mm-' i^^ ^^4*^ <. *- P [printed by authority of the state of Illinois] 1915 STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS 1813 Born, Brandon, Vermont, April 23, 1828 "Worked at cabinet maker's trade. 1830 Moved with family to Ontario County, New York. 1830-1832 Student in Academy at Canandaigua, New York. 1833 Began study of law. Left for the west June 23. Arrived Cleveland, Ohio. Serious sickness there. Arrived Jacksonville, Illinois. 1833-1834 Taught school Winchester, Illinois. j~ 1834 Admitted to bar. u Q^ 1835 Prosecuting attornev, Morgan County, Illinois. Uj 1836 Member of House of Representatives, Illinois Gen- V^ eral Assembly. 1837 Register U. S. land office, Springfield, lUniois. 1838 Candidate for Congress. Defeated by John T. Stuart. 1840 Appointed Secretary of State of Illinois. "^ 1841 Associate Justice Illinois Supreme Court. H 1842-1847 Member of Congress. 1847-1861 United States Senator. 1847 Marriage April 7 to Miss Martha Denny Martin, who died January, 1853. 1856 Married November 20 to Miss Adele Cutts. 1858 Lincoln-Douglas seven joint debates in Illinois. 1860 Nominated for the presidency of the United States at Baltimore, by adjourned convention of Dem- ocratic party. Defeated by Abraham Lincoln. 1861 March 4. Occupied place of honor at inauguration of Abraham Lincoln at "Washington, D. C. Died Chicago, Illinois, June 3. State Officers Edward F. Dunne, Governor Barratt O'Hara, Lieutenant Governor Harry Woods, Secretary of State James J. Brady, Audtior of Public Accounts William Ryan, Jr., Treasurer Francis G. Blair, Supt. of Public Instruction Patrick J. Lucey, Attorney General J. McCan Davis, Clerk of Supreme Court Justices of the Supreme Court Frank K. Dunn, Chief Justice James H, Cartwright Alonzo K. Vickers John P. Hand Orrin N. Carter William M. Farmer George A. Cooke Joint Legislative Committee Senate House Walter I. IVIanny, Chairman Francis E. Williamson, Sec, Hugh S. Magill, Jr. John M. Rapp W. Duff Piercy Charles F. Clyne Campbell S. Hearn R. D Kirkpatrick Kent E. Keller Thomas Campbell Table of Contents Page Introduction by James W. Gamer 11 Introductoiy Remarks by Hon. William McKinley 19 Address by Hon. E. F. Dunne .... 19 Invocation by Rev. E. B. Rogers 21 Address by Hon. Robert D. Douglas 23 Address by Hon. James A. Reed 29 Address by Hon. William Taylor Davidson 37 Address by Hon. Everett Jennings 44 Introductoiy Remarks, evening session, by Hon. E. F. Dunne 50 Address by Hon. Lawrence Y. Sliennan 50 Address by Hon. James Hamilton Le^vis 60 Address by Hon. Adlai E. Stevenson 79 Letter from Hon. J. P. Tumulty 109 Letter from Hon. Henry Watterson 110 Telegram from Hon. Rober-t M. Douglas Ill Telegram from Hon. Shelby M. Cullom 109 Telegram from Hon. Adlai E. Stevenson Ill Letter from Hon. Clark E. Carr Ill Letter from Hon. J. 0. Cunningham 112 Letter from Hon. James B. Smith 113 Letter from Hen. Charles A. Walker 113 Letter from John M. Lansden, Esq 115 Letter from Hon. J. McCan Davis 118 Addenda Sketches by Ethan Allen Snively Hon. Adlai E. Stevenson 120 Hon. Lewis DuBois Erwin 124 Hon. William Taylor Davidson 124 Program of Exercises OF THE Douglas Natal Day Centennial Celebration Joint Session Forty-eighth General Assembly of IlUinois Hall of Representatives Wednesday, April 23, 1913 T^vo o'clock P.M. Invocation - - The Reverend Euclid B. Rogers, D.D. The Presiding Officer - - Governor Edward F. Dunne Music --------- America APOLLO QUARTETTE Address - - - The Honorable Robert D. Douglas Address - - - United States Senator James A. Reed \ 1 Annie Laurie ^^^^^ ■ "^2 Darling NeUie Gray APOLLO QUARTETTE Address - United States Senator James Hamilton Lewis Address - - - The Honorable William L. Davidson Music .-..-- Medlej^ of Popular Songs APOLLO QUARTETTE Address - United States Senator Lawrence Y. Shennan Address - - - - The Honorable Everett Jennings Address - - - - The Honorable xVdlai E. Stevenson Music • Illinois APOLLO quartette Introduction As the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Stephen A. Douglas drew near, there arose a demand throughout the State that the occasion should be commemorated in a fitting way by the commonwealth which he served so long and with so much distinction. Accordingly the Legislature adopted the following resolution for the appointment of a committee to arrange for a suitable celebration to be carried out under the auspices of the State : "Whereas, April 23, 1913, is the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Stephen A. Douglas, who was one of Illinois' fore- most sons of his time and generation; and, "Whereas, It is fitting and proper that the General Assem- bly of the State of Illinois, a State which he so ably represented in the Senate of the United States and which he also served so well as a member of its Supreme Court, should pause in its deliberations long enough to pay tribute to the memory of this man, one who also did so much at the opening of the Civil War to uphold the hands of the then President, Abraham Lincoluj, whose opponent he was for that office and whose politi- cal competitor he had been for years in the political arena of Illinois and the nation ; therefore, be it ^'Resolved, hy the Senate, the House of Representatives con- curring therein. That a committee of five be appointed from each house, who shall make all the necessary arrangements for the holding of a joint session of the General Assembly on April 23, at 2 o'clock p. m., in the hall of the House of Representatives, for the purpose of listening to such appropriate addresses as the committee hereby authorized shall arrange for." The following members of this committee were appointed in pursuance of this resolution : From the Senate : Honorable Walter I. Manny, chairman. Honorable Hugh S. Ma gill, Jr. Honorable W. Duff Piercy. Honorable Campbell S. Hearn. Honorable Kent E. Keller. From the House : Honorable Francis E. Williamson, Secretary. Honorable John M. Rapp. . Honorable Charles F. Clyne. Honorable R. D. Kirkpatrick. Honorable Thomas Campbell. 12 The committee decided that the commemoration should take the form of a series of addresses before a joinit session of the two houses of the Legislature and a body of guests, to whom invitations were sent. In the selection of the speakers a special effort was made to secure persons of prominence in this and other states who had been associated, politically or otherwise, with Mr. Douglas during his life time or who had personally known him. Owing, however, to the lapse of fifty- two years since his .death, the number of such persons was necessarily small and of those who still survived some were prevented from being present through the infirmities of age or ill health. Some of theset, however, sent telegrams or letters in which they expressed their hearty approval of the proposed celebration and their admiration for Mr. Douglas. The exercises took place Wednesday afternoon and even- ing, April 23, 1913, in the hall of the House of Representatives in the presence of both houses, the State officers and as large a body of invited guests as the size of the hall would accom- modate. Addresses were delivered by Governor E. F. Dunne, Honorable Robert Douglas, grandson of Stephen A., United States Senator James A. Reed of Missouri, Honorable "William T. Davidson, Honorable Everett Jennings, and United States Senators Lawrence Y. Sherman and James Hamilton Lewis of Illinois, These addresses, together with a paper of Honorable Adlai E. Stevenson read before (the State Historical Society in 1908, and a few of the letters and telegrams from prominent persons to whom invitations had been extended but who were unable to attend the memorial exercises, are published in this volume and offered to the world as the State's tribute to the memory of one of its most distinguished sons, on the occasion of the centennial of the anniversary of his birth. That the tribute was worthily bestowed there is now little or no difference of opinion. During his life time Mr. Douglas' motives were severely attacked^ his political honesty questioned and his principles misunderstood. His political life coincided with a period of fierce passion and conflict, and men were often incapable of jusitly appreciating the motives and actions of those who were on the opposite side of the great questions which then stirred the nation and shook the very foundations of the Government. But with the lapse of years and the dis- appearance of passion and prejudice, there is more and more of a disposition to attribute sincerity of motive and purpose to those who were on the opposite side of the great issues upon which the conflicts of the time were waged and to render more exact justice to the memory of those who, like Douglas, cham- pioned theories which the majority of the nation did not ap- prove. This tendency finds abundant expression in the more recent biographies of Douglas — biographies written by scholars 13 who have grown up since the era of conflict and who conse- quently are in a position to weigh his motives and to judge his acts in the atmosphere of a different and more favorable environment. For a long time the great fame of Lincoln and the triumph of the cause which he represented tended to obscure the great- ness of his chief rival, but with the receding years there have been many signs of a dsire to accord to Douglas a place of high honor among the great characters of the age in which he was one of the mightiest actors. During the stirring decade before the war he was certainly the most striking and forceful personality in our national public life, and it may be asserted without fear of contradiction that in the exciting drama which preceded the conflict of 1861-65 he occupied the center of the stage, and this place he held until the conflict ceased to be forensic and became one of arms. Like that of his great rival, Douglas' life illustrated the almost boundless possibilities of the individual in our American democracy. If he did not rise to the supreme heights attained by Lincoln, he rose very high and very quickly — more rapidly indeed than any other man in our public life and had he not passed from the scene of action at an early age (he died in his forty-ninth year) he might have eventually attained the highest eminence that remained. Within the brief space of ten years after his arrival on the prairies of Illinois a beardless youth, penniless, broken in health and without friends, he had been called to fill the positions of member of the State Legis- lature, prosecuting attorney, registrar of the United States land office. Secretary of State of Illinois, judge of the Supreme Court, and representative in Congress, and he was still only thirty years of age. Among all the examples with which American history is so replete, of the remarkable careers achieved by men who rose from the humblest walks of life, there is no career which can be compared with this one in the rapidity with which it was achieved. Lincoln started from a lower level and rose higher, but his ascent was slow and he had the advantage, as has been said, of a rising tide, while Douglas' barque rode on an ebbing tide. On the other hand, Douglas had certain advantages over his great rival. He was better born and he had the advantage of some education in the schools. He had a good ancestry and the gift of Yankee shrewdness. He was precocious, self- confident, and audacious ; he had the happy faculty of adapting himself easily to his environment and of making friends, and especially of attaching young men to him ; he possessed a fund of ready wit, "vvas good humored, and was skillful and adroit in debate. Moreover, he was an excellent political organizer and a born leader of men. In personality he was a striking figure ; short, compact of frame, alert, possessed of a large head, 14 long flowing hair, and massive eye brows, he looked the very embodiment of intellectual force and combativeness, and such he was. He was courteous to his opponents, magnanimous to his adversaries, and lacked resentment toward those who had injured him, or if he show^ed it, it usually vanished with the spoken word. As has been said by one writer, he repented the barbed shaft the moment it quitted the bow. That a man with such qualities as these should have suc- ceeded in politics was entirely natural. AVhen he arrived in Illinois, he found many of the conditions of frontier life await- ing him. The country was sparsely settled but prosperous. He found a hospitable people, extremely democratic, and ready to receive him with open hearts. Douglas believed in the dignity of labor, had great faith in the political capacity of the people, and was an indefatigable champion of the principles of local self government. He was optimistic, entertained large hopes of the country's future, and when he entered public life,, he devoted especial attention to the promotion of measures for the development of the resources of his State. He advocated the completion of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, urged the construction of two railroads across the State from north to south and from east to west, and was instrumental in securing a land grant for the Illinois Central Railroad. He began his political career by espousing the cause of General Jackson in his local community, and later, in Con- gress, he was instrumental in bringing about the passage of a resolution to reimburse the old hero for the fine of $1,000 which had been imposed upon him by a Federal judge at New Orleans in 1814. In the early stages of his political career, it was his fortune to be the champion of policies and measures which were immensely popular throughout the country. It was only on the slavery question that his motives and his record were attacked. In Congress he voted against the Wilmot Proviso, although he supported a bill to organize the territory of Oregon without slavery. When men of the North and the South were groping in the darkness for a solution of the slavery controversy, Douglas put forward a plan which he believed would prove not only a fair and just settlement of the question, but one which was most in accord with American ideas of local self government, namely, that the people of each territory seeking to become a state should be allowed to determine for themselves whether slavery should exist in their community or not. With his unbounded faith in the virtue and capacity of the people to manage their own local concerns and his undying belief in their inalienable right to be allowed to determine their own institutions, it was not unnatural that this solution of the slavery question in the territories should have appeared to him to be absolutely just and at the same time in harmony with one of the most fundamental principles of American 15 government. There is no good reason for believing that he vras insincere or that he desired to see the extension of slavery to parts of the country whore it did not already exist. Never- theless, his motives were severely attacked and he was charged with being indifferent to the moral aspects of slavery. Slavery, it was said, was a national evil, not a local affaii", and its existence conld not be safely left to the determination of the voters of a particular communuity. Whether Douglas' proposed solution was wise or unwdse, his subsequent record on the slavery question disproved the charge that he had sold himself to the slave powder in the hope of securing the nomination to the presidency. When an at- tempt was made by the administration and by Congress to force upon the people of Kansas against the will of the major- ity the Lecompton constitution, he threw the weight of his poW'Crful influence against the scheme and in a three hour speech in the senate he denounced it as "a trick and a fraud against the rights of the people". He demonstrated beyond all doubt that he had a strong sense of justice and of fair play and that he possessed high moral courage. He declared that Congress had no right to force upon the people of Kansas a constitution to which the majority of them were opposed. He w^as entirely consistent and his opposition was absolutely in accord with the principle of local popular sovereignty which he had so powerfully advocated, both in and out of Congress. On this point he declared : "But if this constitution is to be forced down our throats, in violation of the fundamental principle of free government, under a mode of submission that is a mockery and insult, I will resist it to the last. I have no fear of any party associa- tions being severed. I should regret any social or political estrangement, even temporarily; but if it must be, if I cannot act with you and preserve my faith and honor, I will stand on the great principle of popular sovereignty, which declares the right of all people to be left perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way. I will follow thait principle wherever its logical consequences may take me, and I will endeavor to defend it against assault from any and all quarters. No mortal man shall be responsible for my action but myself. By my action I w^ill compromit no man." The administration brought every possible pressure to bear upon him to overcome his opposition and even threatened to employ its influence to destroy him politically. Replying in the Senate to this threat, he said: "But we are told it is an administration measure. Because it is an administration measure, does it therefore follow that it is a party measure? * * * I do not recognize the right of the President or his Cabinet * * * to tell me my duty in 16 the Senate Chamber. Am I to be told that I must obey the executive and betray my State, or else be branded as a traitor to the party, and be hunted down by the newspapers that share the patronage of the Government, and every men who holds a petty ofl5ce in any part of my State to have the question put to him, 'Are you Douglas' enemy? If not, your head comes off'. I intend to perform my duty in accordance with my own con- victions. Neither the frowms of power nor the influence of patronage will change my action, or drive me from my princi- ples. I stand firmly, immovably, upon those great principles of self-government and state sovereignty upon which the cam- paign was fought and the election won. * * * if^ standing firmly by my principles, I shall be driven into private life, it is a fate that has no terrors for me. I prefer private life, pre- serving my own self-respect and manhood, to abject and servile submission to executive will. If the alternative be private life or servile obedience to executive will, I am prepared to retire. Official position has no charms for me when deprived of that freedom of thought and action which becomes a gentleman and a senator." Douglas' opposition to the Lecompton scheme cost him the support of the slave-holding South and prevented him from receiving the presidential nomination from a united party, but it greatly increased the respect and confidence in which he was held throughout the North, Henceforth, no one could deny that he was a man of moral courage, and that he was ready to sacrifice personal ambition for the cause of justice and fair play. His patriotism and loyalty to the Union were soon after- wards established beyond all question. During the presi- dential campaign of 1860 he declared emphatically that the election of Lincoln would not justify any attempt to "dissolve this glorious confederacy", and he added that in case such an attempt were made, he would do all in his power to aid those in authority to maintain the supremacy of the laws against all resistance regardless of whatever quarter it might come from. Again and again he declared his love for the Union and asserted that there was no earthly sacrifice which he was not willing to make for its preservation. Finally, when the returns showed that Lincoln had tri- umphed, he besought his countrymen, regardless of party or section, to unite with him and with all Union loving men in a common effort to save the country from the disaster which threatened it. On the occasion of the inauguration he made his way to the place where Mr. Lincoln stood and held the hat of his great rival while he delivered the address which Douglas, himself, might have been called to pronounce had he pursued a different though less honorable course. His call upon the President shortly after his inauguration and his promise to 17 support the Government in its efforts to enforce the laws and maintain the Union, served to cheer and encourage millions of loyal men throughout the North. In a speech before the Gen- eral Assembly of Illinois on April 25, 1861, a few weeks before his death, he said : "My friends, I can say no more. To discuss these topics is the most painful duty of my life. It is with a sad heart — with a grief I have never before experienced — that I have to contemplate this fearful struggle; but I believe in my conscience that it is a duty we owe to ourselves and to our children, and to our God, to protect this Government and that flag from every assailant, be he who he may." In his last public utterance, made at Chicago May 1. he declared that there were ' ' but two sides to the question : Every man must be for the United States or against it. There can be no neutrals in this war; only patriots — or traitors". Whatever doubt had formerly existed in certain minds regarding his patriotism and his devotion to the Union which he had served so long, was now removed ; and when he passed aM'ay shortly afterwards, men of all parties and all beliefs united in paying tribute to his memory. Those who had once villified and denounced, those who had expressed want of confidence in his integrity as a public servant, those who had regarded him as a time serving politician without principle, now realized that they had misunderstood and misjudged. The lapse of years has tended to remove still further the mis- understanding, the prejudice and the passion amid which he Avas once judged, and to create an atmosphere within which it is possible to form a juster estimate of his character as a man and a public servant. His memory is entirely deserving of the commemoration which the Legislature of the common- wealth that honored him, and that he honored in turn, saw fit to give him on the one hundredth anniversary of his birth. The tributes bestowed upon him by those who kncAV him and who admired him have been collected and published in this volume in the hope that they will furnish some inspiration to those who may in the future be called to leadership in this commonwealth and who, if the times be such as to require the loftiest patriotism, the highest moral courage and supreme self- sacrifice, may derive strength from the lessons which such a life left behind. James W. Garner. Urbana, Illinois. Birthplace of Douglas, Brandon, Vermont 19 The Commemoration Exercises At 2 :30 o'clock p. m. the Senate, preceded by its President, proceeded to the House of Representatives to hold a joint session, as provided for by the following resolution adopted by both houses: "Whereas, April 23, 1913, is the one hundredth anniver- sary of the birth of Stephen A. Douglas, who was one of Illinois' most foremost sons of his lime and generation; and, "Whereas, It is fitting and proper that the General Assem- bly of the State of Illinois, a State which he so ably represented in the Senate of the United States and a State which he also served so well as a member of its Supreme Court, should pause in its deliberations long enough to pay tribute to the memory of this man, one w^ho did so much at the opening of the Civil War to uphold the hands of the then President, Abraham Lincoln, whose opponent he was for that office and whose politi- cal competitor he had been for years in the political arena of Illinois and the nation; therefore, be it "Resolved, hy the Senate, the House of Representatives concurring therein, That a committee of five be appointed from each house ,who shall make all the necessary arrangements for the holding of a joint session of the General Assembly on April 23, at 2:00 o'clock p. m., in the hall of the House of Representatives, for the purpose of listening to such appro- priate addresses as the committee hereby authorized shall arrange for." The Senate having been admitted to the House, and the joint session was convened with the Speaker of the House of Representatives as presiding officer. He called Governor E. F. Dunne to the chair to act as temporary presiding officer, when the following proceedings were had: Speaker McKinley Governor Dunne, Senators Lewis and Sherman, Members of the General Assembly, and Ladies and Gentlemen: It indeed gives me very great pleasure, this afternoon, to turn the gavel over to our distinguished Governor, to conduct the exercises of this day in commemoration of the one hun- dredth anniversary of the birth of an illustrious son of Illinois, Stephen A. Douglas. (Applause.) Governor Dunne Gentlemen of the Senate, Senators Lewis and Sherman, Members of the General Assembly, and Ladies and Gentlemen: I have been honored by the Committee on Arrangements, representing the joint assembly, in being asked to preside over this memorable meeting. Governor Edward F.Dunne 21 One hundred years ago, in a little village in Vermont, there was born a man who, when he arrived at the years of manhood, made his home in the State of Illinois, and who, from the time when he came to this State until the time of his untimely death in 1861, was one of the great intellectual leaders, not only of the State of Illinois, but of the United States of America. In the political struggles which attracted the attention not only of this State, but of the whole United States, he became one of the great moving figures, and in his intellectual combats with another great lllinoisian, Abraham Lincoln, he riveted the attention of the whole of the United States upon the issues of his day. These two great sons of Illinois became so prominent in the political life of the United States that they were both nominated for the highest executive office in the gift of the people of the United States, and after a most memorable struggle, Abraham Lincoln, his competitor, was elected President of the United States. At this juncture this nation was faced with a situation full of peril, if not complete extinction, and upon that great oc- casion the man whose name we now meet to commemorate, proved himself a patriot among patriots, and next to Abraham Lincoln, himself, did more for the preservation of the integrity of the United States than any other man within its confines. (Applause.) You are exceptionally fortunate, my friends, in being ten- dered an intellectual treat this afternoon ; and in view^ of the fact that there are so many eminent, and so many eloquent speakers here today, I shall confine myself, from this time on, to the pleasant duty of introducing to this audience these distinguished gentlemen. Before introducing any of the speakers, it is my pleasure to introduce the Reverend Euclid B. Rogers, who will deliver the invocation. The audience will please rise. Invocation — Dr. Euclid B. Rogers Almighty God,, our Heavenly Father ! We bow in adora- tion before Thee ! Thou art our Maker and our God. "We thank Thee for all that Thou hast been unto us, for all that Thou art unto us at this hour. AVe thank Thee for our country's past, not long but big. We thank Thee for the names that shine like stars up in our Illinois sky. We thank Thee for him, in whose memory we are met. Great as a public school teacher, great as a lawyer, great as a jurist, great as a legislator, great as a statesman, great as an orator, great as a man, great in victory and greater still in defeat. Dr. Euclid B. Rogers 23 We thank Thee for that epoch-making deliverance of April 25, 1861, when his voice rang like a bell in the air of the world, calling men north, south,, east, west, everywhere, to rally 'round the flag. Fallible he was, human, strikingly, emphatically, splendidly human. To be that is to be almost Divine. We thank Thee for Stephen A. Douglas, for what he was and what he did. And now we crave the presence, the felt presence with us, of the Highest, and His blessing upon us. 0, Lord, bless the Governor of this State and all his coadjutors. The Lord bless these law-making bodies, and these inter- preters of the law. The Lord bless these distinguished gentle- men who are to speak to us, and the singers who are to sing. Grant that all that shall be said and done here today may have a tendency to help each of us to do his work devotedly and well. To carry freedom beyond the mere Declaration of Inde- pendence, to carry liberty beyond the mere machinery of gov- ernment, to cany the rights of man, the rights of women, the rights of every little child, into mine and mill, and home and shop, anywhere, everyAvhere, where folks hope and dream and pray and suffer and die ; that is the task of this era — a task worthy the mettle of a race of immortals, and we pray that out of this hour there shall come an influence and inspiration, into each heart of us, tliat shall stimulate us to do our bravest and our best, from this time on, for the common weal. Amen! Governor Dunne : — We will be favored with music by the Apollo Quartette. Music— "My country, 'tis of Thee." Governor Dunne : — The genius of Douglas was of that char- acter that it could not be distinguished in the life of any one man. His eloquent son, Stephen A., Jr., made his impress in his lifetime upon the people of this State. The next address will be delivered by a grandson of the great Stephen A. Douglas, the Honorable Robert D. Douglas, the eldest son of his eldest son, and the former Attorney Gen- eral of the state of North Carolina. (Applause.) Hon. Robert Dick Douglas Governor Dunne, and My Friends of Illinois: Although a stranger to most of you, I feel that I can call you my friends. Please allow me, in behalf of his family, to express to you their appreciation