the whole of the Senate were against him, he could "take a raking fire at the whole group." Like the shrouded Junius, he dared Commons, Lords, and King, to the encounter; but unlike that terrible shadow, he sought no craven covert, but fought in the open lists, with a muscular and mental might which defied the unreasoning cries of the mob and rolled back the thunders of the Executive anathema! DOUGLAS was no scholar, in the pedantic sense of the term. His reading was neither classical nor varied. Neither was he a sciolist. His researches were ever in the line of his duty, but therein they were thorough. His library was never clear from dust. His favorite volume was the book of human nature, which he consulted without much regard to the binding. He was skilled in the contests of the bar; but he was more than a lawyer-he easily separated the rubbish of the law from its essence. As a jurist, his decisions were not essays; they had in them something decisive, after the manner of the best English judges. As a legislator, his practicalness cut away the entanglements of theoretic learning and ancient precedent, and brought his mind into the presence of the thing to be done or undone. Hence he never criticized a wrong for which he did not provide a remedy. He never discussed a question that he did not propose a measure. His style was of that plain and tough fibre which needed no ornament. He had a felicity in the use of political language never equalled by any public man. He had the right word for the right place. His interrogative method, and his ready and fit replies, gave dramatic vivacity to his debates. Hence the newspapers readily copied them, and the people retentively remembered them. Gleams of humor were not infrequent in his speeches, as in his conversation. His logic had the reach of the rifled cannon, which annihilated while it silenced the batteries of his opponents. DOUGLAS was a partisan; but he never wore his party uniform when his country was in danger. His zeal, like all excess, may have had its defect; but to him who observes the symmetry and magnanimity of his life, it will appear that he always strove to make his party conservative of his country. The tenacity with which he clung to his theory of territorial government, and the extension of suffrage, on local questions, from State to Territory, and the absolute non-intervention by Congress for the sake of peace and union, while it made him enemies, increased the admiration of his friends. His nature shines out with its loftiest grace and courage in his debates on these themes, so nearly connected as he thought them with the stability of the Republic. If it be that every true man is himself a cause, a country, or an age; if the height of a nation is the altitude of its best men, then, indeed, are these enlarged liberalities, which are now fixed as American institutions, but the lengthened shadow of STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. This is the cause-selfgovernment in State and Territory-with which he would love most to be identified in his country's history. He was ready to follow it to any logical conclusion, having faith in it as a principle of repose, justice, and union. Placed at the head of the Territorial Committee, it was his hand which, on this basis, fashioned Territory after Territory, and led State after State into the Union. The latest constellation, formed by California, Iowa, Oregon, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and I may add Kansas, received their charter to shine and revolve under his hand. These States, faithful to his fostering, will ever remain as monuments of his greatness! His comprehensive forecast was exhibited in his speech on the Clayton and Bulwer treaty, on the 4th of March, 1853; wherein he enforced a continental policy suitable and honorable to the New World and its destiny, now so unhappily obscured. That speech was regarded by Judge DOUGLAS as among the most valuable, as I think it the most finished and cogent speech of his life. His philippic against England, which to-day has its vindication in her selfish conduct towards us, will remind the scholar of Demosthenes, while his enlarged philosophy has the sweep and dignity of Edmund Burke. It was this speech which gave to DOUGLAS the heart of Young America. He refused to prescribe limits to the area over which Democratic principles might safely spread. "I know not what our destiny may be. But," he continued, "I try to keep up with the spirit of the age; to keep in view the history of the country; see what we have done, whither we are going, and with what velocity we are moving, in order to be prepared for those events which it is not in the power of man to thwart." He would not then see the limits of this giant Republic fettered by treaty; neither would he in 1861 see them curtailed by treachery. If he were alive to-day, he