas was made chairman of the Committee on Territories in the House of Representatives, and held that position until he closed his services in that body. When he took his seat in the Senate he was made chairman of the Committee on Territories, and had been regularly elected to the position every year from December 1847, to December 1857, inclusive. In December 1858, for the reasons given by Mr. Gwin, he was displaced. It has been stated that he was tendered the chairmanship of another committee but he declined it-if politically unfitted for the one he was equally so for the other.

During his service in the Senate he was for many years a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, and also a Regent of the Smithsonian Institution.

THE PUBLIC LANDS.

Mr. Douglas, as has been shown, successfully supported the act making the great donation of public land to Illinois for rail road purposes, and has supported acts making like grants to other states.

He has always supported a liberal policy in the administration of the public lands—a policy looking always to their occupancy and cultivation by actual settlers. He has reported and defended those provisions in the Oregon, Washington and other territoritorial acts granting lands to actual settlers on condition of occupancy, &c.

In 1850 he introduced into the Senate a proposition having for its effect a liberal donation to the head of every family, male or female—of the public land on the condition of settlement and cultivation. The principle involved in his proposisition was something similar to that embraced in the "Homestead bill" so long pending in Congress, and of which Mr. Douglas is an earnest supporter.

He has always as a legislator, as a judge, and as a statesman been a firm friend and maintainer of the rights and interests of the agriculturists of the country. Hence it is that he has always opposed the extension and renewal by Congress for extraordinary periods the patents of inventors for agricultural implements, an opposition which has provoked a hostility that is as unjust as it is selfish.

On the 18th of September, 1851, he delivered by invitation an address at Rochester, New York, before the New York Agricultural Society, an address abounding in lofty sentiment and practical teaching. A copy of that address is published in the annual reports of the proceedings of the society.

CONCLUSION.

In the foregoing pages have been crowded brief statements of some of the leading incidents of the marked career of Mr. Douglas. His history is a voluminous one, and to do full justice to it would require four times the space that has been taken in this work. At some future time, some of the events

herein only slightly touched upon may be elaborated to an extent that their importance will justify and that truth will require. The record, even prepared as it is imperfectly, will not fail to point out Mr. Douglas as a most remarkable man.

At this day he occupies the most extraordinary position of being the only man in his own party whose nomination for the Presidency is deemed equivalent to an election. Friends of other statesmen claim that other men, if nominated, may be elected-a claim that admits of strong and well supported controversy; but friend and foe-all Democrats, unite in the opinion that Douglas' nomination will place success beyond all doubt.

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