of your tender kindness in turning aside from the busy life of today to do honor to the memory of Stephen A. Douglas, a century after his birth and more than half a century after his death. Allow me also to Robert Dick Douglas 25 thank you for inviting my father and myself to be present on this occasion and to tell you of my father's sincere regret that ill health has compelled his absence. Though bearing his name and blood, fate has cast my lot in a state far distant from this, your State, in which Stephen A. Douglas lived and labored and which he so devotedly loved. And this fact, coupled with the further fact that he died when my father was l)ut twelve years of age, renders it difficult for me to attempt to tell anything new about him to this audience, some of whom possibly knew him personally, and many of whom know more people who knew him, than I do. But while positively I can tell you little about him that you do not already know, negatively I can tell you that there is little to tell. The fact that he began his public life at such an unusually early age and continued in the public service almost uninterruptedly to the time of his death,, and that aside from his immediate home ties he had few interests outside his public duties, renders it true of Stephen A. Douglas, that there is less difference between his public life as the public knew him and his private life as known to his family, and intimate friends, than of perhaps any other man prominently before the public. He never accumulated wealth. If he ever had what might be called a "hobby", I never heard of it, and, so far as I know, his sole recreation consisted of extensive reading, es- pecially works of a historical or political nature, and discussions with his friends upon political matters. In a way he was, and in a way he was not, what would be called a w^ell educated man. His father's early death pre- vented his receiving the college training he so much desired, and during his later life he had little time for reading of a lighter sort. But, regarding matters bearing directly upon the things in which he was most interested he was a thorough and indefatigable student. He was widely conversant with general history, especially with" regard to its bearing upon political development ; while few men equalled him in his in- timate knowledge of the political and legislative history of his own country from its foundation to his own time and with what the great men of the country had said or written on fundamental principles or measures of a general and construc- tive nature. He was noted for his power and dexterity in extemporaneous debate, but it was only the form of the speech which was extemporaneous. The substance came from the accumulated knowledge acquired by months and sometimes years of study. (Applause.) Much of his fame rests upon his reputation as an orator, but personally, I like to think of him, not so much as an orator, swaying the crowds with his eloquence, as to think of him as the builder, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Terri- 26 tories; the legislator, the constructive statesman, looking with prophetic vision at the future possibilities of the great and unknown west ; carving territories out of its wilderness, build- ing states out of its territories, promoting transcontinental rail- ways, the Illinois Central, and encouraging local development; laying the foundations of a greater nation, and at the same time ever planning, working, striving to save it from disruption while it grew in population, wealth and power. In mentality he was remarkably versatile, and would have made his mark in any occupation which he had made his life's work ; but like all men whose life is made worth living, he had one dominant idea that colored all his thoughts and shaped all his actions. This idea was the preservation of the Union. It was to him more than the feeling of patriotism, it possessed the qualities of a personal love. His advent into public life was contemporaneous with the first serious mutterings of sectional discord ; and thereafter, throughout his life, his dom- inant thought and desire was to bring agreement out of discord and peace out of impending strife, to the end that the Union might be preserved — the Union, whose constitution was to him as the tables of stone to the Israelites in the desert, whose flag was to him as the banner of the cross to the crusaders of old. (Applause.) This was the desire of his life, to preserve the Union and at the same time to develop its immense resources, to further the welfare of its people, to extend its domain when- ever honorably possible ; and with it all to insure national con- cord throughout its vast and varying territory by giving to eveiy section of the country the fullest measure of local self- government compatible with the national strength and welfare. (Applause.) Of his country and his country's future, he dreamed great dreams, but he did not allow those dreams to become his master. Both his mental trend and his concrete acts looked to practical results rather than to fine-spun theories. It is said of Solon of old, that when asked if his code of laws was the best he was capable of formulating, he answered that it was not, but that it was the best he could get the Athen- ians to accept. The same reasoning might be applied to many of the public measures associated with the name of Stephen A. Douglas. They may not entirely have represented his views, or been exactly as he would have wished them to be, but they were the best he could get others to accept, and as such he accepted them himself, preferring the practical benefits of an adopted law, approximating what he thought the law should be, to the theoretical perfection of a measure which the oppo- sition of others or the force of circumstances made it impossible for him to write into the statute books of the nation. (Ap- plause.) 27 His last days were his darkest because they were the dark- est for his beloved country ; but those days gave him an oppor- tunity of appearing in a new light to many of his countrymen who had theretofore viewed him from the standpoint of par- tisan opposition. The gallant political army he had so long and so brilliantly led to victory, had at last been defeated and the national government put into the hands of his political opponents; but when the echo of the guns at Sumter told the country that at last civil war was a dreadful reality, he did not hesitate, but promptly offered his services to the Govern- ment in any capacity in which he could best be used for the preservation of the Union, and immediately began his efforts to hold loyal the great middle west. Here in your city of Springfield was made one of his last speeches in which he pleaded, and pleaded not in vain, that all should forget past differences and rally to the support of the Union. How great was his love for the Union, how intimately it was interwoven even with his personal affection, are shown by the thoughts that filled his mind in his dying moments. In June, 1861, he lay upon his bed in Chicago, knowing that his end had come. He was asked if he had any message to send to his two young sons, then in the city of Washington. "Yes", said the dying man. And what was that message? "Tell them to obey the laws and support the constitution of the United States". (Applause.) But the man himself had not changed. His ideals and aspirations were the same that they had always been. His love for the Union was no stronger in 1861 than it had been throughout all the years during which he had been striving to preserve it. It was simply that his former opponents were seeing the same man in a new light. I proudly think that Stephen A. Douglas would have been a man among men in any country or amidst any surroundings ; but I do not forget that you, the people of the great State of Illinois, welcomed the unknown boy to your midst ; believed in him, trusted him, loved him, and so, wherever their home or whatever their fortunes or their destinies may be, so long as his name and blood shall last, they will love you for it. (Applause.) Whether you, looking backward in the light of subsequent events, agree or disagree with the ultimate wisdom of each particular measure which he, looking into the unknown future, originated, or to which he gave his aid, is a matter of little moment. But as one who through filial affection reveres his memory, as one who through the accident of birth represents him here today, I would, if I thought the occasion fitting, make one request of you — that you give him credit for unselfish sincerity and unfaltering courage. (Applause.) Honorable James A. Reed 29 Before a hostile audience I would make this request, and only this; but standing here in your capitol at Springfield, be- fore you, the people of Illinois, knowing what you have done in the past, seeing and hearing what you are doing today, I feel that such a request coming from me would by implication be more than unjust, it would be most ingracious. More than half a century has passed since Stephen A. Douglas ended his short and storm-tossed life and laid his head for his last long sleep on the bosom of his adopted mother. Cities have arisen where he knew only prairies ; a new genera- tion has come to take the places of his friends and associates ; almost all has changed; but Illinois is fast making real his fondest dreams of her future greatness, and the nation that he loved has escaped the fate he feared and set in the political heavens a rainbow of perpetual Union. My only regret is that he could not have lived to see the civic tempest, which beclouded his dying hours, give place to the sunshine of today. I thank you. (Applause.) Governor Dunne: — In the galaxy of orators that we have with us today, we are fortunate not only in having the two distinguished and brilliant Senators who represent lis from this State in the United States Senate, but a Senator from an ad- joining state, one of the most gifted orators and able statesmen in the United States Senate, United States Senator James A. Reed of Missouri. (Applause.) Honorable James A. Reed Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Illinois General Assenibly, Ladies -a nd Ge ntleme n : I am never favored with a flattering introduction, which comes by the way frequently, not to me alone, but to every man who occasionally makes a speech, not because it is the solemn truth, but because the chairman of the meeting wants to be hospitable and kind and flattering. (Laughter.) I never hear that sort of introduction and of the hopes and expectations it may arouse in the minds of auditors, but I recall the somewhat threadbare anecdote told by my fellow citizen, or former fellow citizen, the late lamented Mark Twain. He said that in his youth he had heard about Niagara Falls. He had read wonder- ful descriptions of that marvelous cataract. He had looked at the pictures of it in the old school atlas until there had been formed in his mentality a vision of all the pent up waters of the seas of all the world, leaping over the sharp edge of a declivity into a bottomless abyss with the roar and crash of contending worlds. That at last he scraped enough money together to go and feast his eyes upon this natural marvel and when he got there the hack fares were so much higher than the falls that 30 the falls appeared inconsequent. (Laughter.) He added that he did not dam the falls, but he did the hackmen. (Laughter.) So if expectation were to plume its flight according to these kindly introductions, I had better plead illness now and let you believe what has been told you, not stand here to make profert of myself, at once to destroy my reputation as a speaker, and your Governor's reputation for truth and veracity. (Laughter and applause.) My time to speak is limited because I must catch a train. I congratulate the audience upon that fact. My chance to make a speech that would really be a gem is denied me by that fact, because I really do not reach my highest altitudes until about the third hour. (Laughter.) Besides all of that, I am to be followed by your distinguished United States Senators, one of whom I have been told carries with him in his ample brain all of the skill and acumen of the statesman, as well as the wisdom of the Republican party. (Laughter.) The other I know well, as indeed does the entire country. We have made exhibition of him in "Washington. We have convinced the effete and polished east that the statement that his whiskers are pink is an infamous slander. (Laughter.) We have also exhibited him as the glass of fashion, but I make the prediction that he will not have been there long until they vrill find that the glass will scintillate with intellectual and poetical gems that will dazzle the eyes of some of the gentlemen who have hitherto regarded themselves as leaders in the forum. (Applause.) As I have been looking over this audience of Illinois people, I have been impressed with the fact that all of this country is pretty much alike. I observe that here in Illinois, as in my ovni state of Missouri, the home of the rose in its ripest and most perfect blush is in the fair cheeks of your lovely women, and I have observed that your men are about as homely a looking crowd as even in the "hound-dawg" state. (Laugh- ter.) That reminds me that I cannot resist the temptation of thanking the Democrats of Illinois for having given their loyal support to Missouri's great son in the recent primary contest. In what I have said there is a thought or suggestion of a thought to myself, for not only do the people of Illinois and the people of Missouri resemble each other so much that we could not tell the difference in the audience, but here stands before us the grandson of the great citizen of Vermont and afterwards the adopted child of this commonwealth who now makes his home in a far southern state, and it has changed him so little that as we gaze upon him we see once more standing before us the figure of the "Little Giant of Illinois". (Ap- plause.) And so as we go from one part of this republic to another, we find, at last, that we are bone of one bone, and flesh of one flesh ; that there is no north, no south, no east, and no west; that this is one people, one language, one country, one 31 flag, one destiny, and one God for us all, (applause), and that wherever you scratch the white skin of the American citizen, the same rich red blood of manhood answers to the touch. And when men begin to despair of their country, and see the horizon covered with clouds, and the future overshadowed with fear, I ask them all to stand in front of such an audience as this, to look into the earnest faces where thought has plowed its fur- rows, into the fearless flashing eyes that know nothing but the sense of duty and the determination to conquer, and to answer then the questions of apprehension. This is a race that has conquered the wilderness, plowed the prairies, dotted the country with magnificent cities, glorified by seminaries of learn- ing and temples of religion, that has erected the family altar, and made love and home, and womanhood and manhood sacred and holy, I ask them to gaze at that picture, and to contem- plate that history, and to answer if the republic, under the kindliness of God, shall not live forever, and liberty survive all time! (Applause.) We are confronted with difficulties. It was the question of slavery and anti-slavery before the war. In the baptism of fire and blood we settled that great question, and the heroic figure in the contest was that man whose memory we meet to glorify today. Other problems confront the American people. We hear it frequently said that our heroes have feet of clay. We heard it all too frequently said in the ante-bellum days, that Lincoln was a traitor. We heard it frequently charged that Douglas was a traitor; and yet, in the calm after life, we have come to know that each of them, in the balance of eternal justice, held by the hand of Almighty God, was pure gold, every atom of body and every principle of soul. (Applause.) We know that these two men had the same end and object, each placing coun- try and duty above every other principle, each subordinating every selfish end to the great common cause. One of them saw the highway leading to that fruition in a certain direction. The other thought a better road could be chosen. Then came the battle of these giants. It was a battle of two men equipped by nature as but few men are. They told us that Lincoln was an uneducated rail-splitter ; but Lincoln was a master of our English tongue. They told us that Douglas was merely a lawyer and a judge ; and yet Douglas' master hand could touch all the heart strings, and sweep the chords of human emotion. These men met and struggled. When the hour came, when the gage of battle had been cast, Lincoln stood forth, an heroic figure, but scarce more heroic than that other son of Illinois, who summoned the nation to Lincoln's aid and his support. (Applause.) We had our bitter struggles then. We have them now. The political prophet is abroad in the land. He has sack- cloth and ashes prominently displayed — sack-cloth upon his 32 shoulders, and ashes in his hair ; and the tears of grief for our country are plowing their way over his sorrowrul countenance — and he has political nostrums to cure all these ills ! We have others who see evil here, and weakness there, and conspiracy j^onder. Our Democratic friends (of which I am one) will charge sometimes that the Republicans are trying to destroy this country ; and the Republicans will charge, first, that the Bull Moosers are trying to destroy this country (laughter) ; and after jhey have finished with the Bull Moosers, will pay their respects to us Democrats (laughter). And all of them, in the past, have been engaged in denouncing, as bad citizens, that other organization which has elected some repre- sentatives here — the Socialists. The mistake is not in denounc- ing the methods of these political organizations. The mistake is in denouncing the purposes of these political organizations. The doctors are honest, and have diagnosed the complaint of the patient (as doctors generally do, with a considerable dif- ference of opinion) and in like manner they are seeking to apply different remedies ; but the cold, unembellished truth is, all of them are honest doctors, wanting to apply an honest remedy, for the benefit of the patient (applause) and the sooner we discover that, and give credit for honesty to each other, the sooner we will be on a plane where we can meet and com- pare views, and analyze facts, and ascertain the truth. I am glad to say this, because I believe this to be true, that whether our people be Socialists or Republicans, or Bull Moosers (and I wish you would get a more genteel term, gentlemen, for your party), (laughter), or Democrats — that all are patriots, all are sincere, and all are seeking to make this republic the ideal spot of our fair earth. Ladies and gentlemen, in Douglas' and Lincoln's day, it was the question of black slavery. The problem that now confronts our race is the question of Avhite slavery. The question, then, was the breaking of the chains of the law. The question, now, is the breaking of chains of fact, that have been riveted upon the energies of many of the people of our country. I do not come to denounce those who have gained wealth. I do not come to make war upon those who have prospered, but I come to announce this doctrine this afternoon, that eighteen hundred years ago, it was said, "The Sabbath was made for man; and not man for the Sabbath." I paraphrase that iTtter- ance, by declaring that money was made for man, and not man for money (applause), that the sole and proper end of human government is human happiness, that government was not erected to protect property, it was erected to make men and women happy (applause) ; and that the reason we proceeded to protect property was because men and women could not be happy unless we did protect them in their property; but 33 the protection of property was a thing subordinate, and sec- ondary, to the happiness of the race. Now, let me not be misunderstood, and let no man infer I have announced a doctrine in favor of the destruction of property. I announce merely this doctrine, that property rights must never be so construed as to destroy human rights (applause) and that such constructions of our laws must come about as will keep the resources of this countrj^ free and open for the children of men who are here now, and so that the generations yet to come, upon this continent, may walk with free men's feet, upon a freeman's soil. (Applause.) The problem that must be worked out, and that confronts us toda}^, is a gigantic one. God Almighty filled the bowels of the earth with lakes and rivers of oil — enough of oil to light the feet of all the men who shall come here for a thousand years — and it has gone into the hands of one concern, sub- stantially; He put vast acres of rich iron ore about us, and throughout our land it has gone into the hands of one concern ; He put vast deposits of copper under our mountains, and those copper deposits have gone into the hands of one concern ; He put other great resources here, enough to have kept busy the brains and hands of countless generations yet to come; and they have been gathered into the hands of a few great insti- tutions. The result has been with the opportunity for the individual man, not merely to make a living, but to do more than to make a living, and to become an independent factor in the business life of the community has been circumscribed, and will eventually be destroyed. (Applause.) And it is against that, because I love human liberty and individual independence, that I raise my voice in solemn protest. (Applause.) No property right, ever, should be permitted to be so construed that it can destroy another man's property right. No prop- erty right should be so construed that it can destroy the chance of the individual of the race, himself, to gain property; for by so doing you make of property, not a blessing, but a curse. My fellow citizens, I might follow that theme for some time, but I choose to stop where I am. I want to call your attention to Avhat I think made our race great and wonderful and splendid. It was not, sirs, the blue blood of an aristo- cratic ancestry. The fathers who came here were of the earth — earthy. They bore upon their backs the burdens of twenty centuries of oppression. Their minds were clouded with ignorance, and their hearts bowed down with fear. You hear of our revolutionary, and ante-revolutionary ancestry as a superior class of men ! Let him who entertains that delusion remember the scenes where, in southern plantations, they were buying their wives upon the auction block and paying for them with long green tobacco. Let him turn to the picture of 34 Roger Williams, driven into the ^yilderness. Let him con- template that southern colony that was wiped out, men, women and children, because they, worshipped God according to the tenets of the church that lifts its spires and raises its crosses, today in everj' county of the Union ! Let him turn his eyes to the hills of Massachusetts, lurid with the red flames that licked up the blood of poor old women, dying by fire for the imaginary crime of witch-craft ! And when you have contem- plated these pictures, you will agree with me that the men who built this country, originally, were simply the common stock of European countries. (Applause.) "What was the training, the emergency, the inspiring, up- lifting cause, that made them become great? Why sirs, the wild forest sang the song of liberty. The wild waves beckoned them, and called them to these shores. In the forest fastness, the voices of opportunity were whispering in their ears. These oppressed and expatriated sires saw how their feet might tread on soil that they might own. Yonder stretched the broad highway, that would lead to commercial ascendency. They might become bankers, or lawyers, or ministers. They might build vessels, and ply the waves of the ocean. All lands were theirs to conquer. All the fields of oppor- tunity were open to them; and so at night, the sons of these sires were bending to their tasks. Beside the tallow dip, they were looking into the future, and storing knowledge for the struggles yet to come ; and in one generation of time we made a race of poets whose words will be read as long as man shaU love the music of our tongue. We made orators whose words of flame could light the fires of patriotism in every human heart, and thrill the universal breast of man, and make us all love liberty. We made a race of soldiers who could stand in the red line of battle, through the snows of winter, who could write the story of their patriotism in bloody foot-prints, amid the snows and frosts. We made mothers who could stand in the cabin door, rifle in hand, and beat back the naked savage, and keep the home while the father stood in the red line at the front. We made soldiers who could follow Paul Jones from the decks of his sinking vessel upon the great British man of war, climbing like tigers up her bloody, slippery side, as through the smoke and flame of battle, the British com- mander's challenge was heard, asking, "Have you struck your colors yet?" and they cheered until the vaulted Heavens echoed, as Paul Jones' voice rang on their ears, with his profane but holy rejoinder — "Struck our colors! Why, by God, we Yankees haven't begun to fight yet!" (Applause.) We made that kind of men, and that kind of women, and as long as we shall keep the faith, as long as these fair fields shall so be held that the proprietors may till the soil, these mines shall still yield their richness to the hand of enterprise, and every 35 field of opportunity shall be open to the youth of this land, so long there will be happy homes, and every home will be a citadel; so long there will be happy firesides, and every fireside Avill be an altar; so long there will be an aggregate of man- hood and of womanhood that will keep the flag in the Heavens, liberty's glowing fires burning throughout the land; and a race will develop that can lift their eA^es without fear to all the world, and bow their heads in reverence alone to the Al- mighty God. That is the hope I entertain, and this is the problem that we must solve. Sometimes I dream of a republic in which the brain of man shall have harnessed and made slave all .the forces of nature; where there shall be neither parasites to eat that which others have produced, nor drudges to toil at half-requited tasks ; a republic from which shall have been banished the sweat-shops of labor, where the tired fingers of women may find time to rest, and little children in the morning of their lives shall not be herded in the shadow of great mills that men may make a profit from their toil, a republic in which to be merely rich shall be to be only vulgar ; a republic in which the crown of manhood, and the robe of glory shall be reserved for the men and the women who have toiled and fought for the benefit of the race of men. (Applause.) To this great task, each true American will devote his heart. To this great problem we must give our energies with all the force with which Lincoln and Douglas gave their energies in the days of the past, and we will solve this problem. This might}' race will solve it, and through all the contests and all the bitternesses there shines, forever bright, the star of America's unconquerable and unclouded destiny! I thank you. (Applause.) Governor Dunne: — The next number is music, by the Apollo Quartette. Musical selections. Governor Dunne: — Among the notable citizens of: Illinois who would truly love to be here today to join in this testimonial to the illustrious dead, is a man who is prevented, by circum- stances over which he had no control, from being here, a man who has the love and respect and admiration of every citizen of the State of Illinois, and who has seiwed this great State in the United States Senate for so many years past, Shelby M. Cullom. (Applause.) I will read a telegram from former Senator Cullom: "Washington, D. C., April 23, 1913. "Honorahle ^Yalter I. Manny, Chairman of the Committee on Arrangements, Springfield, Illinois: I am exceedingly sorry that I am unable to join you to- morroAv, in celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Stephen A. Douglas. ^^illiam Taylor Davidson 37 He was a very great man, a great debater, a great senator, and a great patriot. I have always felt proud of the fact that I introduced him to the joint session of the Illinois Legislature on the occasion of the last address but one that he delivered in our State, before he gave up his life. I have always regarded Stephen A. Douglas and Lyman Trumbull as two of the greatest senators who ever did honor to our State and country. I sincerely hope the occasion tomorrow will be fully worthy of the great services to the country of Stephen A. Douglas. [Signed] Shelby M. Cullom." (Applause.) Governor Dunne: — Over half a centuiy has passed away since Stephen A. Douglas went to his great reward. We are fortunate today in having in our midst a man who was an intimate of Douglas in his lifetime and who will now address this audience. I take great pleasure in introducing to you the Honorable William T. Davidson, a very intimate friend of Douglas while he was living. (Applause.) Honorable William Taylor Davidson Your Excellency, Governor Dunne, Gentlemen of the Joint As- sembly, Ladies and Gentlemen: In introducing my address to you, I beg your permission to begin in an old-fashioned way, like a minister^ with a text — and a very remarkable one. In the opening of the great debates between Lincoln and Douglas, the first one was held in the city of Ottawa. Judge Douglas spoke first, and with exquisite courtesy paid a beauti- ful compliment to his boyhood friend but lifetime political opponent, to which, when Mr. Lincoln arose at the close of the first hour, to make his brilliant reply, he responded with one of the world's classics. I call your attention to the re- markable language employed that day by Mr. Lincoln, and how like the Gettysburg speech was the phrasing then em- ployed. Mr. Lincoln said : "Twenty-two years ago Judge Douglas and I became acquainted. We were ])oth young then, he a trifle younger than I. And we were both ambitious — I perhaps quite as much as he. With me the race of ambition has been a failure — a flat failure. With him it has been one of splendid success. His name fills the nation and is not unknown in foreign lands. 