would repeat with new emphasis his warning against England and her unforgiving spite, wounded pride, and selfish policy. When, in 1847, he advocated the policy of terminating her joint occupation with us of Oregon, he was ready to back it by military force; and if war should result, "we might drive Great Britain and the last vestiges of royal authority from the continent of North America, and make the United States an ocean-bound Republic!" With ready tact and good sense he brought to the fiscal and commercial problems of the country views suitable to this age of free interchange and scientific advancement. His position on the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Senate gave him a scope of view abroad, which was enriched by European travel and historic research, and which he ever used for the advancement of our flag and honor among the nations. His knowledge of our domestic troubles, with their hidden rocks and horrid breakers, and the measures he proposed to remove them, show that he was a statesman of the highest rank, fit for calm or storm. Some have lamented his death now as untimely and unfortunate for his own fame, since it has happened just at the moment when the politician was lost in the patriot, and when he had a chance to atone for past error by new devotion. Mr. Speaker, men do not change their natures so easily. The DOUGLAS of 1861 was the DOUGLAS of 1850, 1854, and 1858. The patriot who denounced this great rebellion was the patriot in every fold and lineament of his character. There is not a page of his history that we can afford to blot. The words which escaped him in the delirium of his last days-when he heard the "battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting"-were the key-note to a harmonious life. Observant of the insidious processes North and South which have led us to this civil war, he ever strove, by adjustment, to avoid their disastrous effects. History will be false to her trust, if she does not write that STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS was a patriot of matchless purity, and a statesman who, foreseeing and warning, tried his utmost to avert the dangers which are now so hard to repress. Nor will she permit those praise his last great effort for the Union to qualify it by sinister r upon his former conduct; for thus they tarnish the lustre of a life in peace and in war, to the preservation of the Union. His fa had eclipse. Its disk has been ever bright to the eye of history. below the horizon, like the sun of the Morea, full-orbed, and in the of its splendor. How much we shall miss him here! How ca associates, do without his counsel? No longer does the m round that DOUGLAS is speaking in the Senate; no longer does t become quorumless to listen to his voice! His death is like th tion of a political organism. Indeed, we could better afford sphere of stars from our flag; for these might wander to ret DOUGLAS cannot be brought back to us. He who had such power, with the "thews of Anakim and the pulses of a Titan has gone upon a returnless journey. How much shall we miss We have so long regarded the political, social, geographical, mercial necessities to which our Government was adapted as it eternal, that its present condition calls for new and rare el statesmanship. Are we equal to the time and the trust? Clay, a Webster, a DOUGLAS, in this great ordeal of constitut dom! While the country is entangled by these serpents of we shall miss the giant-the Hercules of the West-whose grown sinewy in strangling the poisonous brood! Who is left to take his place? Alas! he has no succes eclipse is painfully palpable, since it makes more obscure th which our alienated brethren may return. Many Union men, DOUGLAS in the South, heard of his demise as the death kne loyal hope. Who, who can take his place? The great mer who were his mates in the Senate, are gone, we trust, to that be above, where there are no distracting counsels-all, all gone! thank Heaven! Kentucky still spares to us one of kindred fashioned in the better mould of an earlier day-the distinguis man who has just spoken [Mr. CRITTENDEN], whose praise of living I loved to quote, and whose praise of DOUGLAS dead, to have just listened, "laudari a viro laudato," is praise indeed DEN still stands here, lifting on high his whitened head, like a the sea, to guide our storm-tossed and storm-tattered vessel to of rest. His feet tread closely upon the retreating steps of man of the West. In the order of nature, we cannot have Already his hand is outstretched into the other world to gras of DOUGLAS! While we have him, let us heed his warning, his lips the lessons of moderation and loyalty of the elder da all and do it nobly for our beloved Republic! In conclusion, sir, we can only worthily praise STEPHEN A by doing something to carry out the will which he left his c his country: "Love and uphold