Statesmen and of States, she has opened her broad bosom to the blows of a tyrant's hand. Upon such a theatre, with such an issue pending before such a tribunal, we have no doubt of the part which will be assigned you to play; and when we hear the thunders of your can

non echoing from the mountain passes of Virginia, will understand that you mean, in the language of Cromwell at the castle of Drogheda, 'to cut this war to the heart.'"*

* Address of the Rev. Dr. Palmer to the Washington Artillery, New Orleans, May 27, 1861.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE DEATH OF SENATOR DOUGLAS.

vote second only to that by which the President was elected, and who had every reason to look forward to a long career of usefulness and honor; a patriot who defended with equal zeal and ability the Constitution as it came to us from our fathers, and whose last mission upon earth was that of rallying the people of his own State of Illinois as one man around the glorious flag of the Union, has been called from the scenes of life and the field of his labors. This department

In the midst of the anxieties attending | chief magistracy of the United States a the now inevitable recognition of the state of civil conflict into which the nation had been plunged, the public was suddenly startled by intelligence of the dangerous illness, terminating in a few days in the death of one of the foremost political actors in the great drama. Stephen Arnold Douglas, in the maturity of his mental and physical powers, died of an attack of fever at the City of Chicago, June 3, 1861. Justly considered of national importance at a critical period of affairs, this event was made the follow-recognizing in his decease a loss in coming day the subject of a special circular from the office of the Secretary of War at Washington. "The death of a great statesman in this hour of peril," was the language of Mr. Cameron in this document, "cannot be regarded otherwise than as a national calamity Stephen A. Douglas expired in the commercial capital of Illinois, yesterday morning, at 9 o'clock. A representative of the overpowering sentiment enlisted in the cause in which they are engaged; a man who nobly discarded party for country; a senator who forgot all prejudices in an earnest desire to serve the public; a statesman who lately received for the

mon with the whole country, and profoundly sensible of the grief it will excite among millions of men, hereby advises the colonels of the different regiments to have this order read to-morrow to their respective commands, and suggests that the colors of the republic be draped in mourning in honor of the illustrious dead."

The career of the statesman whose loss the country was thus called upon to deplore would be pronounced an extraordinary one in any other country than America, where similar instances of triumph over poverty in youth and early employment with rapid promotion in

STEPHEN ARNOLD DOUGLAS.

231

taining the requisite age, was a candidate of the democratic party for the national House of Representatives, losing his election only by five votes. At the ensuing Presidential election, in 1840, he threw himself vigorously into the campaign on the side of Van Buren, addressing meetings of the people in all parts of the State. He was the same year

political life are not uncommon. Born at Brandon, Vermont, in 1813, the son of a physician of good repute, he was left in his infancy, by the death of that parent, to the care of his mother, whose fortunes did not allow him any other opportunities for education, eager as the boy became for knowledge, beyond the instruction of the common schools of the neighborhood. Unable to gratify his de-appointed Secretary of State of Illinois, sire to prepare for college, he apprenticed himself to a cabinet-maker and worked at the trade for 18 months. He then extricated himself from this employment, entered the academy at Brandon, at the age of 17, pursued his studies there with diligence for more than a year, when the family removing to Canandaigua, New York, he attended the academy at that place, and began the study of the law in the office of a lawyer of the town. With this mental stock in trade, at the age of 20, he determined to seek his fortunes in the West. Traversing various cities-Cleveland, Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis-he finally alighted upon the small town of Winchester, in the vicinity of Jacksonville, Illinois, where he opened a school, gave the day to the pupils and the night to the law, and in 1834 was admitted to the bar. Of ready talents, sagacious and resolute, his success was immediate. There, too, was inflamed that passion for political life which inspired his whole course to his latest moments. Illinois adopted him at once as her representative. Before he had completed his 22d year, he was chosen attorney-general of the State; two years afterward he resigned that office to become a member of the Legislature, the year following he was appointed by President Van Buren register of the land-office at Springfield, and in 1838, but a few months after at