38 I affect no contempt for the high eminence he has reached. I would rather stand upon that eminence than wear the richest crown that ever decked a monarch's brow. The judge means to keep me down — not put me down, I should not say, for I have never been up." That was only three years before Mr. Lincoln was elected President of the United States. It is safe to say that he did not at that time even dream that such an event could possibly take place. There was no hint that in the providence of God he was going to be lifted up through sorrow and tribulation, like another Moses, to lead the people of this country, as IMoses led the children of Israel, out of the Wilderness and into the Land of Promise that is ours today. Abraham Lincoln spent his boyhood days and earlier man- hood in an atmosphere that prejjared him for the tremendous struggles of his later life. Trained in the hard battles of pioneer days, of effort aud defeat, his powers were developed year by year until he was toughened and fitted to take care of the vital interests of this country in the awful emergencies of life or death, union or disunion, that called for the mastery of a strong and ready hand. In the greatest emergency of the greatest republic this earth has ever known, when it faced the peril of being divided and destroyed forever, and in that destruction obliterating the last hope of humanity all round the world of government for, of and by the people, Abraham Lincoln was equal to that mighty task. But I am to speak of another immortal son of Illinois — of Stephen A. Douglas, who has been dead for fifty-two years. I am standing here as a militant Douglas Democrat who has been an editor of a Democratic paper for fifty-five yearsi. fighting the battles of the Douglas Democrae.y, and thanking God, who has spared me until today to stand before this imperial audience in the capital of Illinois, the scene of his last magnanimous and heroic struggle to save the union of his love and to keep Old Glory in the skies above all the United States, from the Lakes to the Gulf. The gentleman who preceded me and who referred to Douglas' speech before the Illinois Legislature in 1861 as being the next to the last of his public utterances, was mistaken. The fact is that it Avas the very last speech he made in that old capitol which you have preserved, and which is now in use as your Springfield courthouse. That building should stand forever for its holy memories. (Applause.) It seems to me I can now hear that cathedral organ voice of the dead Douglas there. It seems to me if I would listen I might now hear the sweet and gentle A^oice of Abraham Lincoln in that ancient hall of representatives. Ladies and gentlemen, if you could hear those voices, as it was my privilege to hear them in those earlier days, you would preserve that sacred 39 building where posterity might worship and where, when you are gone, your children's children will pay ceaseless homage to that holy shrine. (Prolonged applause.) But I am to speak of the dead Doughis and tlie Douglas Democracy of his love. (Applause.) Judge Douglas died at the opening of the Civil War, June 5, 1861, amidst the lamenta- tions of people of all parties in the Northern states. Abraham Lincoln had then reached the eminence so dear to him. The opening notes of the Civil War filled the land. Vast armies were being organized North and South. The earth trembled beneath the tread of armed men from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. The booming guns of Fort Sumter drowned all other emotions. How natural it was to forget Douglas. We buried him beside the waters of Lake Michigan, singing forever a requiem near his grave, and then he was forgotten. For- gotten by this generation was his magnanimous devotion to the Union, to his boyhood friend who had defeated him for the presidency, and to the flag. All that this generation knows of Douglas and the Douglas Democracy has been muckraked out of the old villainous campaigns of 1858 and 1860 — villainous beyond words in its slanders and abuse of opposing candidates. As a young editor in that period I was in that dirty game. (Laughter and applause.) I raked Webster's dictionary for new and vicious epithets to apply to Lincoln. Democrats told a million lies about him and I did my share of it. (Laughter.) But on bended knees we have long since taken it all back and begged pardon of Almighty God and the ghost of Abraham Lincoln. But you Republicans told a million lies on Douglas and the Douglas Democracy, and you never have taken them back. (Applause and laughter.) To this day your histories and even your schoolbooks contain those rankest slanders against the dead Douglas. What a shame to the State of Illinois ! Just in this place two or three facts which I beg permission, in all kindness, and in honor of the dead Douglas, to present to this great audience. For nearly sixty long years the most insistent partisan declaration that has been dinned into our ears has been, "We Republicans fought the war, we saved the Union, we freed the negroes" — in spite of the fact known to everybody that in the Civil War we Democrats did all the fight- ing on one side and half of it on the other! (Prolonged laugh- ter and applause.) To illustrate the marvelo\js effect of Douglas' last speech in this city, we Democrats in old Fulton county for many years and during the war were carrying every election by about 500 majority. Meantime the Republicans were saying: "Wait until the boys come back and we will show you!" Our county had sent 3,300 soldiers to the war. At the close of the war those who survived returned to their homes. In 1866 we 40 nominated for county treasurer a radical old Democratic farmer, while the Republicans nominated their strongest man, the gallant Col. Cale Dilworth of the heroic old 85th Illinois regiment. In the election that followed the Democrats elected their man by 517 majority. We had gained 15 majority by the soldier boys coming home! (Laughter and applause.) Another peculiar fact on this subject that comes to me just now is one feature of the Republican platform adopted at that party's first national convention in 1856, when Gen. John C. Fremont was nominated for the presidency. That platform contained a declaration • of undying hostility to the twin atrocities, or infamies, or something — (turning to Gov. Yates, who sat upon the platform) : Gov. Yates, what was that phrase? I do not recall it. Gov. Yates : — It was ' ' The twin relics of barbarism, slavery and polygamy." Mr. Davidson (continuing) : — Yes, that is it, "twin relics of barbarism, slavery and polygamy." The last thing I heard of the Republican party last fall was that Utah was the only state they really hoped to carry for Taft and all the standpat Republican bosses, except my distinguished friend, Gov. Yates, were trying to crawl into bed with Senator Reed Smoot of that state and his seventeen wives. (Prolonged applause and shrieks of laughter.) Our friends, the Republicans, for sixty years have also been howling, "We freed the negroes!" It was an aucient bull moose proclamation for the humanities. Our friends should be really proud of that achievement, and we Democrats have no fault to find with them on that score. But I recall the fact, known of all Americans of ante-bellum days, that when we Democrats were running this country the negro slaves were fat and sassy, the best cared for and happiest people on the globe, and were worth on the average $1,000 apiece. But smce the Republicans have come into power the niggers are not worth two bits a dozen and you've got them to burn right here in the city of Springfield under the shadow of Lincoln's colossal monument. (Prolonged laughter and applause.) Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you will pardon the seeming rudeness of these facts I have given you in retaliation for the injustice done the great Douglas since his death 53 years ago. Because of the late hour and the fact that two distin- guished United States Senators and other eloquent gentlemen are yet to address you, I cannot go into the subject of the great debates of 1858 except to say that there was but one clear cut issue considered in that forensic battle, the status of slavery in the territories. Mr. Lincoln and his party contended that Congress had the power and by legislation should keep slavery out of them. 41 Jefferson Davis and his brother Southern radicals agreed with Lincoln and his party that Congress had all power over the question, but tluit by law it should protect slavery in the territories. Douglas and the conservative Democrats North and South held that it was a local and domestic concern and under the Constitution should be exclusively and finally settled by the people of the respective states and by the people of the ter- ritories when under the law they came to organize a territorial government. I presume there is not a person in this great audience who will not now confess that the people of the North never would have submitted to the despotic contention of the South, and equally that the people of the South never would have submitted to the radical contention of the Republican party. Either horn of the dilemma spelt Civil War or a dissolution of the Union and the final and awful ending of this last and brightest hope of government of, by and for the people. May I call your attention to this fact, that the pending Japan- ese imbroglio in California is a perfect illustration of the con- tention above referred to. Nobody now denies that Gov. Johnson and the Legislature of that state have the right to determine their local and domestic concerns under the Con- stitution, and with due obedience to all treaty rights. Douglas won the senatorship, but two years later, through the secession of southern Democrats and the division of tlie party he was defeated for the presidency. At last Douglas had met his first and final defeat. At last his boyhood friend, but political opponent, had reached the eminence more dear to him than Europe's richest crown. The echoes of the election had not died away when the Southern states commenced the awful blunder and crime of secession. Bitterness, hate and vengeance filled the Southland. Intrigue and assassination hovered about the capital. Lincoln was wisely guarded from his home in Springfield to Washington. There were bold threats that he would not live to take the oath of office on the 4th of March. 1861. A strange thing happened that day, and it was not an accident. Nearest to Abraham Lincoln in the supremest hour of his life, on the marble steps of the capitol, stood his illustrious defeated opponent, Senator Douglas. It was not an accident. In the limelight of the nation — in the gaze of a mil- lion and a half of Democrats who for a generation had wor- shipped and stood by Douglas as their imperial leader — there he stood as a proclamation to them all that he was going to stand by the man who had been elected under the Constitution as President of the United States — that he was going to stand by Lincoln in enforcing the Constitution and the laws and in preserving the Union at whatever expenditure of billions in treasure and rivers of blood if need be. Others may have been a little nervous as to possible bullets or daggers, I know not. But when Lincoln did not know what to do with his first shiny plug hat, the courtly Douglas took and held it during the 42 inaugural address and while the oath of office was administered — held the hat in his left hand while with his right he clutched a Colt's revolver in his pocket — stood there to defend the President with his life, if need be. And that is the Douglas for whom I am pleading this day, 0, men and women of Illinois, that you, too, shall love and honor him. That afternoon Douglas was called to the White House for a three hour consultation with the new President while his partisans and new cabinet were shut out from that magnan- imous and holy convocation. All that passed between them at that fateful conference will never be known. But the tele- graph wires were busy with the momentous event and next day the people from Maine to the Pacific knew that Douglas was going to stand by Lincoln. One thing we do know, and that is that Lincoln implored Douglas to go at once to Chicago and Springfield to rally Illinois Democrats to his support. His childhood frailty and feebleness had come back upon him in the tremendous strain he had endured in and out of the Senate to save the Union from secession and civil war. It was a feeble and dying man who reached Chicago and to a mighty multitude delivered the great speech rallying Democrats to the support of Lincoln and the Union. That speech is a classic that should be in all our school histories and readers. But it, too, has been forgotten. Almost helpless he was carried to a private car and taken to Springfield. His physicians and friends warned him it was taking his life in his hands to go. But he was as willing to die for the Union as he had been to die for the President. War Governor Richard Yates had called the Legislature in special session. It w^as a strange sight that met Douglas as he reached the old state house. The streets were crowded with members of the Legislature and prominent citizens from all parts of the State. Particularly conspicuous were the "war horses" and chieftains of the Democracy from central and Southern Illinois. They were wild over the pro- gressive secession of southern states and the opening notes of civil war. Their horror of it all and their bitterness were beyond all bounds. Let me frankly tell you that we Democrats did not take kindly to the abolition-secession Civil War gotten up by hot- bloods South and North. We had seen it coming for years. For years by tongue and pen we had been pleading for com- promise, fraternity and loyalty to the Constitution and the Union, and in vain. We were sneered at as "union-savers." The word "compromise" was condemned as overt treason. On the one hand we heard the silly boast: "The old women of the North with their brooms can sweep the South into the Gulf of Mexico. ' ' On the other hand was the fool boast : ' ' One Southern man can lick five Yankees." Right or wrong, we Democrats didn't like the Civil War at its beginning. We did not know as did Douglas, and until at Chicago and Springfield he exposed the fact, that Southern conspirators for years had been secretly 48 plotting to destroy the Union to save slavery. And so it was that at Springfield Douglas found his old party comrades by scores in bitter opposition to Lincoln and his war measures. Among them was one striking and unique figure, the most com- manding and wildest of them all. In stentorian tones and with a profanity that shamed the army in Flanders he was denounc- ing Lincoln as the greatest traitor on earth except one, and that was Stephen A. Douglas, Avho had not only played traitor to the Constitution and the Union by going over to Lincoln and his abolition war, but also had played traitor to the Democracy who had stood by him in storm and shine for a generation. On that pregnant day that man "about faced" to salute Lincoln and Old Glory. He became the bravest, most dashing and best beloved general in our western Union army under Grant and Sherman — was more adored by our western soldiers than either of them. Again, as in Chicago in 1850, he was facing a sullen and angry mulutitude. Pitifully feeble otherwise, he yet re- tained that unmatched cathedral organ voice that thrilled the bodies and souls of men. In its results it was the greatest oration ever made by mortal. He put all his ebbing vitality into the last impassioned cry: "In this crisis of the republic there can be no Democrats or Republicans. There is no middle ground. It is up to the man. He can only be a patriot or a traitor!" It was enough. At the touch of a magic hand, at the sound of that unmatched voice that has been silent 52 years, the murky Illinois waters of treason were changed into the glowing rich wine of patriotism and loyalty to country, and the John A. Logans, IMeClellands, Marshalls, Morrisons and uncounted hosts of Illinois Democrats were marshalled as by magic into the armies of the Union. I am speaking of the Douglas, in the hour of his country's peril, whose bugle blast was worth a million men for its salva- tion. "But for Douglas," says my honored friend, Col. Clark E. Carr, in his "Illini," "the war of the states would have com- menced on the prairies of Illinois instead of in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina." Douj'-'as was eently and lovingly conveyed back to his home in Chicago where a few days later, June 5, 1861, he died amidst the lamentations of a million men and women from ocean to ocean. Stalwart men in every city and hamlet of Illinois cried for the dead Douglas as a mother cries for her dead child. At the funeral obseauies in my own little city the orators of both parties broke down with sobs as they con- fessed and praised his sacrifices, his matchless magnanimity, his splendid achievements as a statesman and his patriotism unsurpassed by mortal in ancient or modern times. The great choirs from all the churches tried in vain with tear-splashed faces and quivering voices to render the solemn requiems that are only sung for kings and emperors and the mighty men of earth gone to their rest. His last words were: "Tell my 44 children to obey the Constitution and the laws," They were the keynote and inspiration of his life. Had they been the keynote of our national life, North and South, there would have been no seceding states, no horrid civil war, and long since slavery would have vanished from this republic as it has long since disappeared from earth, without the shedding of human blood, through the irresistible influence of i3ublic conscience aroused to horrified condemnation of that monstrous crime. In the prime of his splendid life Douglas died a martyr to the Union and the flag. His unparalleled labors to save us from secession and civil war were in vain. But, thank God, he did live long enough with his dying breath, with superhuman magnanimity to rally his adoring legions to the defense of Lincoln, the Blessed, and the Union of our love. What mag- nanimity! What loyalty! I am here pleading with my fellow countrymen to help me bring back to glowing life the long dead and misunderstood, if not forgotten Douglas. When the truth of history is made plain — when the second centennial of his birth shall be honored in this fair city of Springfield, a grateful nation in its Hall of Fame, high up beside the name of the immortal Lincoln, will have placed in letters of living light the adored name of Stephen Arnold Douglas. Governor Dunne : — It has become apparent that with the hour getting late, we will not be able to hear our two distin- guished Senators at this session, and after a consultation with the committee on arrangements, after the next speaker, Mr. Everett Jennings, we will take an adjournment until eight o'clock this evening, when we will hear from Senators Sherman and Lewis. At this time I take great pleasure in introducing the next speaker this afternoon, Assistant State's Attorney of Cook County, Everett Jennings. (Applause.) Honorable Everett Jennings Governor Dunne, Members of the Legislature, Ladies and Gentlemen: I do not intend to inflict a speech upon you at this time of the day. I am commissioned to come here by the young men of Illinois and in a few brief words will undertake to tell you how we young men, Democrats and Republicans, young men of every religion and every nationality, love the name and the fame of Stephen A. Douglas. I listened to a splendid speech this afternoon and I won- dered what I could say that would entertain this audience after you had listened to the magnetic words of Senator Reed ; and I wondered what I could say after you had heard the grandson of the immortal man, whose name you now honor. I wondered what I could say when I am to be followed by your gifted and learned Senator Sherman and by your eloquent and distin- Everett Jennings 46 guished Senator Lewis, but I knew you would grant to a young man the opportunity of representing the young men and of appearing before you, following an old man,, ripe in years and ripe in experience, and saying to you as he loved Stephen A. Douglas who knew him, we love Stephen A. Douglas who did not know him but who know his fame and love his record. (Applause.) Viewed from any standpoint, Stephen A. Douglas was a marvelous man. His grandfather was with Washington and passed that terrible winter at Valley Forge. He fought to the end of the war and was present at the surrender of Cornwallis. Douglas' ancestry was historical and heroic. The young government which the patriotism of Douglas' ancestors and ours gave to us startled the world with its growth, territorial and material. Here we have liberty and law, domes- tic peace and prosperity, homes and happiness. In the race of nations we have outstripped all others. Stephen A. Douglas, proud, young and poor, came to Illi- nois and made Winchester his home. A stranger in a strange land he displayed in the early struggles of life the ability, cour- age and determination which his grandfather had shown in the War of the Revolution. His rise was instantaneous and rapid. Becoming a lawyer, he filled the offices of Attorney General, member of the Legislature, Registrar of the Land Office, Judge of the Supreme Court, and member of Congress, and all this was done in ten years after he came to Illinois, and by the time he reached thirty years of age. Unaided and alone, with his own strong arm, brave heart and fertile brain, these successes came to him. For him there was no troop of influential connections or family partisans ready to puff him into prompt notice or force him upon fame. These honors did not come to him by chance, but were won in many hard fought battles on the stump and in the court house. Like steel from flint, the collision with other minds struck in- stant fire from his own. In the battles of life he had developed into a great soldier and was ready and prepared for the war- fare of a great national career. Napoleon, it is said, played in infancy with a miniature cannon. From that the image of war may have been stamped on the mind of the Conqueror of Europe. The inspiration of Douglas could be attributed to the brilliant career of his grand- father. This early eminence of fame and influence might, to a soul less ardent, have seemed the very topmost pinnacle, but to Stephen A. Douglas it was but a momentary resting place from which he would climb to dizzier heights and greater fame. (Applause.) The slavery question in its territorial phase was constantly uppermost in Congerss and in the Senate. The lines for the great parliamentary battle just preceding the Civil War were beginning to be drawn. To win in the Senate a leadership such as he had readily won among his fellows at school, in the 47 Democratic organization of Illinois, at the bar, such as he was then winning in the House of Representatives, and then to find and establish the right policy with reference to slavery, and particularly slavery in the territories — there lay his path. This was his duty. This was his ambition. That he could be a leader in the Senate, he did not question ; the Senate in which were Clay, Webster, Benton and Crittenden, and many other giants; that he could solve the slavery question and save the Union he did not doubt, though all others had failed. Stephen A. Douglas belonged to that class of minds who in every situation and under every form of government are found the unflinching advocates of rational and regulated liberty founded on principles fixed and eternal. He followed Jefferson and Jackson and believed their principles sufficient for the settlement of every public question. He regarded Government as something framed for the defense of the weak against the strong, of the few against the man>, and considered human rights as only safe where fixed laws, and not fluctuating caprices of men and parties, were supreme. Douglas was an expansionist. He dreamed of an ocean bound republic. He objected to the promise in the treaty of peace with Mexico, that we would never acquire other territory as we had acquired Texas. He was vindicated and our Gov- ernment afterwards paid ten millions of money to have the treaty changed in that regard. He opposed the Bulwer- Clayton treaty, because he did not desire to hinder our future generations in acquiring territory in Central America, and upon this subject he said in the Senate : "You may make as many treaties as you please to fetter the limbs of this giant republic, and she will burst them all from her, and her course will be onward to a limit which I will not venture to describe." His was a life full of brave battles, full of courageous con- duct, and full of patriotic purpose. His victory over the im- mortal Lincoln for Senator against the Democratic administra- tion in power, combined with the Republicans and the growing sentiment against slavery, is the most stupendous political victory in all the tide of time. He became and remained to his death the leader of the Senate, as he had been the leader in every other field of contest. To do full justice to Stephen A. Douglas, we should remember, as we compare him with Lincoln in Illinois, and other states- men and rivals in the Senate, that Douglas' bark was on an ebbing tide while they were lifted on a flowing tide. His greatest and crowning work was done in the United States Senate during the last ten years of his life. He fought in that arena the greatest forensic battles ever waged since the flight in years began. He dedicated his life with all this power, as a debater and all his force as a statesman, to the settlement of the questions dividing the North and South, and which threatened to dissolve the Union. 