the Constitution of the United States." I speak it all reverently when I say that this was his re had faith in that "creed of creeds, The loveliness of perfect deeds." I would not seek to disclose the future to which God has consigned him in the mysterious order of his providence; but such virtue as his cannot die. It begins to live most in death. Of it may be said, as the laureate of England sang, that transplanted human worth will bloom, to profit, otherwhere. The distinguished gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. CRITTENDEN] has alluded to the fact that the mind of DOUGLAS expanded with his public service. It has been my own humble observation that he was one among the few public men who grew in moral height with mental breadth. Year after year inspired him with more of reverence and charity; while his "psalm of life" found expression in daily duty done. He never shrank from the dust and heat of active life. He most desired to live when dangers were gathering thickest. He would not ask from us to-day tears and plaints, but words which bear the spirit of great deeds, "tremendous and stupendous" efforts to save the Government he loved 80 vell. We may toll the slow bell for his noble spirit; we may crape the arm in token of our woe; we may, while we think of the meannesses of our politics and the distractions of our country, congratulate him that he is wrapped in his shroud, forever safe in the memory of the just: but if we would worthily honor him, let us moderate the heats of party strife; enlarge our view of national affairs; emulate his clear-eyed patriotism, which saw in no section his country, but loved all sections alike; and hold up his life, so fruitful in wisdom beyond his years, for the admiration of the old; and picture him for the imitation of the young as that "Divinely gifted man Whose life in low estate began; Who grasped the skirts of happy chance, And made by force his merit known; And lived to clutch the golden keys, And shape the whisper of the throne; Becomes on fortune's crowning slope From But, sir, no language, either in prose or verse, can portray the greatness of his loss. His fame is printed in the hearts of the people. the Green Mountains of his native State to the white tops of the Pacific Sierras, while the heavens bend above our land to bless it, the rivers roll and the mountains stand to unite it, or the ceaseless interchange of traffic and thought goes on by sea and rail, by telegraph or post-the people of America, from whose midst, as a poor boy, by his own self-reliance, he sprung, will preserve in the Pantheon of their hearts, to an immortal memory, the name of STEPHEN ARNOLd Douglas. VI. CIVIL WAR. REPLY TO HON. MR. GURLEY-BULL RUN DEPICTED-CONGRESSMEN ON THE FIELD-EAGLES AND DOVES-WARRIORS AND MINISTERS-VINDICATION OF GEN. MCCLELLAN-CONGRESSIONAL WAR CRITICS-PERVERSION AND PROLONGATION OF THE WAR. Delivered in the House of Representatives, January 31, 1862. Mr. CHAIRMAN: I obtained the floor on yesterday to give a prompt answer to the elaborate attack made by my colleague [Mr. GURLEY] on General McClellan. I was not aware that my colleague had thus prepared himself, although it was bruited about that we were to have a dissertation on the conduct of this war which would annihilate its present managers. I wish that my colleague could plead the impulse of the moment for his speech; but I give more significance to his labored effort because it betokens a plan-one in which my colleague plays his rôle—to get rid of the gallant Major-General in whom repose the hopes and the confidence of the people. If his speech had been made by a Democrat, it would have been said that it was an attempt to aid secession; to cripple our credit at home and our honor abroad; to undermine the popular faith in the power of the Government to conquer peace and restore the Union. It would have deserved, according to the practice, a prison in a sea-bound castle. I do not understand, nor will I attempt to analyze, the motives of my colleague. If I were to judge of his intent by the effect of his speech, he. would discourage the army in their efforts, and the people in their payment of taxes. His speech will aid the rebellion, not so much because it was spoken by him, as because it seems to be a part of a plan, outside and inside of this House, to beget distrust and sow discord. I do not know, sir, how much weight will be attributed to my colleague's military strictures. If his facts are no better than his conclusions-and I will demonstrate that neither are correct-his speech will only go for what it is worth-the scolding of an unmilitary Congressman. My colleague began with the cry that generals are nothing; that if any general was incompetent, to take him away. He read from the Richmond "Dispatch" to show the errors which our generals had committed. The article read was so full of slan |