and in 1841, at the age of 27, was elected by the legislature a judge of the supreme court of the State. Three years afterward he was sent to Congress, and was twice reëlected, being withdrawn from his third term in the House to take a seat in 1847 in the United States Senate. In that position he remained till his death, so that for 27 years, during 18 of which he served continuously in the national legislature, he was constantly before the public in connection with political interests. He was thrice a candidate in the democratic conventions for the Presidency :-in 1852, in opposition to General Pierce; in 1856 to Mr. Buchanan, and in 1860, when his successful nomination, as we have seen, was attended by that division of the party which secured the election of President Lincoln. Adopting generally the principles and advocating the policy of the democratic party during his career in Washington, a supporter of the ultra Oregon claim, of the annexation of Texas, of the application of the Monroe Doctrine, of the peaceful acquisition of Cuba and the like measures, Senator Douglas struck out a path for himself in his advocacy of his favorite doctrine of Popular Sovereignty, a theory by which he sought to solve the pressing difficulties of slavery in the Territories, and for the practical adoption of which he attempted to prepare the way by the

introduction of the Kansas and Nebraska enthusiasm of the people, and summoned Bill. The passage of that act in 1854, by its abolition of the Missouri Compromise, restricting slavery, with the exception of Missouri, to the territory south of 36′ 30′′ the northern line of Arkansas, was the prelude to the fearful contest which immediately ensued in Kansas, and undoubtedly opened the way for the adverse political issues which preceded the present rebellion. How far Mr. Douglas was responsible for letting loose upon the public this angry strife, it is not necessary here to inquire. Suffice it to say that his theory of Popular Sovereignty, beset with difficulties of the most formidable character, failed to work well in practice and was not only rejected by a great body of his countrymen of a different school of politics, but embarrassed him greatly with the members of his own party, whose ultra pretensions he was compelled to oppose in his resistance to the Lecompton Pro-slavery Constitution, when an attempt was made to force that measure upon Congress.

to respond to their earnest appeals for sympathy and counsel. Ever ready for the occasion, he spoke to the citizens of Ohio and Virginia in the neighborhood of Wheeling, was again called upon at Columbus, addressed the Legislature of Illinois at Springfield, and on his arrival at Chicago, on the evening of the 1st of May, was received by an immense assemblage of the citizens, who had just been raised to a high pitch of excitement by the departure of their volunteer soldiery. It was but a fortnight after the fall of Sumter, and the State was straining every nerve for the support of the Government. The speech of Senato, Douglas on this occasion, o.. that Western soil whose interests it was his pride to promote and with which his fame is identified, was the last which he delivered, and is thus impressed with a peculiar value, while its testimony as to the origin and nature of the rebellion is of especial significance, coming from one so intimately acquainted with the authors of the We have already called attention to the evil and the course of public events durmanly support which Senator Douglas, ing its development. The place, it may be after his defeat in the Presidential elec-mentioned, in which the address was detion of 1860, gave to the administration livered, was the spacious Republican wigof his successful rival. The patriotic wam which, having performed its work course which he pursued at this crisis was the crowning glory of his life. Finis coronat opus. In the kindling addresses which he delivered to the people of the West in the brief interval between his final departure from Washington and his death, his words were impressed with a warmth and eloquence denied to his most ingenious and elaborate efforts in the partisan conflicts to which he had devoted so much of his life. On his journey, in April, from the capital to Illinois, he was arrested on several occasions by the

in the election of President Lincoln, was now, in the spirit of the occasion-all party distinctions being for the time laid aside-named the National Hall. This was happily stated by the chairman of the meeting, Mr. Thomas B. Bryan, who in a few eloquent and patriotic remarks, welcomed the orator of the evening.

Mr. Douglas then rose. "I thank you," said he, "for the kind terms in which you have been pleased to welcome me. I thank the Committee and citizens of Chicago for this grand and imposing