48 "With all the force of his rare genius, his commanding character, and his imperious will, he sought to bring the North and South together. He saw, as no other statesman of his day saw, the dire disaster of a divided country, and the hor- rors of a war between brothers. Even after South Carolina had seceded from the Union, he hoped to avert war. In a speech urging arbitration and pleading for compromise, he said : "Secession is wrong, unlawful, unconstitutional and crim- inal. South Carolina had no right to secede. The rights of the Federal Government remain^, but possession is lost. How can possession be regained — by arms or by a peaceable adjust- ment of the matters in controversy? Are we prepared for war? I do not mean the kind of preparation which consists of armies and navies and supplies and munitions for war, but are we prepared for war with our own brethren and kindred? I confess I am not." "When the die was cast, when the Kubicon was crossed, when the war came, Douglas was heart and soul with the Union. He could not stem the tide. He could not prevent war. God passed the rod over the land and smote his people. The war with all its horrors came, but Douglas did not live to witness it. This supreme struggle of the life of this great man was waged in the Senate of the United States to save his coun- try, to avoid shedding blood and to avert the destruction of human life. God never made a nobler man than Stephen A. Douglas, or gave to man a nobler purpose than this. In this struggle, Douglas lost, his health was gone, his heart was broken. He died little past middle life, the monarch of the Senate was conquered. As was said of Ben Hill: "His sun went down at noon, but it sank amid the prophetic splendors of an eternal dawn." The Constitution of our country had been his pillar of cloud by day and his pillar of fire by night. Lifting his eyes in death, with the last feeble pulsation of his breaking heart and the last faint exhalation of his fleeting breath, he left this message to his baby boys: "Tell them to obey the laws and support the Constitution of the United States." I thank you. (Applause.) Governor Dunne : — "We will now adjourn and continue the exercises this evening at eight o'clock. All are welcome and there will be no tickets of admission necessary for tonight. "Whereupon a recess was taken nntil eight o'clock of the evening of the same day. Stephen A. Douglas 50 Douglas Centenary Reconvened at Eight o' Clock P. xvl. in the Hall of the House of Representatives, Governor Dunne, Presiding. GOVERXOR DUXXE Ladies and Gentlemen: It would be work of supererrogation for me to introduce to this audience, or in fact to any audience in the State of Illinois, either of the two gentlemen who will address this meeting tonight. Both of these gentlemen have been prominently before the people of the State of Illinois diu-ing the last two years, as candidates for the position of United States Senator, representing this State in the upper House of the Congress of the United States. There is not a man or a woman in this hall tonight who has not met personally, I am satisfied, or heard personally, either one or both of these gifted gentlemen. One of them received the endoi*sement of the people of his party at the polls, when he appealed to the Republican rank and file. The other received the endorsement of his party when he appealed to the rank and file of the Democratic party. "^iVith the usual courtesy that distinguishes both of these gentlemen, each has been asking for the other the position of honor tonight — in other words, the privilege of first addressing this audience. Senator Sherman insists that Senator Lewis should have that right : Senator Lewis insists that Senator Sherman should have that right. In view of the fact that we are celebrating the memory and the name and fame of a great Democrat, I have thought it fit and proper that if there is any rank of priority in doing honor to Stephen A. Douglas, that it should be accorded to the Republican Senator from the State of Illinois, Mr. Sherman, (Applause.) I take great pleasure in asking, now — not introducing, but asking. Lawrence Y. Sherman. L'nited States Senator from this State, to address this audience. (Applause.) Honorable La^\Trence Y. Sherman Governor Dunne, the Members of the General Assembly, who are met in Joint Session, and all others who are present tonight: I return to vou mv thanks for the courtesv of the invitation extended to me personally, and. through me. to all those of my political belief. It is manifestly fitting that all, without regard to party affiliation, shall meet here on this day. s> Lawrence Y. Sherman LIBRARY iiwi\fCR<;rrv Of nMNfT 52 It is eminently fitting that the anniversary marking the one hundredth milestone since the birth of a great American should be kept ■without regard to the political belief of the person whose name we tonight honor. It is always proper to remember with some fitting tribute those who have stood out from their fellows. It is not because such men are any better than others. It is only because they have developed the qualities, and have inspired the confidence always necessary in the spokesmanship for a great body of people. TVithout that confidence, and without that ability, there can be no leadership : and the leaders only represent those who believe in them, and who follow them, in the struggles that sweep over the field of American politics. There is no place in this republic where it is more proper than the birthday, and the one hundredth anniversary of that birthday be celebrated, than here in Illinois ; not because, by the mere accident of birth or otherwise, either of the men whose names unconsciously arise in our memories, belonged here in Illinois ; not because their birthplaces were elsewhere, but be- cause in all their mature manhood, and in their finished efforts of the best years of their lives, the theatre of their action was in this State first, and, later, in the entire field of Kepublican and Democratic politics. (Applause.) It was polities in the better and the higher sense. It was politics in the governmental sense, not a mere strife for empty victory, not a struggle over the right to control payrolls. It was a struggle over the vital and elementary things of human government in this republic. It was a high t^-pe of politics, and the keynote of that politics was first struck in the State of Illinois in the great Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858, in this State. (Applause.) These men began a local fight, if I may be allowed to use the phrase, in Illinois : and before it was ended the struggle was national. Their followers still live in this State, some of them who were active in the campaign. It is entirely proper for me to say what they cannot. I do not remember the days of that struggle. The most of my generation were in their cradles when it began. "WTien it ended, we had not yet ar- rived at the dignity of understanding. "We have heard the followers of Douglas say that the Republicans who fought him in campaigns, here and elsewhere, did not do him justice, and do not now, such of them as are spared in the list of mortality, do him justice. I have heard the same remark of his great antagonist, Lincoln. I believe they are both correct. Some of them may have done the honorable thing and the just thing, in the acknowledgment of their errors, if there 53 were such errors ; but for the men of my generation Ave can truthfully say that according to their lights, that these two men of Illinois gave to this republic a higher level of politics, and performed a duty second to no citizen in this republic in the hour when great issues crowded to the front for set- tlement. I have prepared brief notes, with quotations, in order that I might be correct, and in the few moments that I can look into your faces, I will endeavor to adhere strictly to the line that I have marked out to abide by, in this address. It is useless for me to say that this is hallowed ground. Men have made pilgrimages from many remote parts of the earth, that they might linger in Springfield. There are few who come here, who know the history of this country, who do not, at the same time they pay a tribute to Lincoln, remember his great colleague in that struggle, because in its conclusion he was a colleague. From this capital at one time there originated a forensic struggle that was titanic in its elements and in its actors. It is difficult, after more than half a century has elapsed, to study the controversy and the men who conducted it, with- out a quickening pulse and a brightening eye. Both of them developed their peculiar powers in the pioneer life of Illinois. Both sprang from the people. Both had the same inheritances of head, and heart and hand. One was a woodman and a flat- boatman. The other was a cabinet-maker. One was a sur- veyor. The other was an auctioneer's clerk. Both were law- students. Both were afterwards lawyers, both were members of the Legislature. Both were stump speech debaters in the manner of that time, that has endured to the present hour. Both became the chiefs of great political parties. Both became candidates for LTnited States Senator. Both were candidates for the Presidency, but alwa^^s, wherever they were, whether in the midst of the primeval forest, or crossing the channels of the inland rivers, whether they were in court, or in a cam- paign, they were always an inspiration and type for the youth of the country to emulate, and the men of this republic to admire. We owe, tonight, to Stephen A. Douglas, this tribute to his memory, and our respects for the 100th anniversary of his birth. It is altogether fit and proper that here and now we record our devotion to his life and to his public services. Let me sketch a moment. This republic was the child of successful revolution. No one of the thirteen original States could have fought its battles alone. Independence for all was the necessary result of the union of all. The problems of peace followed hard by on the problems of war. What British armies could not do, the jealousies of 54 the states seemed about to accomplish. All saw that the Union must be made more powerful, more capable and more secure, so bold headlands that shelter and safeguard the vital elements of civil liberty were thrown up. Both public peace and individual liberty were gathered in one great charter, and the United States came upon the theatre of action in the west- ern hemisphere. It was adopted by states. The states were the units of creation. It was neither created nor adopted by the people, en masse. In the beginning all government was in the states. They yielded, by their voluntary action, certain of the sovereign powers of government, to the union formed. Within the scope of those powers, there are no state boundaries, no superior authority, no state's rights. There are solidarity, a single people, and sovereignty, to the remotest border of the United States territory. The construction — this is for the lawyers I am talking now, to my professional brethren, and excuse myself if the others do not find it interesting, or do not care to understand. The construction of a granted power ought to be broad enough to apply it to changed conditions, inseparably connected with, and a vital part of subjects that lie within the direct expression of the text of the granted power ; such conditions, so changed, being within the spirit, though not within the letter of the text. It is this liberal construction that gives a written constitution the elasticity to respond to the progressive needs of the age, without either the destruction or violation of its granted powers. Construction cannot write new powers in that charter, neither in the letter nor spirit of those already there. If we leave the realm of enumerated Federal powers, their liberal construction, and such incidental powers and means as are reasonably necessary and proper to the execution of granted powers, all beyond this is the exclusive province of the states of the Union, now 48 in number. If this domain beyond be entered by the Federal authority, it must be by constitutional amendment. Amendment cannot be had by judicial decision, by executive action, nor by legis- lative enactment. (Applause.) Every such method of amend- ment is not amendment. It is usurpation. (Applause.) The mere power to usurp never disguises its character. Calling anything 16 inches in length when it is only 12, never increases the length of anything. Many persons are the victims of defi- nition, and of a misunderstanding of language, but it never changes the basic conditions. There is but one way to amend. It is to follow the established channel, ordained by the instru- ment that created the Union. No emergency, however great, justifies any other course. Civil war did not relax this requirement. The statesman's pen followed swiftly the warrior's sword. No economic change 55 in time of peace can ever justify a usurpation now. It must continue, as in the past, to be a government of law, and not a government of men. (Applause.) If it be important enough to make some ponder over the propriety of using lawless ways, it is certainly important enough to cause such persons to utilize their energy to secure amendments in law and order, and thus they may make friends of those who will surely oppose lawless methods ; and the for- mer will support civil Jiberty rather than seek to destroy it. The State — I am talking now of our State, of your State, if you are in a neighboring jurisdiction — the State is protected from the dismemberment of its territory by the charter. .No new state can be created within the boundaries of any other state, nor can a new state be created from the parts of any other state, unless by the consent — of whom? Of the legislature of the state, always on the idea that the legislature of the state will always some time be in session to give its approval or disapproval to the question. Every state is given two United States Senators. Some- body has said you can amend and take that away, so that we will have, after a while as it was in the days of Oliver Cromwell, a government of the commonwealth, by a single house, and that the House of Commons. One of the paragraphs in a section of this charter says that no amendment shall be had to it that will destroy the right of the state to equal suffrage in the United States Senate. An amendment that did so, while it might be justified as an act of governmental or military power, would of itself be an act of aggression, and would be further a voluntary act of dissolution by the sovereign power upon one of its members. Neither, therefore, can be taken from the state without its consent. Forty-seven other states might seek in vain to despoil the 48th state of either of those rights. It was so in the beginning. It was so when the govern- ment was formed. I do not think it indicates any degree of progress whatever to attempt to turn a representative republic of this kind into a "tumultuous town meeting" — in the lan- guage of Stephen A. Douglas. (Applause.) The people of that state and its territory are a unit. Its rights cannot be killed by an epithet. This double sovereignty puzzles the ambassa- dors and representatives of other countries, sometimes. It is puzzling Japan now. (Applause.) The only reason that Illinois is not puzzling this country is because we are two thousand miles from the heaving tides of the Pacific. If Illinois lay along the Pacific Coast, the representatives of that ancient land would be criticising the land laws of Illinois for the last eighteen years, much worse than they are in California today. In fact, the more you study the experiences of this State, the more you find that in embryo, and within a smaller theater of operations, that Illinois in her State government has struck r. 6 almost every phase and note of governmental power, and in many ways and cases she has blazed the way and held aloft the light for other states to act. The boundary between the Fed- eral authority and the State authority is not always plainly visible, but it exists, and an examination always reveals the line of division. This general outline, if you will pardon me, is essential on this anniversary, to measure the height and depth of slavery and disunion. Property and slaves was as ancient as human history. From the remotest time, since man has kept a tablet of recorded events, it was an institution among the most ancient and the most civilized of all early nations. It was recognized in the Union. Its existence, as a lawyer in his written pleading would say, was confessed and avoided All hoped and tacitly believed it would be confined to certain states, w^hose climate, soil and production made it profitable. Fugitives escaped from bondage and fled to free soil. Their recapture was difficult. It led to much reprisal and great controversy. New States knocked for admission. A struggle began to make them slave or free. When this cloud first darkened the fitmament, Stephen A. Douglas appeared in the field of Ameri- can politics, with those conditions, and with the legal status of State and Union as I have briefly sketched the outlines. Barriers had been built up between free soil and slavery. Compromise after compromise had stayed the gathering storm. The ordinance of 1787 had dedicated the great Northwest to freedom. The Dred Scott decision, in necessary effect, said a slave was property and could be taken to any place within the United States and there held in involuntary service. Against this Douglas invoked the doctrine of popular sover- eignty, in the Kansas-Nebraska bill. He proclaimed the rights of the people in a territory to decide for themselves whether, when admitted as a State, it should be slave or free. It was stigmatized in ensuing campaigns as squatter sovereignty. Douglas really hoped— and let us tonight, after the great lapse of time, when the passions have nearly all died away, give him credit for the sincerity of his own thoughts and convictions — Douglas really hoped to avert the irrepressible conflict, and to restrain slavery by the police regulations of the several states of the Union. On these issues he met Lincoln in joint debate in 1858. For many months Illinois was the forum, before a mighty jury of free men. The verdict showed the beginning of the end. No greater debate ever commanded the attention of the English speaking people. It was local in its area, but it was national in its issues, in its conclusions and in the arguments employed. .)/ It was the fate of Douglas to fail in his great ambition. His Kansas-Nebraska bill sank in the gulf of civil war. It is singular at this time to read that those who adminis- tered Federal power, by construction and otherwise, sent slavery into the states opposed that institution. Such states considered free soil as their sovereign right, and so the vital dispute was a usurpation then, as sometimes is sought to be a usurpation now, of an undoubted right of a local sovereignty, known as a state. States' rights is an unpopular phrase. It is supposed to have perished in the blaze of a hundred hard fought fields. In fact, the rights, the legitimate rights, of the states were pre- served on those fields, and the change was made by written constitutional amendment. They may have first been written in the light of the camp fire, circled with the embattled hosts of the Union ; but they were afterwards gathered by the hand of the statesman, and put upon constitutional parchment, not that they were thereby sanctified, but that the evidence was thereby preserved of those volcanic passions which gave birth to this mighty settlement of civil war. (Applause.) The vital principle, the same thing, w^as in Shay's Insurrec- tion, out in Western Pennsylvania, in Washington's adminis- tration. Let us be fair tonight. Let us tell the truth, not part of it, but as in a court of justice, the whole truth, tonight. South Carolina and Mississippi were not the first states that talked secession. Alabama was not the first state to talk about a negro having no rights. Prudence Clements, a school teacher in New England, was fined and jailed for teaching negro children to read and write. (Laughter.) Now, that is not told in 1860. We can tell it in 1913. (Applause.) In New Hampshire, ropes were put about a school house. Oxen w^ere attached and they pulled it away, because it was a negro school house. They quit that after a while. They grew more civilized, just as they quit burning witches in New Salem. They wanted everybody, at one time, to pray as they did; but that Avas intolerance in matters of conscience. We got away from that years ago. Every church in this re- public of ours has left that long, long ago, . and universal toleration is one of the cornerstones of this republic (Ap- plause), and we are nearer God tonight than we ever were be- fore, because of it. (Applause.) You have read of the Hartford convention — you men of my age have. What was it? The seaports along in the codfish country (Laughter) did much foreign commerce, and the Em- bargo Act, that prohibited foreign trade, interfered with the profits thereof; and the convention was held. The impartial historian, Mr. Dwight, who palliates the offense as much as possible, yet files what I meant a while ago, 58 as a plea of confession and avoidance. He confesses there was a great deal of what we called, in 1861, "treason," talked in that convention. They talked in resounding terms of the Kentucky and Virginia resolution. You have forgotten that in my native state of Ohio, the Legislature once passed secession resolutions. (Laughter and applause.) They did not really secede from the Union, but they were very mad about it. They attacked a branch of the United States bank, and they sent in a state officer with a writ who levied on a quantity of money in the vaults of the bank — when the Federal courts decided that the bank was not subject to state taxation, being a branch of the Federal gov- ernment, and its instrumentalities being exempt from taxation. AVhen the state officers persevered, the Federal authorities immediately began contempt proceedings and finally the state officers abandoned the undertaking. It was then, as usual, in cases we know of that kind — thej^ carried their grievance to the Legislature. It is a general receptacle for all the governmental kicks of everybody. (Laughter and applause.) They proceeded in due form to pass resolutions which are almost, in substance, the same as the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions. For the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions there is no excuse at this time. They plainly declared the superiority of the state, in matters of controversy, over the powers of the Federal government. Slavery used those powers to justify disunion, but that doctrine is the one that perished in the Civil War, not the legitimate powers of the states, that have never been granted away. Stripped bare of all obscuring incidents, it was law- lessness. Disunion was disintegration, and the dissolution of the bonds of civil government. With this brief sketch that I regard as essential to under- stand the character of Douglas, let us stop. Here let us pause before Douglas the American. Under the pitiless discipline of defeat, he rose to the sublime height where only patriots walk. (Applause.) When the flag was lowered at Sumter, Douglas became the first and the greatest of war Democrats. (Applause.) He pledged his help to Lincoln, to maintain the Union, and he nobly redeemed his promise. (Applause.) He saw armed rebellion lift its hand against a people's government. The gathering squadrons of disunion hurried to the fields of the Civil War ; but amid the confusion his voice always rang true. "There are no neutrals in this country. There are none but patriots and traitors." The words printed on your pro- gram are the words that, if any great dome should be erected to his memory, in marble and bronze, ought to be cut on its base — 59 these words that are the words of one who believed in this Union and believed it was worth saving, as it then was. (Applause.) •> Ou June 3, 1861, he died, young in years, but fruitful in results. His battle cry sounded from the grave. The spirit of Douglas rose, above the storm of civil war, from Sumter to Appomattox. The men who followed him in campaign, met treason on a hundred fields. They gave proof of their devo- tion, as men \\ ho loved the Ihiion, by the sacrifice of their lives. There was no party in the service that Douglas gave, in the last remnants of his broken life. (Applause.) In the last supreme test his heroic figure, in Illinois, must rise alongside of the memory of Lincoln. (Applause.) He Avas rightfully called the "Little Giant." Born in obscurity, and bred in poverty, with head and hand and heart imbued with valor and devotion, he lived to see the time when he was the leader of hundreds of thousands of men who trusted implicitly his judgment, his honor, his wisdom, his courage. To his great rival, in the day of defeat, he gave 1he full measure of his devotion. He was great in life, but he was unspeakably greater in his death. (Applause.) Let me read what he said, and with this I conclude : "The right and province of expounding the Constitution, and con- struing the laAV. is vested in the judiciary established by the Constitution." We all believe that. We all believe it ought to be. "As a lawyer" (continuing) "I feel at liberty to appear before the court and controvert any principle of law, while the question is pending before the tribunal ; but when the decision is made, my private opinion, and your private opinion, and all other opinions, must yield to the majesty of the authorita- tive decisions of the courts. (Applause.) I wish you to bear in mind that this involves a great principle, upon which our rights and our liberty and our property all depend. What .security have you. for your property, for your reputation, for your personal rights, if the courts are not upheld, and their decisions respected, when once formally rendered by the highest tribunal? I do not choose, therefore, to go into any argument on this question. I have no idea of appealing from a decision of the Supreme Court, upon a constitutional question, to the decision of a tumultuous town meeting." (Applause.) That was Douglas! That was not Douglas alone. It was, though falling from his lips, the embodied genius and power and philosophy of this American republic. He was only the poor instrument, as he said, falling from his lips in the fleeing moment the things that were necessary for the endurance of civilized government. GO I came here readily and willingly. I came on the request of those who had charge of this anniversary. I would wil- lingly have traveled three times one thousand miles to have recorded, publicly, my admiration, and to do justice to the memory, not of this great Democrat, but of this great American citizen. (Prolonged applause.) Governor Dunne : — And I now take pleasure, my friends, in introducing the last speaker, the great tribune of Democracy, the man upon whose shoulders has fallen the oratorical gift of Douglas in his day, and Altgeld, in his — James Hamilton Lewis, United States Senator. (Prolonged applause.) Senator James Hamilton Lewis Governor Dunne, Ladies and Gentlemen of this Assemblage: It is always a source of gratification for a man to receive praise from any one. When his known bosom and confidential friend finds it agreeable to pay him a tribute, it may be expected that that tribute will oft-times be as exaggerated as the con- fidence and affection. It is to that you must ascribe the very glowing enconium I have just received at the hands of your presiding officer. I join with my distinguished colleague in the expression of great satisfaction that this occasion gives an opportunity to address the Legislature and its guests. Conditions which shall eventually, and probably shortly, encompass the official life of both of us, will hardly render probable our frequent return, to be honored with your patient and flattering attentions. I would have come to this gathering, if there had been no other object than to have done myself the service of a renewed association with a body of men to whom I still feel a sense of defined obligation, and who, when they have separated, from these official duties, to return to their several callings, in their respective homes, I will have too little opportunity to per- sonally greet and personally know, as I would love to, as friend and friend. I pray that I may be pardoned for speaking for my dis- tinguished colleague and myself, without any regard to those appellations which distinguish the names of the parties to which we are allied, if I beg to say that every member of this honorable body would do us both a great compliment, from time to time, as they may be inspired from the necessities of themselves, or the demands of their constituents, should they let such wants be known to us, as their public representa- tives, that in that way, if no other, we may not altogether be divided in our official duties any great distance apart. Gentlemen of this committee, who have organized this occasion, I extend to you, as an American citizen, my sincere Senator James Hamilton Lewis t?) appreciation, and express to you the just praise tiiat is due you. The people of Illinois, in continuing the memory of her great sons, and perpetuating them before the country are reviving the virtues which citizenship loves to recall. Thus Ave pay a tribute to the illustrious dead. You may be unconscious, gentlemen of this Legislature, of the extent to which this service will go, in its influence upon the people of our day ; but there is no man who sits here to- night, if he have but the reflection of the citizen, who will under-estimate the splendid inspiration to the youth of this day that these celebrations, on the 12th of February and on the 23d of April, to two distinguished gentlemen of Illinois, Avill awaken to the youth of the nation ! Young men who are in the colleges in Illinoisi, animated with noble aspirations, boys in the common schools who have been inspired by a father's hope and a mother's prayer, seeking elevation in themselves, Avill often times be confronted with the knowledge oi these celebrations, by which you have paid trib- ute to greatness, but more to virtue. To these it will be an encouragement, and to those young lives a great encouragement in their undertaking ; and because of that, if there be no other form of compensations you are, believe me, much rewarded for the time that you give from your public undertakings, to celebrations of this order ! How true it is, as Douglas said, in his opening great speech in the lower House of Congress, in the defense of Andrew Jackson, that the reputation of a country's great man is its property and one in which it should take pride(. and cherish with praise, and defend against defamation ! All lovers of beautiful expression are gladdened, when entering the classic city of Athens, to find inscribed on what is known as the seventh j^illar of that splendid outer gate, the great truth of Pericles, proclaiming that "A land without heroes is a country without history!" You meet tonight, and these gentlemen who have honored us by their presence from abroad, mingle with you, to pay that just tribute to the per- sonality of American citizenship. It is not my purpose, gentlemen, to enter into a history of the life and career of the distinguished disciple of this occasion. To do so would not only be superfluous, but I fear it would mar that which had gone before me. We recall the incident related in Constant's Memoirs of Napoleon, that took place just at the time when the conquering Napoleon was about to ascend the Alps. Berthier, his friend, and the commanding general of one of his corps, turned and said: "Sire, we are about to cross the Alps; what will history say?" Napoleon responded: "It will say that Hannibal crossed it before us." So, anything I may add to this oc- 63 casion must be responded to in the just tribute, that Hannibal has crossed it before me. (Bowing to Senator Sherman.) (Prolonged applause.) I am content if this occasion will allow me, with some degree of audacity, to intrude some interpretation upon the splendid speech of my distinguished colleague. I prefer, upon this occasion, when I note and recall the addresses which have been delivered by the distinguished son of his more distinguished sires, and the distinguished Senator from Missouri, and others Avho are our guests, if I may be permitted to mark in some cogent form — without more pretense than mere conversation, what was the real meaning of the things for which Mr. Douglas stood. Rather than to trace his life, I prefer as one who scans some circle of mountains, to behold the promontories, and, noting them, jutting high into the sky, stand as one who views their eminence, and point to their splendid elevation, and by these to have you judge the array, content that there will be no injustice. What were the particular things for which this man lived ? When Emerson was asked if his famous expression — that great events gave life to great men — were intended to mean that great men only became great as the birth of a great event, he responded: "No; I meant that which all men understand, that it is the things for Avhich men live, and the great events to Avhich their lives aspire, which make them great." Then let me say to my friend. Judge Sherman, taking his splendid speech as my text: There was, in Mr. Douglas' atti- tude, much misunderstanding in the day of the deliverance, as there has been, since then, much confusion in the object which he sought. True, as Judge Sherman says, the very expression, "States' rights" were upheld, at that time, by very eminent and capable men, as expressions of ignominy and odium — understood by many as carrying with it the intimation that the State assumed to have a right superior to tliat of the nation, and, under this right to exercise a sovereignty that enabled it to depart from its mother country, and to sever the obligation that held it in Union. The expression, "States' rights," was too often con- strued to arrogate a principle of sovereignty over the federal union in matters of conflict between the state and the nation in affairs purely national. But I may add that it has ever been the curse of all political philosophy, and all of religious science, that the mere designation of terms has been permitted to con- fuse ideas and to destroy ideals. 