Defeated in his great ambition, broken in health, the sad witness of the unmistakable portents of the coming sectional strife the few remaining months of his mortal life were enveloped in gloom. Partisan feeling vanished - his deep concern was now only for his country. Standing by the side of his successful rival - whose wondrous career was only opening, as his own was nearing its close he bowed profound assent to the imperishable utterances of the inaugural address: "I am loath to close. We are not enemies but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection." Yet later immediately upon the firing of the fatal shot at Sumter that suddenly summoned millions from peaceful pursuits to arms - by invitation of the Illinois Legislature Douglas addressed his countrymen for the last time.

Broken with the storms of state, the fires of ambition forever extinguished, standing upon the threshold of the grave, his soul burdened with the calamities that had befallen his country, in tones of deepest pathos he declared:

I

"If war must come if the bayonet must be used to maintain the Constitution I can say before God, my conscience is clear. I have struggled long for a peaceful solution of the trouble. deprecate war, but if it must come, I am with my country, and for my country, in every contingency, and under all circumstances. At all hazards our Government must be maintained, and the shortest pathway to peace is through the most stupendous preparation for war.'

Who that heard the last public utterance that fell from his lips can forget his solemn invocation to all who had followed his political fortunes, until the banner had fallen from hist hand, to know only their country in its hour of peril?

The ordinary limit of human life unreached; his intellectual strength unabated; his loftiest aspirations unrealized; at the critical moment of his country's sorest need - he passed to the grave. What reflections and regrets may have been his in that hour of awful mystery, we may not know. In the words of another: "What blight and anguish met his agonized eyes, whose lips may tell? what brilliant broken plans, what

bitter rending of sweet household ties, what sundering of strong manhood's friendships."

In the light of what has been disclosed, may we not believe that with his days prolonged, he would during the perilous years have been the safe counsellor - the rock - of the great President, in preserving the nation's life, and later in “binding up the nation's wounds."

Worthy of honored and enduring place in history, Stephen A. Douglas -statesman and patriot - lies buried within the great city whose stupendous development is so largely the result of his own wise forecast and endeavor, - by the majestic lake whose waves break near the base of his stately monument and chant his eternal requiem.

VIII

THE FIRST POLITICAL TELEGRAM

SENATOR SILAS WRIGHT NOMINATED FOR VICE-PRESIDENT WORD OF HIS NOMINATION SENT HIM BY THE MORSE TELEGRAPH MORSE'S FIRST CONCEPTION OF AN ELECTRO-MAGOBSTACLES TO THE CARRYING OUT OF

NETIC TELEGRAPH

HIS INVENTION - - A BILL APPROPRIATING $30,000 TO TEST
THE VALUE OF HIS TELEGRAPH - EARLIER FORMS OF TELE-
GRAPHIC INTERCOURSE - -A EULOGY ON THE INVENTOR BY
MR. GARFIELD
BY MR. COX-
ANOTHER,
THE FIRST MES-
SAGE THAT EVER PASSED OVER THE WIRE DR. PRIME'S
PRAISE OF MORSE AFTER HIS DEATH.

B

Y all odds, the most venerable in appearance of the Representatives in the Forty-sixth Congress, was Hendrick B. Wright of Pennsylvania. After a retirement of a third of a century, he had been returned to the seat he had honored while many of his present associates were in the cradle. Of massive build, stately bearing, lofty courtesy; neatly apparelled in blue broadcloth, with brass buttons appropriately in evidence, he appeared indeed to belong to a past generation of statesmen.

"And thus he bore without abuse

The grand old name of gentleman."

In one of the many conversations I held with him, he told me that he was the president of the Democratic National Convention which met in Baltimore in 1844. As will be remembered, a majority of the delegates to that convention were favorable to the renomination of Mr. Van Buren, but his recently published letter opposing the annexation of Texas had rendered him extremely obnoxious to a powerful minority of his party. After a protracted struggle, Mr. Van Buren, under the operation of the "two-thirds rule, was defeated, and Mr. Polk nominated. The convention, anxious to placate the friends of the defeated candidate, then tendered