1 may remind my distinguished friend, who just preceded me^ that ]\Ir. Draper, in his Intellectual Development, has ex- pressed a thought well calculated to cause men to ponder, when 64 he asserts that single expressions, some times of opprobrium, or of praise, have been known to destroy the germ of ideas and ideals. How well do we recall, this night, that the mere designa- tion of a term was used to prevent the great Christian religion from imparting its blessings to mankind, and hallowing its sanctity over the civilization of the earth, for twenty-eight years. How we remember that the Great Man came, seeking to disseminate the message of His life, the strength and sweet- ness of His love, and was asked "whence came He from." Avith the answer "Nazareth;" and the other responded, "Can any good come out of Nazareth?" It was enough that He was called a Nazareue. In those days, to which these speeches have alluded, it would seem to be sufficient that a man should be merely called by the name "Democrat" or be known as one designated an adherent of that theory denominated "States' rights." What really was the meaning, gentlemen, of this modern day, and of that? Well indeed might I enjoy, with these gentlemen who have preceded me, the consolation that this is the hour, when there are no lashings of invective, no tierce partisan ties, when there are no bitter hatreds, arrayed on one side against the other,— preventing mankind from beholding the splendid achievements of their fellow Americans. Honor may write with an indelible hand the tribute that is due them, and with justice proclaim, when need be, the wrong committed against them. What, therefore, was really meant by the attitude of Douglas? To use the words of Emerson, "What was the height to which he sought to attain, and the thing eminent for which he lived to secure?" Let us pause for a moment, and indulge this thought ; that there never was a time in civilization, which has found a record in history, when there was not a jealous care on the part of the citizenship for something of the sovereign inherent in humanity, and which ever suggested to the self that it was king within itself, within its own sphere. The sovereignty of man was ever the eternal demand of the citizen, and to this dav a man Avill resent, however much be- loving he may feel towards a neighbor, the assumption on his part to direct him in the purely private affairs of his own life, man, feeling the sovereignty of self, will demand that he be permitted, as a man, to express his own views, and execute them, by virtue of the inherent sovereignty implanted of God, and feeling within himself all his inheritance from his fathers. This, in its multiplications, finds its way to the very small- est political geography. The very ward in a city will resent the interference or invasion of the neighboring ward; and the 65 district will likewise resent aud avenge the intrusion of the neighboring district, however much in common their rights or their desires may be; and well do you know that a city will fight to the death of achievement of an undertaking rather than to have a rival community assume to speak to it in the language of domination or direction. Why? Because these are but the combination and the collection of the unit individual, expressing, in the combination and the collection, the sentiment of the man. Thus we iind the political division of the State, and after all, see nothing more than that political unit expressing the ideal of the man, demanding that in itself, and for itself, in all matters which touch itself, it should be sovereign. And in the word "sovereign" there was no intent, on the part of students of the Constitution, for a state to assume a sovereignty above and superior to the national government, in matters in which the national government had been ordained by the fathers to be sovereign. The State was to be sover- eign in all of those matters in which the individual purely local must necessarily be, in order that he might control his own affairs and be the master of his own private destinies in home and household. How natural, therefore, for Mr. Douglas that these views should have been felt in the day in which he lived, and ex- pressed in the hour in which he moved. It was born, gentlemen, of inheritance. The tribes of Israel, as shown by the earliest record we have of a form of government, were so completely for individual sovereignty within themselves, that marriages intermingling betAveen the tribes were regarded as a violation of the sovereignty, and met with punishment ; even the fear of death, as the result of this violation. When the Grecian states came together, and formed the alliance known as the Achaean League, it was a serious question as to how far the league could go. When some of our fore- fathers sought to model a form for the early foundation of this government, based largely upon the Amphictyonie League, it was debated among them as to how far the right of the individual should extend, to contend for his rights according to its ancient sovereignty, as it had enjoyed them. The very first effort that had been made on the part of one of the states to control the city of Sparta, and to dominate Athens and Corinth, resulted in the Achaean League becoming severed apart, as you know from history. It was not at all unnatural, therefore, that when this gov- ernment was formed, with these lessons before our forefathers, there should have been formed what Judge Sherman aptly termed the mysterious combination of government, suggested in order to guard against these very occasions when govern- ments, encountering such obstructions, had gone to fragments and to pieces. 5- 66 Douglas came from New England, in the very home of that which is designated as the "town meeting." AA^hen the fathers of the Constitution, so far as New England was con- cerned, framed a form of government, there in that land of the Puritan, one of the very first considerations was the desig- nation of the town government, separate and distinct from any other governmental entity, preserving as far as such could be maintained, the doctrine of sovereignty in the control and man- agement of all of their local concerns, and resenting to the uttermost the interference, or intrusion, by any authority upon this privilege sacred to them. That Judge Douglas could have found his Avay in Illinois without bringing, as a result of these inheritances, those same convictions would have been as strange as you observe would have been impossible. The ancient foundations of the government were trans- mitted by the fathers who laid o'urs, — and all these sons of New England, who came west|. have brought this principle as clearly unconscious within their own lives as were the convic- tions of personal liberty. Then let us understand — what was the thing he fought for? Let no man, at this date, ■confuse the real principle at stake. His idea, gentlemen of the Illinois Legislature, was merely to execute those doctrines of government which in the past have alone proven to be per- manent in the enjoyment of man, and without which by test have invariably demonstrated weakness, and under any trial -or test have severed Government into distractions. There has ever been, as there ever will be, the school, among intelligent men, of great division and contest as to whether concentrated government, centralized under one great head, taking their dictation from any voice that may rule at that place, was the better ; or that other form of government where each local order is sovereign in itself, touching its own affairs, and enjoying its relations and existence directly from the mouths of the citizens, each with the ballot in his hand. We pause to reflect a moment, what has transpired in the world around us? England assumed that she could imperial- ize her government, and keep something of the aristocratic form of Russia, on the theory this would be best if she could do it on the order of the ancient Roman Empire system. This passed for some years unheeded, because England, not having space enough, or rather, having space so large as to be able to accommodate all her citizenship, there did not arise, -or it was not necessary to awaken, a conflict between the citi- zenship, because within his sphere the citizen felt content. But as the days came and went the space became filled and the citizen began to realize that upon the dictates of a crown far removed from him he received the orders of his existence, he began to rebel, feeling himself less than a man, when ordered like a servant, and when existing like a subject. 67 Scotland was brought under the yoke of England, and then Ireland was forced under domination. Wales surrendered to the same powerful force, and then was created before the eyes of the world, the British Empire. Then, for the first time, was presented to England that problem which before then her sons had warned her would arise, — that inability to control the citizen in the manner by which his citizenship would remain loyal, when controlled at a distance, through the existence of sub-agencies, which he had no voice in the forming, directly, of the government under which he lived. Mr. Buckle, in his splendid work on the History of Civil- ization, calls attention to the peculiar condition in which Eng- land is now. Said he, "She has awakened to the realization that could she have maintained herself in the condition of the ancient Grecian states, by which each of her own governments, in their divisions, could have been local, and in their locality permit the citizen to be sovereign to himself, he would have a pride in his community, he would have felt a delight in his creation, he would have realized it was the product of his own hand ; he would not be,, as he is now, feeling himself the mere creature and the mere victim of royal nile at a distance, won- dering if he is to be kept in this condition of subserviency, and questioning whether his future is to be one of citizenship or one of subject." Archibald Allison, writing in 1844, from Glasgow (strongly as he had advocated the system of centralized government), of the time when England had succeeded in bringing together the centralization, to which I have alluded, — this distinguished essayist and historian, as time went on, is found admitting, afterward, the wrong of his theory, the injustice of the doctrine, and the persecution of its effect, saying : "It were better, now, that we view the Italian government first. There was Florence, there was Venice, and there, above all, was her splendid individuality, that made her great before the world, and magnificent before creation. Copying after the model of England, she proceeded to centralize her govern- ment, and by the process of centralization lost the individuality of the Italian states. Behold her now ! Every division warring against the other, each feeling it has been imposed upon, and denied its local rights, no particular continuity, no general sys- tem of adoration of the institutions of the past, and no respect for the authority of the present. The Italian states now con- front- usi, as England produces to the eye of the world the situa- tion of a country in a state of discordance, only abiding the time when the citizen at home will feel it is not his government, be- cause the ruling powers are as foreign to him as if he were 68 in another land; and on the very first occasion he will rise either in revolt against civil authority, or insurrection against the military." In Mr. Douglas' mind, unquestionably shown, was this very danger, which he sought to avoid, — in behalf of his country. Let us understand very clearly, and let me rejoin to my dear friend. Judge Sherman, that when Mr. Douglas opposed the idea that slavery should enter either into Kansas or Ne- braska, without the consent of those local sovereignties, it was not because it was slavery, it was because his ideal, as a citizen, of his American institutions, was that nothing should be per- mitted to enter into a sovereign state, touching its purely local concerns, without the consent of its people. (Applause.) So marked was this that when California was presented to the Union, and there was an effort by Senator Cass, of Michigan, demanding that California, before coming into the Union, should first surrender and yield her public lands to the Union, Mr. Douglas there opposed it, upon the ground that that which was within the sovereign limits of California was the property of the state, that her people have the right to its enjoy- ment, and it should not be within the power of the Union to invade these sacred precincts and dominate those people at a distance ; and take that from them which was their right by their owti sovereign creation. (Applause.) It was the rule of the land. It was not slavery. It was the adherence to the principles of self-government which have ever animated civilization to its very highest apex, wherever civilization has attained the altitude of perfection. True, as my friend, Judge Sherman says. Judge Douglas, himself, was mis- understood. He Avas charged, as the gentleman well said here today, as a traitor — ^Mr. Lincoln likewise — but then they were the sad yesterdays, glorious in their achievement, but to be re- gretted in some of their incidents. But we pause to realize, tonight, that we do not repeat the injustice of the yesterdays, to do justice for today. We pause to note the principle involved, and we now, tonight, see its justification. My friend. Judge Sherman, says, and rightfully — I felici- tate him in his splendid expression — that the right of the states, in so far as the Constitution has provided, shall remain and be as an integral form of this government ; and that the question of the rights of the states should not be doubted, in so far as those rights are distinctly the rights of the sovereignty. But, mv fellow citizens of Illinois, what availed this dis- tinction on the part of my friend? What availed the splendid admission at this time, of this scholar of government, if there be agencies around this republic who bide their time, upon every occasion to avoid them on the one hand, and destroy 69 them on the other? If there shall be creations of this govern- iiu'Ut, called Federal agencies, of one form or another, that from time to time may be invoked for the destruction of all forms of local government, at the behest of those who may- profit by the invasion, -where is local sovereignty? Note what is transpiring around us here today, as I am hon- ored by this audience. There is the sovereign state of Min- nesota. I summon the shade of Stephen A. Douglas, that he may note the fruits of the thing against which he fought. Min- nesota was a Union State. A splendid soldiery had done credit to the Union, and glory to the cause. She was Republican, in politics, as the designation is known, and when, first, with the war on the Democracy as it was termed, then the war on the opprobrious "States' rights," as it was termed and desig- nated, the theory grew and fattened, truly as the poet has de- fined, until we beheld that when Minnesota, in her sovereign capacity, passed through her legislature the laws for the proper control of great public service institutions her railroads, and prescribed their rights, touching these questions, it was for an attorney general of the United States of America, in the per- formance of his office, through the Supreme Federal Court, in obedience to the local Federal courts of the nation, to enjoin the attorney general of the State of Minnesota, elected by the peo- ple, from executing the sovereign laws passed by the legisla- ture of the sovereign state, R('publiean in polities, of ^Minnesota. (Applause.) Can you wonder that there would have arisen some revolt in great Minnesota, against this invasion of local home rule? Immediately following, Nebraska, Avhich similarly passed laws respecting the control of its local institutions, in the matter of freight rates, and the control of the destinies of her local commerce, was similarly treated by the same form of invasion. Oklahoma, Democratic; Alabama, Democratic; Kansas, mixed and divided in her respective political allegiances, met similar treatment. Kansas was enjoined by the Federal government from executing her law of ])ank guaranty. Alabama was en- joined, in the Federal courts, from executing her law touching the mere rate of passenger fare upon railroads. Your neighboring states of Kansas and Oklahoma both were enjoined by Federal tribunals from executing their local legislation touching mere matters of local control ; these being passed by the sovereign legislature, in all branches of the sev- eral states. Do you marvel, gentlemen of Illinois, that this morning, and yesterday, you read in your daily newspapers how twelve states, five of the states being Democratic, and seven being Republican, have moved the Supreme Court of the United States — that great, eminent tribunal — that they be given, an opportunity to be heard, against the further invasion on the 70 part of the United States over the local authority, and the just limitation of the states in the control of their purely local mat- ters, and their sovereign rights! (Applause.) Do you fancy that Mr. Stephen A. Douglas did not, in his splendid prophetic vision, behold the ultimate growth of this feeling, and the wrong upon home rule and local self-govern- ment, if the aberration of gentlemen who misunderstood him should longer obtain without some protest from some great and strong source? Senator "Wade, standing from Ohio, turned to Mr. Douglas, as he did to others, and said: "It is not our purpose to invade the local affairs of any state. "We recognize that in its own affairs it should be sovereign and uncontrolled by any force without." The great Abraham Lincoln, in closing the debate, when he reached Jonesboro, responding to Mr. Douglas, and the sentiment of Illinois, said: "I, too, concur, that in matters of the state, wherein her own affairs are con- cerned, these should not be invaded by any source. I agree with Judge Douglas." Yet, with this creed, as the creed of government for the American citizenship, behold, gentlemen of the Illinois legis- lature, of the sovereign Illinois, ho^v it has been invaded, and at times completely destroyed. My friend. Judge Sherman, will yet live, if Heaven grant him (as I hope it does), the full statute of the Divine limitation, to see that there will be an end of the dual form of government, to which he so splendidly alluded, if this form of intrusion shall continue and multiply, and the rights of the states, within their province of home rule, shall be so dishonored on one hand, and defeated on the other. I speak to Illinois. You, too, were the victims of this in- vasion. When your Legislature passed laws in this State, pre- scribing methods of taxation, applying to the large institutions and the small alike, — you were thwarted in the execution. Your body of men, constituted by law, and known as the State Board of Equalization, executed the law in the pursuit of their honest judgment, and thereupon it was assailed by certain institutions, eleven in number, most of whom held their possessions within -the State, their ownership being out of it. The controversy was carried to the Federal court, and one Federal judge enjoined the execution of the law of Illinois, after the court of Illinois had affirmed it. And although the Supreme Court of Illinois .and the local courts of Illinois, the Legislature of Illinois, and your branches of government, the administrative, executive, and ministerial departments of Illinois, had all affirmed' your decision, and executed it according to your will, it was left to this invading authority of the Federal Court to set it aside, and nullify it, 71 depriving you of taxes by which more than six hundred and eighty thousands of dollars were taken from the treasury of Illinois, that otherwise belonged to it by the system of home rule and righteous self-government, within the sovereign limits of Illinois. It was because of things such as these that Stephen A. Douglas raised his voice on principle, that there might be no such invasion in this government as would destroy the pride of the citizen, the honor of the community, the glory of the State and the manhood of the man. Behold you then! I see upon your splendid walls, as I do upon the adornments of this splendid house, the shield of the great State of Illinois. Mark how she reads! "State sovereignty; national Union." It was intended by the fathers who constructed you, and laid your foundations, that these two should be together, not invaded one by the other, but after the order of the Heavens, where the constellations glitter before our eye, each planet in its place, like a glowing star, each state likewise within its orbit, differing one from another only as the stars differ, one from another, in their glory. It was because of home rule, and its necessity, in order to give the citizen liberty and justice, that Mr. Douglas laid down his doctrine of states* rights, in order that man might have his rights. (Applause.) We at once advert to the second phase, more interesting tonight, perchance, than at any other time when I will have the honor to discuss before this Legislature any proposition of governmental policy. I refer to Mr. Douglas' doctrine of the American foreign policy. What a clear vision that man seemed to possess! How goodly good was the Almighty to him! How splendid seemed he in his far-reaching vision of the future ! Mr. Douglas found himself surrounded by a con- dition unparalleled in this government, and was compelled to take his monitor only from his own sense of right and Ameri- canism. England was claiming a boundary of the northwest, which would have comprised all of the states of Oregon and Washington, and all of the waters of Puget Sound. Down at the neighboring line to the south were Mexico and Central America. Southward lay Cuba, with England's eye anxiously addressed to it, and other nations, particularly Spain, anxious to see that it was only possessed by a friend of hers. Mr. Douglas beheld the situation, and understood the future of America. He denied to England the right to come across the waters of our seas, and lay hand upon the integral continent of America. He denied the right that the island of Cuba should ever be placed in a position by which the enemies of American sovereignty should ever be enabled to place their weapons of offense and defense so near th door of America. 72 He declared his doctrine of the American foreign policy, which was the full execution of that principle known as the Monroe Doctrine. You will recall, gentlemen of the Legislature, that in 1823, when there was a threat on the part of Austria,, Prussia, Russia, and one other country to take possession of the southern border of the United States, under the guise of preserving peace, that Mr. Canning, who was then the premier of England, addressed a communication to Mr. Monroe, calling his attention to this peculiar condition, and to this situation that bode some strange conditions on the morrow. Promptly Mr. Monroe conferred with Thomas Jefferson, and Mr. Jefferson sent back a message, saying, in response to Mr. Monroe 's suggestion, that the doctrine should go forth from America, announcing that no foreign nation should be permitted to plant its colonies on the soil of the Western Hemisphere. Said Mr. Jefferson. ' ' This is the most important declaration that has been made by America, since the Declaration of Inde- pendence." The doctrine thus going by the name of the Mon- roe doctrine proclaimed to the world that on this continent, between sea and sea, there should be only American land for Americans. Mr. Douglas, in his position, saw the design on the part of the government, that for so long had an eye, first of envy, then of hatred, then of covetousness, on this republic, anxious to divide it if possible ; and to create such destruction within it as could be brought about by pitting citizens against each other. He demanded that the doctrine known as the ]\Ionroe doctrine should be amply held out, freely disclosed, securely executed. There he laid down the doctrine of the American policy, which was : ''America's hands off all foreign lands; the hands of for- eign lands off all America." Let us behold, at this minute, what Avould have been the result, if Mr. Douglas' attitude had been adopted and fully executed? What would have been our situation today? Yonder stands the spectre of Japan. There, upon the Pacific coast of our country, arises the strange shadow marked by Oriental faces, the like of which we will not read accurately in this present time. But what means it? Let us be just to the history of today. Mr. Douglas' attitude was the American foreign policy, that this country should keep its hands off that which did not concern it, in foreign lands. In the meantime, what has happened to America? We have fovind it agreeable, my fellow Americans, to go into Asia, 73 and into the Asiatic continent, laid hands upon the sphere of Asia, put our citizens there, and demanded that they be pro- tected, under treaty witli Japan and China, equal to the exact status of those in China and Japan. We have thrust out our hands to take the Philippine Islands, upon some theory of American government, eight thousand miles from the shores of our lands. As a result of these far-reaching activities, we can see all too close at hand the prospect of war with Japan. Note the disturbance ^^dth England, over the Panama Canal treaty. Mark the enmity with Russia and with France, from time to time, arising and finding expression in the objec- tion to the construction of the Panama Canal. Behold the hatred of us as expressed by all of Central and South America, all of these difficulties caused by our late course of unnecessar- ily meddling at the direction of stock speculators into the pri- vate and financial affairs of foreign lands. We went into Asia and joined England in the seizing of railroad territory in Manchuria. We had no object other than the aiding of financial jobbers in Asia who claimed to be Ameri- can, but were English and European in interest. We entered at England's invitation to meddle in the matter of China and her obtaining money from the world to start her new republic. We went into Japan with our stock manipulators, then we put behind them the Federal government, and this gave Japan the right to demand reciprocity, that the Federal government stand behind the Japanese in America, as against any state regulation protecting that state from the effect of foreign in- fluence in domestic matters. Now we are threatened with the reprisals that can at any time mean the seizure of the Philip- pines and Hawaii, precipitating a war of worlds on America. For private objects, and to serve certain well-known syndi- cate interests, we "dabbled" unnecessarily into South America without form of constitutional ceremony, and now find Mexico, Central and South America, our enemies, and making combina- tions and alliances against the United States as a revenge. All of these are biding their time to aid Japan, or any Oriental or European enemy in an assault upon us and in the destruction of the Panama Canal, The unfortunate truth is that we find ourselves tonight, after violating the ancient doctrine of the fathers, forced to confront a situation so solemn and perchance so serious that it will require all the splendid ingenuity and engineering on the part of the patriotic administration of our country, to avoid a very serious result. HoAV has it all come about? It has been brought about somewhat imperceptibly, by fatally easy gradations ; because, as Mr. Roosevelt, the former President of the United States, wisely set forth, the first violation of principle led to the second, and the third and the tenth easily followed. 74 That these countries, abroad, eight thousand miles away from our furthest coast, cannot understand us, is natural. When we went into their countries, to possess ourselves of priv- ileges, and to partake of opportunities, in behalf of certain favored individuals, the people of that remote region turned and demanded a reciprocity we cannot render, because there is a wall of national feeling. To give citizenship to the Jap- anese, and allow admission and limited naturalization to the Chinese, seems to those nations a reasonable and consistent reciprocity for the privileges and protection we seek within their realms. But the protection of America, of the livelihood of our toiling citizens, the institutions of the domestic life, and the holy home, all rise to remind us forcibly of the im- possibility of yielding to these demands. In the absence or denial of such reciprocity, retaliation is natural indeed ! But had Mr. Douglas, with his far foresight, been able to warn Mr. Cass, at the time he did, and to have warned him successfully, there would have been no such condition upon America today. "We would have avoided the very condition that surrounds us today, by the exercise 'of wisdom in following the advice of this democratic sage, this great American states- man. There was the other phase. He likewise saw the situation in the south, when he opposed the doctrine of allowing Central America to be colonized by England, and allowing England to place an English government in Honduras. He reminded the United States Senate that there might come a time when we would wish to cut a waterway through that isthmus, and for its protection need those shores, and that they should not be in the hands of foreign and inimical nations; and there he laid down that other doctrine, for that treaty known as the Bulwer-Clayton treaty, which was executed in 1850. He laid down the theory that would rise to haunt us, and would plague its inventor and he warned this country that the clause of that theaty which forbade us, without the consent of England, to fortify our own country, practically, on the one hand, or to colonize, as Americans on the other, would rise to persecute us. He, with his American foreign policy, raised his voice against the domination of America by any other influence on earth but by Americans. (Applause.) It was only yesterday, my fellow Americans, that you saw the finest diplomacy of that splendid gentleman, Judge Taft, the former President of the United States, able as a lawyer, and eminent as a citizen, brought to bear to its very fullest extent, in order to avoid a conflict with England over this very treaty, by which they forbade us fortifying our own border on the one hand, and colonizing it by American citizen- ship on the other; but Douglas, nearly fifty years before, had warned the United States they would bring upon themselves just such a calamity ; and upon yesterday we read in the daily press how Chamberlin, the Senator from Oregon, joined with other Senators, and (doubtless speaking the wisdom of the administration) introduced a resolution in the Senate, in order to avoid the very outrages and wrongs to America, which Mr. Douglas pointed out would inevitably befall us, as the resolution calls, first, for the complete abrogation of the rem- nants of the Bulwer-Clayton treaty on the one hand, and its successor, the Hay-Paunceforte treaty on the other, in order that Americans might have the benefit of the shores of the splendid waterway that is on the eve of completion, that Doug- las' splendid vision foresaw, in this hour. This statesman beheld the world in his contemplation. He saw America in her advance. He recognized the marvels of civilization, and conceived of the future like a man gifted with inspiration ; but an American at heart and soul, striving for the salvation of his country. We speak of these things, that Ave might use the splendid language of Judge Sherman, and his predecessor, to vindicate the intelligence of this splendid lllinoisan, and give justice and credit to the noble history of his achievements, as tested by time, and fulfilling the philosophy of Emerson, as proven by trial, well may Illinois greet him tonight ! Let us dream that his shade may hallow this sacred pre- cinct ; and recognize that from the sons of those who did him injustice, there comes from their present representatives a splendid encomium to his fame. Statesman he was ; scholar and statesman still he is ; potent in his influence upon America; grand in his design for Illinois; and splendid in contemi)lation ; the object and example to chil- dren; and a monument of glory to Illinois. (Applause.) I therefore speak of him as one whose deeds I revere, and as one whose wisdom, let us realize, had it been followed, would have exempted us from these difficulties which are about ns now, and to which distinguished speakers have alluded. We will come back, gentlemen of America, to the doctrines of the fathers, who wrought in patience and wisdom. It is all well enough, my fellow Illinoisans, to take great pride in these little temporary out])ursts of enthusiasm that we experience from time to time when someone attains to some feat that is known in its hour as an achievement, when it is beheld in haste, but — 76 "The tumult and the shouting dies, The captains and the kings depart ; Still stands thine ancient sacrifice, A humble and a contrite heart. Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet — Lest we forget ! Lest we forget ! ' ' We go, in this hour, for the restoration of America, back to the wisdom of other days. If America is to be preserved to her children, as the in- heritance of freedom and justice, as transmitted from the fathers who founded the republic of Washington, Jefferson and Hamilton, Ave need to be restored to the doctrines of Douglas and Lincoln, which followed the sacred path of Washington, as he proclaimed, in his farewell message : "Peace with all nations ; Entangling alliances with none. Here, upon this rock, we build our church ! ' ' (Applause.) The last thought which shall engage my attention in this casual survey of this distinguished gentleman shall be that of "Patriot," and that splendid loyalty which he bore to his country — as his country! It may have been, gentlemen of Illinois, that he must forego the hope of political elevation ; it may be that he bade good-bye to those flattering huzzas that come from an admiring multitude ; it may be that he kissed farewell to many ambitions and opportunities that his heart cherished and his soul desired, all for the good of his country, and his sincerity as a patriot. Here was a man big enough to realize that while there could be personal defeat for him. through such defeat there could be victory for that which was beyond and superior to him — his country ! His was the creed of the Hero of Tripoli: "My country! May she be right! But, right or wrong, my country!" Oh, how well he upheld the Constitution ! He saw the portent of war, aiid he realized what it meant to this Union. He did all he could to avert it. Indoors and out, he spoke of its possibilities. In public places and in private chambers, he inveighed against those who sought to bring on disaster. With every expression of his life, he cried for peace and justice, but when the hour came that it was inevitable, in his vision he saw two great things, the fields mowed down, desolation in the cities, the tramp of soldiery breaking upon the ear, mothers in terror, hugging their babes to their bosoms, baptizing their faces in the falling tears. The first born had fallen upon the hills. Hje realized it was war ! There was but one place for him, and that was the Temple of the Republic. There he hastened, in great anxiety for his country. 11 He was a citizen of Illinois! He was the compatriot of Lincoln ! He was the devoted son of the Constitution, and it was in that hour that the splendor of his character rose above every form of hostile accusation. Still we l)ehold him, tonight in the retrospect, sweet and gentle with it all ! Gentlemen, I can possibly appreciate more fully the situa- tion than many of you Avho honor me with your audience. I recognize that with these distinguished speakers who preceded me, we accord to all men tonight that that which they did, and that which they said, came from the heart that beat w^ithin them, came from the soul of duty, as it was defined by every impulse of patriotism! I come from that borderland, where on a thousand hills a mother kissed her two sons good-bye, and sent them with her tears upon their cheeks, one to die for his country, the other to fall for his home ! Blessed be he that speaketh from his heart ! Tonight we pray for all, in common, and pray they rest in heaven together, I therefore speak of them as one who speaks of the common country preserved. I delight tonight to feel that the sons of those who battled together are once again re-united. There is no division within us, either upon the theory of government or upon the doctrines of the Constitution. We stated again with Lincoln and Douglas, and as my friend, Judge Sherman, correctly said, if there be conditions in this republic that now shadow us with some dire tomorrow, discretion bids us be careful lest we exercise too much liberty in the definition, that there shall be the days to come which are feared by some, that the great advancing America may be on the eve of an unnecessary conflict, again involving her people. If the tomorrows are fraught with mystery, and the days to come uncertain, we have a remedy to avoid the results, if these portend danger. Let us feel that tomorroAV is secure within the patriotism of American citizenship. Let us feel within the revival of the Love of the Father in Heaven, the home on earth, and mankind around us, we have our own solution ; and as the sentry of the passing years paces his rounds upon the watch tower of civilization, shall ring out the chal- lenge : "Watchman, what of the night?" Heaven grant that out of the reunited hearts of these Americans, there will come again the response: ''Restored, again, to the faith of Lincoln and Douglas. Thank God! All is well!" (Applause.) I thank you. Governor Dunne: — Before dispersmg, ladies and gentle- men, we will conclude the services by hearing from the Apollo Quartette. Music. Adlai E. Stevenson 79 STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS • By Adlai E. Stevenson* Ex-Vice President of the United States Mr. President. — 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 speak. Chief among the actors, his place was near the middle of the stage, during that eventful and epoch marking period. Stephen A. Douglas was born in Brandon, Vt., April 23, 1813, and died in Chicago, 111., June 3, 1861. Between the dates given lie the years that make 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 educa- tion. 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 dili- gence the studies preparatory to a higher course. Supplement- ing the education thus acquired by a brief course of study in an academy at Canandaigua, N. Y., at the age of twenty, he turned his footsteps westward. One of the biographers says: "It is doubtful if among all the thousands who in those early days were 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 phj'sical 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 appli- cation — admitted to the bar, he courageously entered upon his marvelous 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. ♦Mr. Stevenson, being unable to attend the exercises, sent this address, •which he had delivered before the ninth annual meeting of the State Historical Society, January 30, 1908. It is reprinted from the proceedings of the Society for that year. 80 The issues were sharply drawn between the two political parties then struggling for ascendency, 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 an honored and enduring place upon the pages of our history. Into the safe keeping of the leaders just named w^ere 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 re- nowned Whig chieftain was Andrew Jackson. Earlier in their political careers, both had been earnest supporters of the ad- ministration of President Monroe, but at its close, the leaders last named, with Adams and Crawford, were aspirants to the great office. No candidates receiving a majority of the elec- toral votes, and the selection by constitutional requirement de- volving 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 the 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 com- petitor 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 signifi- cance 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 w^as manifested during the presidential contest of 1832. The Whig party — Avith 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 relent- lessly aggressive. The scabbard Avas thrown away, and all lines of retreat cut off from the beginning. No act of the party in power escaped the limelight, no delinquency, real or imaginary, of Jackson — its candidate for re-election — but was ruthlessly 81 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 admin- istration. Such were the existing political conditions throughout the country when Stephen A. Douglas, at the age of 22, first entered the arena of debate. It would not be strange if such environ- ment 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, 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 opposite 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 37, fell while gallantly leading his regi- ment upon the bloody field of Buena Vista. In the catalogue of men worthy of remembrance, there is found the name of na braver, manlier man than that of John J. Hardin. With well earned laurels as public prosecutor, Mr. Douglas resigned after two years incumbency of that office, to accept that of representative in the State Legislature. The Tenth Gen- eral 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, were names inseparably asso- ciated 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, EdAvards, Ewing, Semple, Logan, Hardin, Browning, Shields, Baker, Stuart, Douglas and Lincoln. In this Assembly Mr. Douglas encountered in impassioned debate, possibly for the first time, two men against whom in 6- 82 succession he was soon to be opposed upon the hustings as a 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 pos- sibly 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, ex- tending 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 of the county seats of the district — includ- ing the then villages of Jacksonville, Springfield, Peoria, Pekin, Bloomington, Quincy, Joliet, Galena, and Chicago. It was said of Hon. Richard M. Young, a noted lawyer of the early days, that he possessed one eminent qualification for the office of Circuit Judge — that of being a good horseback rider. It can hardly be doubted that our candidates for Congress three score and ten years ago, possessed this qualification in a rare degree. 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. My 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 asso- ciate 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, Mr. Douglas was in quick succession, Secretary of State by ap- pointment of the Governor and Judge of the Circuit and Supreme Courts by election of the Legislature. The courts he held as nisi prius Judge were in the Quincy circuit and the last named city for the 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 fully test his capacity as lawyer or logician. Enough, however, appears from his clear and concise state- ments 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 mis- 83 tress who is at the same time so jealous and so just." This, however, was not to be, and to a field more alluring his foot- steps were soon 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 Hon. Orville H. Browning with whom in the State Legislature he had measured swords over a partisan resolution sustaining the finan- cial policy of President Jackson. "The whirligig of time brings in his ravages, ' ' 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 to 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 achieve- ments are held in grateful remembrance, his name will have honored place in our country's annals. The career upon which Mr. 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 Sidell, Barnw^ell Rhett, Robert C. Winthrop the Speaker, Han- nibal 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 near two decades of faithful service as a Representative in Congress. The period that witnessed the entrance of Mr. 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 marvelous powers, merciless in 84 his arraignment of the Tyler administration, was unwittingly breeding the party dissensions that eventually compassed his own defeat in his last struggle for the presidency. Daniel Webster, regardless of the criticism of party associate, 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 Her- mitage, 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 re-imbursement, had been unavailing. Secur- ing the floor for the first time, Mr. Douglas, upon the anni- versary of the great victory, delivered an impassioned speech in vindication of Jackson which at once challenged the atten- tion 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 the 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 con- ditions existing in New Orleans at the time of Jackson's dec- laration 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 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 achicA^ed un- paralleled 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 vindi- cation. Two of the salient and far reaching questions confronting the statesmen of that cA^entful Congress pertained to the set- tlement of the Oregon boundary question, and to the annexa- tion of the republic of Texas. The first named question — 85 left unsettled by the treaty of Ghent had been for two genera- tions the apple of discord betAveen the American and British governments. That it, at a critical moment came near involv- ing the two nations in war is a well known fact in history. The platform upon Avhich Mr. Polk had in 1844 been elected to the presidency asserted unequivocallj^ tlie 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. Mr. Douglas, in full accord with his party upon this ques- tion, ably canvassed Illinois in earnest advocacy of Mr. Polk's election. When at a later day it was determined by the Presi- dent 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 bound- ary upon the parallel last named, was promptly ratified by the Senate, and the once famous "Oregon question" peaceably rele- gated 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 Anna in 1837 at San Jacinto, and its independence as such had been acknowledged by our own and European gov- ernments. The hardy settlers of the 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 offense 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, con-' stitute a thrilling chapter in the annals of war. Brief in 86 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 Long- street, Hancock and Stonewall Jackson, Lee and Grant. In the list of its 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, Mr. Douglas was an unfaltering advocate of the project of annexation, and as chairman of the Com- mittee 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 ter- ritory 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 nations 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. I would make this an ocean bound republic, and have no more disputes about boundaries or red lines on maps." Elected to the Senate at the age of thirty-four, Mr. 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, Crit- tenden 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 delibera- tive assembly. 87 The one vital and portentous question, in some one of its many phases, then under continuous discussion, 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 men- tioned, 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 op- ponents of slavery extension were at once in bitter antagonisms and intensity of feeling such as the country had rarely known. . The compromise measures — proposed by Mr. Clay in a gen- eral bill — embraced the establishment of territorial govern- ments 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, Mr. Douglas had — ^by direction of the Com- mittee 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 recog- nized place among the great debaters of that illustrious assem- blage. 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 statesman, associated in the advocacy of measures that in the early day of the republic had given us exalted place among the nations, vnthin brief time of each other, "shattered by the contentions of the great hall, they passed to the chamber of reconciliation and of silence." 88 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 Michi- gan 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, la., every alternate section of land desig- nated 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 ^cres, and was directly to the State. After appropriate action hy the State Legislature, the Illinois Central Railroad Company -was duly organized, and the road eventually constructed. The provision for the payment by the company to the State of ;seven per cent of its gross annual earnings, is one, the value lof which to this and future generations cannot be overstated. By wise constitutional provision the Legislature is forever pro- hibited from releasing the company from this payment. The completion of the Illinois Central Railroad marked the beginning of . the era of marvelous development in Illinois. The vast land grant, in convenient holdings, was soon in pos- session of actual settlers, and a new impetus quickly given to all projects along the line of material progress. During the five years immediately succeeding the passage of the bill, the population of Illinois increased from less than nine hundred thousand to near a million and a half, the foundations were firmly laid for the present unsurpassed prosperity of the great <3entral State. 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 legis- lative forecast and genius." The measure now to be mentioned aroused deeper atten- tion — more anxious concern — throughout the entire country than any with which the name of Douglas has yet been closely associated. It pertained directly to slavery, the "bone of con- tention" between the North and the South — the one dangerous quantity in our national politics — from the establishment ^^ the government. Beginning with its recognition, though not 89 in direct terms, iu 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, Mr. 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 I\Iissouri Compro- mise or restriction of 1820. The end sought by the repeal was, as stated by Mr. 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 regu- late their domestic institutions in their own way subject only to the Constitution of the United States." The principle stren- uously 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 im- mediately interested in, and alone responsible for its conse- quences 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 Mr. Douglas. The era of concord between the north and th€ 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, be- crae the theater of excited discussion. The final determina- tion was to be not that of a territory, but of the entire people. 90 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 leader- ship of Fremont as its candidate, and opposition by congres- sional 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, Mr. 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 out to the bitter end. Although Mr. 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 con- vention 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 chron- icles 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 Mr. Douglas in the election which ele- vated 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, Hon. Robert J. Walker, was at length appointed Governor of Kansas. During his brief 91 administration a convention assembled without his co-operation at Lecompton, and formulated a constitution under which ap- plication was soon made for the admission of Kansas into the Union. This convention was in part composed of non-residents, and in no sense retiected the wishes of the majority of the bona fide residents of the territory. The salient feature of the con- stitution was that establishing slavery. The constitution was not submitted by the convention to popular vote, but in due time forwarded to the President, and by him laid before Con- gress, 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 ]\Ir. Doug- las. In unmeasured terms he denounced it as fraudulent, as antagonistic to the wishes of the people of Kansas, and sub- versive of the basic principle upon which the territory had been organized. In the attitude just assumed, Mr. Douglas at once found himself in line with the Republicans, and in opposition to the administration he had helped to place in power. The breach thus created was destined to remain unhealed. More- over, his declaration of hostility to the Lecompton constitution was the beginning of the end of years of close political affilia- tion with southern Democratic statesmen. From that moment, Mr, 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 fol- lowed him to the Charleston convention of I86O1 and through- out 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, Mr. Douglas was triumphant over the administration and his former political associates from the south. Under what w^as 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 Mr. 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 an 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 92 adjourument of Congress, Mr. 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 nom- ination 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 ar- raignment by Mr. Douglas in deba-te. The words are: "We are now far into the 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 com- municated the contents of his speech in advance of its delivery, that he was treading on dangerous ground, that he would be misrepresented as a disuuionist, and that he might fatally damage the Republican party by making its existence synony- mous with a destruction of the government." The opening speech of Mr. 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 pre- cipitate 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 Avar of the north against the south, of the free states against the slave states, a war of extermination, to be continued relent- lessly 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 joint debate came from ]\Ir. Lincoln on the 24th day of July 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 93 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 Mr. Douglas in the southern, while in the center 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 candi- date 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 as- semblage. 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 debates. "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 Avhen the State capital 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 asso- ciates 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 alloAved from the Supreme Court to two justices of the peace." Lincoln replied: "That was when you were on the bench. Judge." Referring to Douglas' 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 ginger bread, when he said he reckoned he loved it better and got less of it than any other man." Mr. Douglas, referring to the alliance between the Republicans and the Federal office- holders, said: "T shall deal with this allied army just as the Russian dealt with the allies at Sebastopol, the Russians when they fired a broadside did not stop to inquire -whether it hit a Frenchman, an Englishman or a Turk. Nor will I stop to inquire whether my blows hit the Republican leaders or their allies who 94 hold the Federal offices." To which Lincoln replied: "I beg the Judge will indulge us while we remind him that the allies took Sebastopol." In opening the debate at Ottawa, Mr. 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 fiourishing 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 any- thing 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 diffi- culties, and so was I." To which Mr. 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 any- where 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 re- sources. 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 prece- dents 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 con- clusions." 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 95 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 prac- tical. 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 govern- ment as established by the fathers, with all its compromises. The other, recognizing, equally ^vith 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." "Often do the spirits of great events Stride on before the events, And in today, already walks tomorrow." Few survive of the vast assemblages who listened spell- bound to the impassioned words of the masterful debaters. The conditions mentioned by Webster as essential to true eloquence had arisen: "The orator and the occasion had met." The people of the entire State were aroused, the interest profound, the excitement ' at times intense. The occasion was indeed worthy the great orators ; the orators worthy the great oc- casion. The debaters were to note a mighty epoch in Ameri- can politics. The immediate arena of the struggle was Illinois, and the prize of victory, a senatorship. But to those who read the signs, aright, it was but the prelude to the contest for the Presi- dency soon to follow. Within less than two years from the opening debate, Lincoln and Douglas were opposing candi- dates for the Presidency, and the area of the struggle enlarged from a state to a nation. And following close upon its deter- mination, the momentous questions involved were transferred from hustings and from Senate to find bloody arbitrament on the field. The name of Lincoln is now a household word. But little can be written of him that is not already known to the Avorld. Nothing that can bo uttered or withheld can add to. or detract 96 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 of 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 thor- ough 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 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 rec- ognized 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 cham- pion 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 Representa- tive 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 Yery 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, Mr. 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 appoint- ments, 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, lean, lank face that any cabbages were sprouting out." 97 Both, however, were personally well known in Illinois. Each was by unanimous nomination the candidate of his party. Mr. Douglas had known sixteen years of continuous service in one or the other House of Congress. In the Senate, he had held high debate Avith 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 Toombs, Benjamin, and Jef- ferson Davis, chief among the great debaters from 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 in the prime of manhood, thoroughly equipped for the conflict, and surrounded by throngs of devoted friends. Both gifted with marvelous forensic powers, and alike hopeful as to the result. Each recognizing fully the strength of his opponent, his own powers were constantly at their highest tension. "The blood more stirs To rouse a lion than to start a hare." In opening, Mr. Douglas made brief reference to the politic cal 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 prin- ciples 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 convention of 1852, thus affirm- ing 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 misunderstand- ing, 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 domes- tic institutions in their own way, subject only to the federal Constitution." Turning then to his opponent, he said: "I desire to know whether Mr. Lincoln today stands as he did in 1854 in favor of the unconditional repeal of the fugitive slave law ; whether he stands pledged today as he did in ]854 against the admission 98 of any more slave states into the Union, even if the people want them; whether he stands pledged against the admission of a new state into the Union with such a constitution as the people of that state may see fit to make. I want to know whether he stands today pledged to the abolition of slavery in tlie District of Columbia; I desire to know whether he stands pledged to prohibit slavery in all the territories of the United States north as well as south of the Missouri Compromise line. I desire him to answer whether he is opposed to acquisition of any more territory unless slavery is prohibited therein. I want his answer to these questions." Mr. Douglas then addressed himself to the already quoted words of Mr. Lincoln's Springfield speech commencing: "A house divided against itself cannot stand." He declared the government had existed for seventy years divided into free and slave states as our fathers made it; that at the time the Constitution was framed there were thirteen states, twelve of which were slave holding, and one a free state ; that if the doctrine preached by Mr. Lincoln that all should be free, or all slave had prevailed the twelve would have overruled the one, and slavery would have been established by the Constitu- tion on every inch of the republic, instead of being left as our fathers wisely left it for each state to decide for itself." He then declared that "uniformity in the local laws and institu- tions of the different states is neither possible nor desirable; that if uniformity had been adopted when the government was ■established it must inevitably have been the uniformity of slavery everywhere, or the uniformity of negro citizenship and negro equality everywhere. I hold that humanity and Chris- tianity both require that the negro shall have and enjoy every right and every privilege and every immunity consistent with the safety of the society in which he lives. The question then arises, what rights and privileges are consistent with the public good? This is a question which each state and each territory must decide for itself. Illinois has decided it for herself." He then said : * * Now, my friends, if we will only act con- scientiously upon this great principle of popular sovereignty, it guarantees to each state and territory the right to do as it pleases on all things local and domestic instead of Congress interfering, we will continue at peace one with another. This doctrine of Mr. Lincoln of uniformity among the institutions of the different states is a new doctrine never dreamed of by "Washington, Madison or the framers of the government. Mr. Lincoln and his party set themselves up as wiser than the founders of the government which has flourished for seventy years under the principle of popular sovereignty, recognizing the right of each state to do as it pleased. Under that prin- ciple, we have grown from a nation of three or four millions to one of thirty millions of people. "We have crossed the 99 mountains and filled up the whole northwest, turning the prairie into a garden, and building up churches and schools, thus spreading civilization and Christianity where before there was nothing but barbarism. Under that principle we have become from a feeble nation the most powerful upon the face of the earth, and if we only adhere to that principle we can go for- ward increasing in territory, in power, in strength and in glory until the Republic of America shall be the north Star that shall guide the friends of freedom throughout the civilized world. I believe that this new doctrine preached by Mr. Lincoln will dissolve the Union if it succeeds; trying to array all the northern states in one body against the southern ; to ex- cite a sectional war between the free states and the slave states in order that the one or the other may be driven to the wall." Mr. Lincoln said in reply : "I think and shall try to show tha,t the repeal of the Missouri Compromise is wrong; wrong in its direct effect, letting slavery into Kansas and Nebraska, wrong in its prospective principle, allowing it to spread to every other part of the wide world where men can be found inclined to take it. This declared indifference, but I must think covert zeal for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republic an example of its just influence in the world, enables the enemies of free institu- tions with plausibility to taunt us as hypocrites. I have no prejudices against the southern people ; they are just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not exist among them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist amongst us we would not instantly give it up. This I believe of the masses north and south. When the southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery than we, I acknowledge the fact. "When it is said that the institu- tion exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of it in any satisfactory w^ay^ I can understand and appreciate the same. I surely will not blame them for what I should not know how to do myself. If all earthly powers were given me, I should not know what to do as to the existing institution." Declaring that he did not advocate freeing the negroes, and making them our political and social equals, but suggest- ing that gradual systems of emancipation might be adopted by the states, he added: "But for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the South. But all this to my judgment furnishes no more excuse for permitting slavery to go into our free territory than it would for the re- viving the African slave trade by law." He then added: "I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. 100 i i ' •But I hold that notwithstanding all this there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumei'ated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 1 hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas, he is not my equal in many respects, certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral and intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without the leave of anybody, which his own hand earns, he is my equal, and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man." Referring to the quotation from his Springfield speech of the words: "A house divided against itself cannot stand," he said: "Does the Judge say it can stand? If he does, then there is a ciuestion of veracity not between him and me, but between the Judge and an authority of somewhat higher char- acter. I leave it to you to say whether in the history of our government the institution of slavery has not failed to be a bond of union, but on the contrary- been an apple of discord and an element of division in the house, if so, then I have a right to say, that in regard to this question the Union is a house divided against itself; and when the Judge reminds me that I have often said to him that the institution of slavery has existed for eight}^ years in some states and yet it does not exist in some others, I agree to that fact, and I account for it by looking at the position in which our fathers originally placed it, restricting it from the new territories where it had not gone, and legislating to cut off its source by abrogation of the slave trade, thus putting the seal of legislation against its spread;, the public mind did rest in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. Now, I believe if we could arrest its spread and place it where Washington and Jefferson and Madison placed it, it would be in the course of ultimate extinction, and the public mind would, as for eighty years past, believe that it was in the course of ultimate extinction." Referring further to his Springfield speech he declared that he had no thought of doing anything to bring about a war between the free and slave states ; that he had no thought in the world that he was doing anything to bring about social and political equality of the black and white races. Pursuing this line of argument, he insisted that the first step in the conspiracy, the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, followed soon by the Dred Scott decision, the latter fitting perfectly into the niche left by the former, "in such a case, we feel it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin, Roger and James, all understood one another from the begin- ning and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn before the first blow was struck." 101 In closing, Mr. Douglas, after indignant denial of the charge of conspiracy, said: "1 have lived twenty-five years in Illinois ; I have served you Avith all the fidelity and ability which I possess, and Mr. Jjincohi is at liberty to attack my public action, my votes, and my conduct, but when he dares to attack my moral integrity by a charge of conspiracy be- tween myself, Chief Justice Taney, and the Supreme Court and two Presidents of the United States, I will repel it." At Freeport, Mr. Lincoln, in opening the discussion, at once declared his readiness to answer the interrogatories pro- pounded. He said: "I do not now. nor ever did, stand in favor of the unconditional repeal of the fugitive slave law ; I do not now, nor ever did, stand pledged against the admission of any more slave states into the Union ; I do not stand pledged against the admission of a new state into the Union with such a constitution as the people of that state may see fit to make ; I do not stand today pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia; I do not stand pledged to the prohibi- tion of the slave trade between the different states; I am impliedly, if not expressly pledged to a belief in the right and duty of Congress to prohibit slavery in all the United States territories." "Waiving the form of the interrogatory as to being pledged, he said: "As to the first one in regard to the fugitive slave law, I liave never liesitated to say, and I do not now hesitate to say, that I think under the Constitution of the United States the people of the southern states are entitled to a congressional fugitive slave law. Having said that, I have had nothing to say in regard to the existing fugitive slave law further than that I think it should have been framed so as to be free from some of the objections that pertain to it without lessening its efficiency. In regard to whether I am pledged to the ad- mission of any more slave states into the Union, I would be exceedingly glad to know that there would never be another slave state admitted into the Union ; but I must add that if slavery shall be kept out of the territories during the terri- torial existence of any one given territory, and then the people shall, having a fair chance and a clear field when they come to adopt the constitution, do such an extraordinary thing as to adopt a slavery constitution uninfluenced by the actual pres- ence of the institution among them, I see no alternative if we own the countiy, but to admit them into the Union. I should be exceedingly glad to see slavery abolished in the District of Columbia. I believe that Congress possesses constitutional power to abolish it. Yet, as a member of Congress, I should not be in favor of endeavoring to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia unless it would be upon these conditions: First, that the abolition should be gradual ; second, that it should be on a vote of the majority of qualified voters in the district ; 102 third, that compensation should be made unwilling owners. With these conditions, I confess I should be exceedingly glad to see Congress abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and in the language of Henry Clay, 'Sweep from our capitol that foul blot upon our nation.' " These carefully prepared answers will never cease to be of profound interest to the student of human affairs. They indi- cate unmistakably the conservative tendency of Mr. Lincoln, and his position at the time as to the legal status of the in- stitution of slavery. But, "Courage mounteth with oc- casion." Five years later, and from the hand that penned the answers given, came the great proclamation emancipating a race. "The hour had struck," and slavery perished. The "compromises" upon which it rested were in the mighty up- heave!, but as the stubble before the flame. Recurring to the Freeport debate, Mr. Lincoln propounded to his opponent four interrogatories, as follows: "First, if the people of Kansas shall by means entirely unobjectionable in all other respects, adopt a state constitution and ask admission into the Union under it before they have the requisite number of inhabitants according to the bill, some ninety-three thousand, wall you vote to admit them? Second, can the people of a United States territory in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a state constitution? Third, if the Supreme Court of the United States shall decide that states cannot exclude slavery from their limits, are you in favor of acquiescing in, adopting and following such decision as a rule of political action ? Fourth, are you in favor of acquiring addi- tional territory in disregard of how such acquisition may effect the nation on the slavery question?" The questions propounded reached the marrow of the con- troversy, and were yet to have a much wider field for discus- sion. This was especially true of the second of the series. Upon this, widely divergent, irreconcilable, views were enter- tained by northern and southern Democrats. The evidence of this is to be found in the respective national platforms upon which Mr. Douglas and Mr. Breckenridge were two years later rival candidates of a divided party. The second interrogatory of Mr. Lincoln clearly emphasized this conflict of opinion as it existed at the time of the debates. It is but just, however, to Mr. Douglas, of whom little that is kindly has in late years been spoken, to say, that there was nothing in the question to caiise him surprise or embarrassment. It would be passing strange if during the protracted debates with Senators representing extreme and antagonistic views a matter so vital as the inter- pretation of the Kansas-Nebraska act, as indicated by the in- terrogatory, had never been under discussion. Conclusive evi- dence upon the points is to be found in the speech delivered by 103 Senator Douglas at Bloomington, July 16, forty -two days before the Freeport debate, in which he said : "I tell you, my friends, it is impossible under our institutions to force slavery on an unwilling people. If this principle of popular sovereignty, asserted in the Nebraska bill be fairly carried out by letting the people decide the question for themselves by a fair vote, at a fair election, and with honest returns, slavery will never exist one day, or one hour in any territory against the unfriendly legislation of an unfriendly people. Hence, if the people of a territory want slavery they will encourage it by passing affirma- tory laws, and the necessary police regulations ; if they do not want it, they will withhold that legislation, and by withholding it slavery is as dead as if it was prohibited by a constitutional prohibition. They could pass such local laws and police regula- tions as would drive slavery out in one day or one houi" if they were opposed to it, and therefore, so far as the question of slavery in the territories is concerned, so far as the principle of popular sovereignty is concerned in its practical operation, it matters not how the Dred Scott ease may be decided with reference to the territories. My own opinion on that point is well known. It is shown by my vote and speeches in Con- gress." Recurring again to the Freeport debate, in reply to the first interrogatory, Mr. Douglas declared that in reference to Kansas it was his opinion "that if it had population enough to consti- tute a slave state, it had people enough for a free state ; that he would not make Kansas an exceptional case, to the other states of the Union ; that he held it to be a sound rule of uni- versal application to require a territory to contain the requisite population for a member of Congress before its admission as a state into the Union ; that it having been decided that Kansas has people enough for a slave state, I hold it has enough for a free state." As to the third interrogatory, he said: "Only one man in the United States, an editor of a paper in Washington, had held such view, and that he, Doviglas, had at the time denounced it on the floor of the Senate. That Mr. Lincoln casts an imputa- tion upon the Supreme Court by supposing that it would violate the Constitution ; that it would be an act of moral treason that no man on the bench could ever descend to." To tlie fourth, which he said was "very ingeniously and cunningly put," he answered that: "Whenever it became necessary in our growth and progress to acquire more territory he was in favor of it without reference to the question of slavery, and when we have acquired it, he would leave the people to do as they pleased, either to make it free, or slave territory as they preferred." The answer to the second interrogatory, of which much has been written, was given without hesitation. Language could hardly be more clear or effective. He said: "To the 104 next question propounded to me I answered emphatically, as Mr. Lincoln has heard me answer a hundred times, that in my opinion the people of the territory can by lawful means exclude slavery from their limits prior to the formation of a state constitution. It matters not what the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to the abstract question whether slavery may or may not go into a territory under the Consti- tution, the people have the lawful means to introduce it, or exclude it, as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist a day, or an hour anywhere, unless it is supported by local police regulations. Those police regulations can only be established by the local legislatures, and if the people are opposed to slavery they will elect representatives to that body who will by unfriendly legislation effectually prevent the in- troduction of it into their midst. If, on the contrary they are for it, their Legislature will favor its extension. Hence, no matter what the decision of the Supreme Court may be on that abstract question, still the right of the people to make a slave territory or a free territory is perfect and complete under the Nebraska bill." The trend of thought, the unmeasured achievement of activities looking to human amelioration, during the fifty in- tervening years, must be taken into the account before un- charitable judgment upon what has been declared the indif- ference of Mr. Douglas to the question of abstract right in- volved in the memorable discussion. It must be remembered that the world has moved apace, and that a mighty gulf sepa- rates us from that eventful period in which practical states- men were compelled to deal with institutions as then existing. And not to be forgotten are the words of the great interpreter of the human heart: "But — know thou this, that Men are as the time is." The great debates between Douglas and Lincoln, the like of which we shall not hear again, had ended and passed to the domain of history. To the inquiry: "Which of the par- ticipants won the victory?" — there can be no absolute answer. Judged by the immediate result — the former, by consequence more remote and far reaching — the latter. Within three years from the first meeting at Ottawa, Mr. Lincoln, having been elected and inaugurated President, was upon the threshold of mighty events which are now the masterful theme of history ; and his great antagonist in the now historic debates — had passed from earthly scenes. It has been said that Douglas was ambitious, "If 'twere so, it was a grievous fault And grievously hath he answered it." 105 We may well believe that with like honorable ambition to the two great popular leaders of dififerent periods, Clay and Blaine, his goal was the presidency. In the three last national conventions of his party preced- ing his death, he was presented by the Illinois delegation to be named for the great office. The last of these, the Charleston convention of 1860, is now historic. It assembled amid intense party passion, and after a turbulent session, that seemed the omen of its approaching doom, adjourned to a later day to Baltimore. Mr. Douglas there received the almost solid vote of the northern, and a portion of that of the border states, but the hostility of the extreme southern leaders to his candi- dacy was implacable to the end. AVhat had seemed inevitable from the beginning, at length occurred, and the great historic party, which had administered the government with brief in- termissions from the inauguration of Jefferson, was hopelessly rent asunder. This startling event, and what it might portend, gave pause to thoughtful men of all parties. It was not a mere incident, but an epoch in history. Mr. Blaine in his "Twenty Years of Congress" says: "The situation was the cause of solicitude and even grief with thousands to whom the old party was peculiarly endeared. The traditions of Jefferson, of Madison, of Jackson, were devoutly treasured; and the splendid achievements of the American democracy were recounted with the pride which attaches to an honorable family inheritance. The fact was recalled that the republic had grown to its imperial dimensions under Democratic states- manship. It was remembered that Louisiana had been acquired by France, Florida, from Spain, the independent republic of Texas annexed, and California, with its vast dependencies, and its myriad millions of treasure ceded by Mexico, all under Democratic administrations, and in spite of the resistence of their opponents. That a party whose history was interwoven with the glory of the republic should now come to its end in a quarrel over the status of the negro in a country where his labor was not wanted, was to many of its members as incom- prehensible as it was sorrowful and exasperating. They might have restored the party to harmony, but at the very height of the factional contest, the representatives of both sections were hurried forward to the national convention of 1860, with principle subordinated to passion, with judgment displaced by a desire for revenge." The withdrawal from the Baltimore convention of a large majority of the southern delegates and a small following, led by Caleb Cushing and Benjamin F. Butler from the north, resulted in the immediate nomination by the requisite two- thirds vote of Senator Douglas as the presidential candidate. The platform upon the question of slavery was in substance that contended for bv the candidates in the debates with lOG Lincoln. The Democratic party divided, Breckenridge receiv- ing the support of the south, Mr. Douglas' candidacy was hope- less from the beginning. But his iron will and courage, that knew no faltering, never appeared to better advantage than during that eventful canvass. Deserted by former political associates, he visited distant states and addressed immense audiences in defense of the platform upon which he had been nominated, and in advocacy of his own election. His speeches in southern states were of the stormy incidents of a struggle that has scarcely known a parallel. Interrogated by a prom- inent citizen at Norfolk, Ya. "If Lincoln be elected President, would the southern states be justified in seceding from the Union?" Douglas instantly replied: "I emphatically answer, no. The election of a man to the Presidency in conformity with the Constitution of the United States would not justify an attempt to dissolve the Union." 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 en- veloped in gloom. Partisan feeling vanished, his deep concern was now only for his country. Standing by the side of his suc- cessful rival whose wondrous career was only opening, as his own was nearing its close, he bowed profound assent to the im- perishable utterances of the inaugural address : "I am loath to close. We are not enemies but friends. "We must not be ene- mies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." Yet later, immediately upon the firing of the fatal shot at Sumter that suddenly summoned millions from peaceful pur- suits to arms, by invitation of the Illinois Legislature, Mr. Doug- las addressed his countrymen for the last time. ''Broken with the storms of State," the fires of ambition forever extinguished, standing literally upon the threshold of the grave, his soul burdened with the calamities that had befallen his country, in tones of deepest pathos he declared: "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. I 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, Douglas Monument, Chicago 108 can forget his solemn invocation to all who had followed his political fortunes, until the banner had fallen from his 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, Ave may not know. In the words of an- other: "What blight and anguish met his agonized eyes, whose lips may tell? What brilliant, broken plans, what bitter rend- ing of sweet household ties, 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 counselor, 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. 109 Letters and Telegrams A number of prominent men in various parts of the eoun- try, to Miioni invitations liad been extended but who were un- able to attend, responded with letters or telegrams, expressing regret at their inability to be present at the celebration. A few of these are printed below: THE WHITE HOUSE Washington, April 21, 1913. My Dear Senator Manny : The President directs me to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of April 19, and to express his regret that he must disappoint you. The unusually heavy pressure under which he is working just now would prevent a compliance with your request, even were it possible to avoid the embarrassment and dissatisfaction wdiicli experience has shown is certain to follow any attempt at discrimination between the thousands of similar requests that reach him from day to day with even a compara- tively small part of which it would be utterly out of the question for him to comply. Expressing the President's hope that you will appreciate the conditions with which he is confronted, I am Sincerely yours, J. P. Tumulty, Secretary to the President. Hon, W. I. Manny, Springfield, Illinois. Washington, D. C, April 23, 1913. Hon. Walter I. Manny, Chainnan of the Committee, Springfield, 111. I am exceedingly sorry that I am unable to join you to- morrow in celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Stephen A. Douglas. He was a very great man, a great debater, a great Senator and a great patriot. I have always felt proud of the fact that I introduced him to the joint session of the Illinois Legislature on the occasion of the last address but one that he delivered in our State before he gave up his ow^n life. I have always regarded Stephen A. Douglas and Lyman Trumbull as two of the greatest Senators who ever did honor to our State and country. I sincerely hope the oc- casion tomorrow will be fully worthy of the great service to the country of Stephen A. Douglas. S, M. CULLOM. 110 The Courier-Journal Louisville, April 10, 1913. My Dear Sir: I am in receipt of your flattering telegram and at the same time of a very kind letter from your distinguished Governor. To appear before the General Assembly of Illinois would be at all times and under every circumstance a distinction, but to be deemed fit to speak upon such an occasion — the centen- nary of the birth of her "Little Giant" — leaves me poor in words to thank you. I wish it were possible for me to accept a call at once so signal and gratifying. Obligations imperative in character already assumed and pressing upon me, forbid, and I am forced reluctantly to deny myself what would otherwise be a labor of both love and duty. For give me leave to say I am equally touched and honored by your invitation. From my boyhood to his death I knew Judge Douglas well. The last two years of his life — and especially the last few months — I was with him every day. He was as lovable as he was great. Lincoln was not a truer friend to the Union, and had his life been spared, there is reason to believe he would have been Lincoln's second self during the dark days of the sectional war. When he returned to Washington after the famous Lincoln- Douglas debate of 1858, I heard him asked about the strange new being who had so suddenly risen above the national hori- zon. "Mr. Lincoln," he replied, "is the very ablest debater I have ever met here or anywhere else. ' ' Generous to a fault, captivating before every audience and delightful in all private companies — Mr. Blaine himself not more so^ — he was bound to the dying body of institutional slavery which he abhorred, and dazzled by the Presidency as were Clay, Webster and Calhoun. Lincoln's bark rode a flowing tide, Douglas' bark rode an ebbing tide. Amid the gloom of the conflict he had vainly striven to avert, and the thunder of cannon whose reverbera- tions broke his heart he was called to the bosom of his God; but when the mists roll away and the dawn of the truth of history cometh his name and fame, like the name and fame of Lincoln, will endure forever and aye ! Sincerely, Henry Watterson. Hon. Walter I. Manny, Chairman of the Joint Committee, etc., etc., etc. Ill Gkeensboro, N. C, April 14, 1913. Hon, Walter I. Manny, President of the Senate, Springfield, 111. I deeply regret that the present state of my health forbids my acceptance of your kind invitation to attend as a guest of the State of Illinois and to address the joint session of the Legislature upon the celebration of the centennial anniversary of my father's birth. This recalls the unforgotten address delivered by my father at the unanimous request of both Houses of the Legislature in April, 1861. You cannot imagine the pleasure it would give me to address the same body and thank them for their generous commemoration of the birth of a true son of Illinois, the dominating principle of whose life faithfully followed in sunshine and in storm, in victory and defeat, was the preservation of the Union. Robert M. Douglas. Bloomington, III., April 21, 1913. Hon. Walter I, Manny, Senate Chamber, Springfield, Illinois. My Dear Senator: The death of my brother prevents the possibility of my being present at the Douglas Centennial Celebration on the 23d of April. I beg to thank you for your courteous invitation, and to assure you that under other circumstances I would gladly have taken part in the exercises in honor of the man I honored and loved. Yours sincerely, Adlai E. Stevenson. Galesbttrg, Illinois, April 20, 1913. The Honor.vble Walter I. Manny. My Dear Sir: I regret extremely that in response to your kind invita- tion I cannot be present at the joint session of the Illinois Legis- lature on the 23d instant, to celebrate the one hundredth anni- versary of the birth of Stephen A. Douglas ; but, before receiv- ing your invitation in behalf of the joint session, I had already promised to be present on the very same day, and speak in honor of the occasion before the Chicago Historical Society, and T find it to be impossible for me to be present at both celebrations. Next to Abraham Lincoln, Stephen A. Douglas was the greatest statesman Illinois ever gave to the Nation, and it may be questioned whether the country ever produced another 112 statesman who surpassed either. Only a few months before the breaking out of the Civil AVar, Lincoln and Douglas were both candidates before the people for President. They received in the aggregate over three million votes — that is, over three millions of men, all of whom had attained their majority, had but a short time before voted for either Lincoln or Douglas. When the war was precipitated, notwithstanding he had always been in antagonism to the party in power, Douglas at once declared for his country and summoned all the men of his party to the support of the Government, and, side by side, shoulder to shoulder, Democrats and Republicans took their places in the ranks to fight and die to save their country. Had Douglas failed to declare himself at once, or had he even hesi- tated, as did some who afterwards, under his influence, became patriots and heroes, the results of the great war for the Union might not have been so glorious as they were. The people of the whole great nation owe a debt of grati- tude to Stephen A. Douglas they can never repay, and, in cele- brating this centennial anniversary, while they are honoring his memory, thej^ are also honoring themselves. I am, my dear sir, Faithfully yours, Clark E. Carr. Urbana. Illinois, April 16, 1913. Hon. WiVLTER I. Manny. ]\Iy Dear Sir : I highly appreciat.e the honor your com- mittee do me in the extension to me of the invitation to attend the exercises to be held on the 23d inst. in honor of the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Illinois' greatest Senator, Hon. Stephen A. Douglas. I regret to say that the infirmities incident to advanced age strongly incline me to remain at home during these days which influence will probably decide me against accepting this invitation. I assure you, however, that the movement to place before the country the memory of our greatest Senator meets my hearty approval. From 1854, and for six years thereafter, as the editor of a country paper here and as an embryo politician, I did my best to give his place to another and shared in the contests not always of the cleanest character against him; yet the memory of what he did in 1861 in behalf of the Union and Constitution, when his influence was so potent, long since erased from my mind evei-^- adverse thouglit and set aside all of my criticisms of him. I shall always love to join in his praise. Yours, J. 0. Cunningham. 113 The Southern Illinois Penitentiary Warden's Office J. B. Smith, Warden Menard P. 0., Illinois, April 18, 1913. Hon. Walter I. Manny, Springfield, Illinois. Dear Senator: I beg to acknowledge receipt of yours of the 14th inst., notifying me that the Illinois Legislature, by joint resolution, unanimously adopted by both Houses, have determined to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Stephen A. Douglas. How w^ell you have expressed the love and estimation of a noble man, wherein you say "whose name and fame are im- perishable and splendid heritage of our great commonwealth." Today I can see Stephen A. Douglas as he was introduced from the balcony of the Bates House in Indianapolis to the largest political gathering I have ever seen. He was introduced as "the Little Giant from Illinois;" and John A. Logan from the same platform was introduced as the "Chief of Egypt." This was in October, 1856. I see him now as I saw^ him then, and a great deal of his speech I still remember. Having been brought up as wliat is known as a Kentucky Corncracker, and my father being a very strong Douglas Democrat, it made a lasting impression upon me. I thank you for remembering me and extending your kind invitation to be present at the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of as great a man, if not the greatest, our country ever knew. The changing of the management of this institution will come on the same date, and it is with deep regret that I cannot be with you. Again thanking you for your kind remembrance, Sincerely yours, Jas. B. Smith. Walker &" Woods Attorneys and Counsellors at Law Carlinville, Illinois,' April 19, 1913. Hon. Walter I. Manny, Springfield, Illinois. Dear Sir: The reception of your invitation to attend the one hun- dredth anniversary of the birth of Stephen A. Douglas, to be held under the auspices of the Illinois State Legislature on the 23d day of the present month, gave me great pleasure. I would much enjoy being with you on that occasion, but my health is such that I dare not attempt it. 114 I rejoice that I have lived loug enough in our great State of Illinois to realize the wonderful strides that our common- wealth has made since its organization and to realize whose brains contributed to the upbuilding of its towering influence among our sister states. Looking back to the early times and influences that have given us the wonderful progression that has been achieved by the State, there looms up in my mind the action of the many statesmen of those early times, than whom there is no one more worthy of the gratitude of the present generation than is our own Judge Douglas, "the Little Giant." It was he who saved the State honor in preventing repudiation at a time when we were almost bankinipt and when many of the best men in the State were urging such action by our State Legislature. But why need I recapitulate the de- votion of Stephen A. Douglas and his great loyalty to our State and nation in the dark hours of our history? My acquaintance with Judge Douglas was of a general political nature. I was often thrown into his company at con- ventions and political meetings, and at all times he was the general commanding. As alternate delegate in 1860 I attended the Charleston Convention before which Judge Douglas was a candidate for President. The scenes and actions of the representatives to that convention were so indelibly engraven upon my memory that I can never forget them, and as Judge Douglas' loyalty to our Government was so strongly tempted by the southern delegates to that convention in the offer to give us the candi- date if we would give to them the making of the platform, or vice versa, they to take the candidate and we to have the making of the platform. Judge Douglas' answer to that prop- osition was "No." "If we get the candidate we must have a part in the making of the platform, ' ' and in that reply he knew that his chances for obtaining his life's ambition were sealed and gone forever. Do not understand that the proposition was made in convention, but it was through delegates from a caucus of the southern delegates to a caucus of the delegates from the north, at which I was present as a delegate from our State. This act on the part of Judge Douglas is worthy of the greatest of all the great men of that or any other age, in my estimation. Again thanking you for the in^dtation, I am, Very truly yours, Charles A. Walker. 115 Lansden &' Lansden District Counsel Mobile & Ohio Railroad Company 614 Commercial Avenue Cairo, Illinois, April 21. 1913. Hon. Walter I. Manny, Springfield, 111. Dear Sir: Your very kind invitation to attend the celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Stephen A. Douglas should have been answered before this time, but I have been so busy about many other things that I have not had the time to do so. I regret it exceedingly that it will not be in my power to attend the celebration, as much as I would like to do so. The present generation knows far too little of Stephen A. Douglas. He was one of the very greatest men we have ever had in this country. Of all of our many great men none have surpassed him in intellectual power, commanding presence and ability as a public speaker. I would not speak of him as an orator. That would not express it. His clear, strong, fine language, his manner, his voice, reaching to acres of people, all so steady and deliberate and sublimely grand, impressed every one as incomparably wonderful. This may seem extrava- gant. Perhaps it is ; but to change or reduce it much would be to fall short of the actual facts. I saw and heard him many times and especially upon one occasion, of which I would like to speak at some length had I the time and you the leisure to read what I would write. I was in Nashville when he and John Bell and William L. Yancey and Henry S. Foote were there, a few days before the election in November, 1860. Bell was also a candidate, you remember. Douglas was returning north from an extended trip through the south. Yancev was returnmg south from a tour in the north. Douglas spoke in the afternoon and Yancey in the evening. It seemed to me there were hundreds of thousands of people in the city. In a word, it was, I think, the greatest gathering or occasion I ever attended. I remember well what all my fellow law students said of him. Most of tliem were for Breckinridge and Bell, and were perhaps about equally divided between those two candidates ; but words failed tlunn to ex- press their admiration and the effect upon them of the speech of the great Senator from Illinois. I never saw an assemblage so impressed. The effect upon them was striking indeed. Most of tliem differed widely from him, but they seemed to look and feel as though the foundations of all their hopes had been swept from under them. 116 Let me add but one thing more, one of a score or more: Douglas entered the Senate in 1847, little known then outside of Illinois ; but in the course of a very few years and especially in 1850, when AVebster and Clay and Calhoun were there, and the great compromise measures of that time were before the Senate, those three, perhaps the greatest of all the Senators our country has ever had, came to look upon Mr. Douglas as a man of great ability and power and as promising more for the fu- ture than any one else in that great body. Senator Douglas, great as he was, did not seem to realize fully the growing power of the north as compared with the south. He seems to have allied himself with the south and to some extent, the north thought, with slavery, and hence, his failure in the great national contest. Very truly yours, John M. Lansden. CO O a O a 0) C a> CO 09 as ■*-* oo a; +-» 'c D u T3 6 4) CO as CO "as 3 O Q 118 Supreme Court of Illinois Clerk's Office J. McCan Davis, Clerk Supreme Court Building Springfield, Illinois April 30, 1913. Hon. Walter I. Manny, Cliainnan Joint Committee on Arrangements, Douglas Centennial Celebration, Springfield, 111. My Dear Senator: As an admirer of both Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, I wish to congratulate you and your fellow members of the General Assembly on the fitting manner in which the centen- nial anniversary of the birth of Mr. Douglas was recently cele- brated. It was an appropriate and just tribute to a man whom historians generally have not treated with that impartial and ample justice which he so richly merited by his devoted service to his country. It is no easy task to impress upon the present generation the commanding ability and tremendous power of Stephen A. Douglas in the affairs of this government at the zenith of his greatness. Illinois, in the thirty years following its admission to the Union, produced several United States Senators of ability, but none who rose to national pre-eminence. Prior to 1850, the United States Senate was dominated by the East and South. Illinois was a far-western state, and it had had comparatively small voice in national affairs. With the passing of Webster, Clay and Calhoun, Stephen A. Douglas rose to a place of con- spicuous and powerful leadership, almost without a parallel in American history. He focused national attention on Illinois, and this State at once took its place in the front rank of Ameri- can commonwealths. Illinois became the great battleground in the national conflict which was to tenninate in the Civil War. Douglas "set the pace" for all Senators from Illinois who came after him. He fixed a standard of ability, integrity and patriot- ism which, in the half century that has passed since his death, has had a powerful and beneficent influence upon his successors. Although since the death of Douglas, Illinois has been repre- sented in the United States Senate by some of the ablest men of the nation. I think it -will be conceded that none has sur- passed the "Little Giant" in the depth and breadth of his statesmanship or in point of service to his country. 119 Douglas was the commanding leader of a great party — "a. partisan in partisan times" — but he belongs to history as a. patriot rather than as a partisan leader. Whatever may have been the judgment of his contemporaries, or whatever may ba- the verdict of his successors, all must acknowledge his tran- scendent ability and his lofty patriotism, and all must admire the "splendor of his combat." Very sincerely, J. McCan Davis, Clerk of the Supreme Court of Illinois, Author of "How Abraham Lincoln Be- came President, " " The Breaking of the Deadlock," etc. 120 ADDENDA . At the date of the proceedings of tlie Illinois Legislature commemorating the one hundredth annivei*sary of the birth of Stephen A. Douglas, there were living three men who took a prominent part in his last senatorial campaign and in his cam- paign for the Presidency in 1860. These gentlemen were Adlai E. Stevenson, Lewis DuBois Erwin, William Taylor Davidson. Since the proceedings in the Legislature each of these three gentlemen has passed away. The committee in charge of the celebration feel that it would not be inappropriate to give here- with a short sketch of each of them and their connection with the lamented Douglas, which sketches, at the request of the com- mittee, were prepared by Ethan Allen Snively, who was an inti- mate personal friend of each of the distinguished gentlemen. Adlai E. Stevenson At the time of the centennial of the birth of Stephen a. Douglas, the most prominent man living who had taken an ac- tive part in his senatorial campaigns was ex- Vice President Adlai E. Stevenson, of Bloomington. No man has contributed more to the civic life of Illinois and the nation than Mr. Steven- son. He was bom October 23, 1835, in Christian County, Ken- tucky, and removed with his family, at an early age, to Illinois. After attending the public schools he attended Wesleyan University and Center College at Danville, Kentucky. In 1857 he was admitted to the bar and at once took a front rank in his profession as well as becoming quite prominent in politics. He had, in the senatorial campaign of 1852, been one of the most prominent young men in the State in urging the re- election of Senator Douglas; and in the celebrated campaign of 1858, and in the Presidential campaign of 1860, his time was almost wholly devoted to the election of the Senator. "While Mr. Stevenson knew Abraham Lincoln, and had tried law suits with him and against him, he could not in the least abandon one jot of his love and admiration for Douglas, whom he regarded as the greatest and most incori-uptible statesman of his day. The first office held by Mr. Stevenson was, by appointment of the court, that of Master in Chancery, the duties of which office he discharged in the most satisfactory manner. The first position occupied by Mr. Stevenson which brought him into direct con- tact with the people was that of State 's Attorney for the Twenty- third judicial circuit, to which office he was elected in 1864. Under the Constitution then existing the territory for which the State's Attorney was elected was co-extensive with that of the circuit judge. The performance of the duties of this office brought Mr. Stevenson in contact with the people and in con- tact with the ablest lawyers of the State. Here he contended 121 witli such men as Abraham Lincoln, J)avid Davis, Stephen T. Logan, Julius Manning, Normim II. I'urple, William Kellogg and the great lawyers of that day in Illinois and at times with prominent lawyers from other states. Mr. Stevenson was a born diplomat in the broadest sense of the word. He was deferen- tial, without being obseciuious, to all — he was never criticized by the court — he was courteous to officer, witnesses and jurors — and his word was all the stipulation ever asked by his opponents in a law suit. These characteristics were a part and parcel of his life and caused all ^^'ho came in contact with him to love and respect him. To these qualities, which were thus early devel- oped, were added great executive and legislative ability, and he owed to them the success which he afterw^ards attained and made him the model official. Removing to J31oomington he engaged in the general prac- tice of the law in connection with Honorable James S. Ewing. The firm soon took front rank and was at the head of a bar knoAvn all over the State for the eminent ability of its members. In 1874, by the urgent request of the Democrats of his district, he consented to become a candidate for Congress, al- though the district had a majority of about three thousand for the Republican part3^ Here, again, was brought into play those qualities to which reference has been made and notwith- standing the great majority against his party he overcame it and was elected, as he was again in 1878, having been defeated in 1876. In 1877 he was appointed by President Hayes a visitor to the West Point Military Academy. Retiring from Congress, he again took up the practice of law, which he followed contin- uously until 1885, when President Cleveland, one of the best judges of men who ever filled the executive chair, appointed him to the position of first assistant Postmaster General. This was the most difficult position to fill in the administration. The Democratic party had been out of power for a quarter of a cejitury. For neaily every fouith class postoffice there were many candidates. To reconcile these differences — to obliterate party factions — to exclude neighborhood feuds — and to get the best man for the service, was a task beyond conception. Mr. Stevenson went at it and how well he accomplished his task is shown with what rejoicing Ids name was hailed when, in 1892, he was nominated for Vice President. Had Mr. Cleveland been re-elected in 1888, Mr. Stevenson would have gone into the cab- inet as Postmaster General. When the Democratic National Con- vention met in 1892, and after the nomination of Mr. Cleveland had been made, the name of Mr. Stevenson Avas suggested for Vice President. The suggestion took like wild fii-e, and dele- gation after delegation almost ran ovei' one anotlicr to give lihu their votes, and it is no discredit to the dead Cleveland to say that the great personal strength of Mr. Stevenson contril)uted in no small degree to the victory won that year by the Democracy. 19'> To this high office he brought all his experience and ability, and his natural diplomacy made him the ideal presiding officer, and he left a record which has never been excelled. Upon the ac- cession of President McKinley in 1877, he appointed Mr. Steven- son a member of the Monetary Commission and he visited aU the European nations, and on his return submitted a report most highly complimented by the President and prominent American financiers. In 1900 he was again nominated for Vice President, with William Jennings Bryan, the candidate for President, but the National ticket was defeated. In the election of 1904, the Republican candidate for Governor received a majority of nearly three hundred thousand over his Democratic opponent; in 1908 the Democrats turned to Mr. Stevenson, who accepted the nom- ination, not because he wanted to be Governor but because he felt it his duty to respond to the call of his party. He was defeated by less than twenty-five thousand votes and received nearly seventy-five thousand more votes than the Democratic candidate for President. In 1908, at the semi-centennial celebration of the Douglas- Lincoln debates, Mr. Stevenson took a prominent part. At the January meeting of tlie State Historical Society he delivered an elaborate address upon Mr. Douglas. The address was a histori- cal classic. He spoke of the dead Senator as only one could who knew and loved him, one whose heart beat in unison with the great statesman. His address on this occasion will be a text for the future historian who may want to know Douglas as he was and all his aspirations for the good of the people. In addition to this, he delivered addresses at several cities where joint debates between Douglas and Lincoln had been held in the campaign of 1858. The attention given him by the people attested their interest in the subject, but also was a strong evi- dence of their affection for Mr. Stevenson. As an evidence of the kindliness and affectionate esteem in which he was held by all with whom he came in contact, it might be stated that he survived the three men who were his opponents for Congress and was one of the pall-bearers for each. If Mr. Stevenson was the ideal official, careful in the strict and courteous discharge of every duty, jealous of his own rights and most willing to accord to others what he demanded for him- self, he yet, in his home life, was the true husband, the kind, indulgent father. Married on the 20th of December, 1866, to Miss Latitia Green, the younger daughter of Reverend Lewis W. Green, President of Center College, Danville, Kentucky, they lived that life which "makes home a heaven upon earth" until December 25, 1913, when Mrs. Stevenson passed away, leaving her devoted husband and three children. On June 14, 1914, Mr. Stevenson passed away. In his death Illinois lost the man who had contributed much to its official civic life, and the nation lost one whom it honored and loved. Hon. Lewis D. Erwin 124 Lewis DuBois Erwin Was born at Plattsburg, New York, July 1, 1815. Mr. Erwin came to Schuyler County in 1839, and lived there practically until the day of his death, which took place Saturday, March 7, 1914. At the time of his arrival in Rushville the town was the political center in that part of the State known as the Military Tract. It was the home of Robert Blackwell, Colonel T. Lyle Dickey, General James W. Singleton, Cyrus Walker, and other prominent men known all over the State. Mr. Erwin was a quiet, dignified young man and indulged in none of the boister- ous pastimes which occupied the time of too many men of his age. While not taking life too seriously he realized that an honest course in business, temperance in life and conduct were sure assets in the world. He was appointed a deputy sheriff, and when the sheriff went to the Mexican war he performed the duties of the office. In 1846 he was elected as a representative in the State Legislature from Schuyler County, in 1850 he was elected sheriff of the county, in 1852 he was elected clerk of the circuit court, and in 1856, 1858 and 1860 he was elected as representative in the Legislature. In his official capacity he first became acquainted with Senator Douglas and this acquaint- ance ripened into the very strongest friendship, which lasted while the Senator lived. He was in the Legislature in 1861. when Senator Douglas came to Springfield to deliver his famous speech. Mr. Erwin differed with those who did not want Doug- las to talk. Some of tliem afterwards regretted their action and became prominent in the war. He stood by Douglas in his declaration there were but two parties — Union men and traitors. He was a true friend of Governor Yates and voted to uphold the hands of the State executive in all matters looking to the placing of Illinois in the front rank of the defenders of the Union. In 1863 Governor Yates appointed Mr. Erwin as one of the commissioners to distribute money voted by the State to the soldiers. This took him to the front, but lie not only performed the duties of the position but looked carefully after the wants of the soldiers and his report was the means of helping many an Illinois regiment. In his home town, he was one of the prime movers in securing Rushville its only railroad and after he had passed "three score and ten," he unaided and alone maintained a free public library. He had nearly rounded a full century when death called him, and for more than three quai-ters of that time he had gone among the people of Rusliville, all of whom lionored and loved him, and his life was a benediction to all. William Taylor Davidson Was bom in the city of Petersburg, Illinois, on February 8, 1837. Before he was two years old his parents removed to Lewisto^vn, Illinois. At the age of four years he began attend- 125 ing school, in a log school house, and in that day there was only three or four months of school each year, and the teacher was paid by the patrons of the school. lie early achieved a liking for the printing business and became an apprentice in the local newspaper. Earl}^ in 1858 he became part owner of the Fulton Democrat, and in the fall of that year became its sole owner, and so remained until his death on Januaiy 3, 1915, He was one of the youngest editors in the State during tlie senatorial campaign of 1858, but Senator Douglas had been a frequent visitor at his home and he not only knew and loved him — he worshiped him. Through the columns of his paper and as a speaker, he gave him most loyal and enthusiastic support. His interest in Senator Douglas was more than that of one i^oli- tician for another — he believed in Douglas, he loved him as a man — every fibre of his being responded when the name of Douglas was mentioned, and he rejoiced as much as one could at his victories and his defeat was a personal calamity to the young editor. As years went by he felt, while being exceeded by none in his admiration for Lincoln that the people were not giving to the memory of Douglas that honor and respect that was due the great man and his achievements. In 1908 Mr. Davidson was one of the speakers at three of the places where the Lincoln-Douglas debates w^ere held. In his address at Freeport, he concluded his address as follows : "Too aged and feeble for this loving duty, mischooled in oratory, 1 am here pleading with my fellow countrymen to help me bring back to glowing life the long dead and misunderstood, if not forgotten, Douglas. When the truth of histoiy is made plain — when the rounded centennial of the great debate shall be honored in this fair city of Freeport, a grateful nation in its Hall of Fame, high up beside the name of the immortal Lin- coln, will have placed in letters of living light the adored name of Stephen Arnold Douglas." What a splendid tribute ! And yet it but faintly echoed the sentiments of love and affection which have increased with receding years. Of all the editors who supported Senator Douglas, Mr. Davidson was the only one living when the dead Senator's one hundredth anniversary was celebrated. --JS^ I