Part 8 (1/2)
”Past and to cos present worst
We are ti months of the administration of the elder Adams, this country has known no period ofpolitical leaders, than wasparty, with Henry Clay as its candidate and its idol, was for the first ti of the spirit of its iressive The scabbard was throay, and all the lines of retreat cut off fro
No act of the party in power escaped the liinary, of Jackson--its candidate for re-election-- but was ruthlessly drawn into the open day Even the doendered 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 ad political conditions throughout the country when Stephen A Douglas, at the age of twenty-two, first entered the arena of debate It would not be strange if such environave direction to his political career The period of probation and training so essential to ordinary men was unneeded by him Fully equipped--and with a self-confidence that has rarely had a counterpart--he was fro the earnest defender of the salient ressive champion of President Jackson Absolutely fearless, he took no reckoning of the opposing forces, and regardless of the prowess or ripe experience of adversaries, he at all tiladly welcomed the encounter To this end, he did not await opportunities, but eagerly sought them
His first contest for public office ith John J Hardin, by noleaders already las 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 thirty-seven fell while gallantly leading his regiue of men worthy of remembrance, there is to be found the name of no braver, manlier man, than that of John J Hardin
With well-earned laurels as public prosecutor, Douglas resigned, after two years' incumbency of that office, to accept that of Representative in the State Legislature The Tenth General 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 --are names inseparably associated 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 Supreress, six Senators, and one President of the United States That would indeed be a notable assee of law-makers in any country or time, that included in its an, Hardin, Browning, shi+elds, Baker, Stuart, Douglas, and Lincoln
In this asselas encountered in iainst whos as candidate for Congress; and later as an aspirant to yet iven to the ages”--his own is linked inseparably for all ti contest for the national House of Representatives the State has known--excepting possibly 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 e froan, northward to Lake Michigan and the Wisconsin line Together on horseback, often across unbridged streah pathless forest and prairie, they journeyed, holding joint debates in all the county seats of the district--including the then villages of Jacksonville, Springfield, Peoria, Pekin, Blooo
That the candidates ell matched in ability and eloquence readily appears from the fact that after an active canvass of several ht votes By re-elections he served six years in the House of Representatives and was one of its ablest and ress, he was the political friend and associate of Crittenden, Winthrop, Clay, and Webster Major Stuart lives instatese
Courteous and kindly, he was at all tientleman of the old school if ever one trod this blessed earth
Returning to the bar after his defeat for Congress, Douglas was, in quick succession, Secretary of State by appointe of the Circuit and Supreislature The courts he held as _nisi prius_ judge were in the Quincy circuit, and the last-named city for a 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 subh, however, appears frouments 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 mistress who is at the same time so jealous and so just” This, however, was not to be, and to a fieldthe 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 the Hon Orville H Browning, hoislature, he hadthe financial policy of President Jackson ”The whirligig of ties,”
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 of Douglas--”touched by the finger of death” At a later day, Mr
Browning, as a member of the Cabinet of President Johnson, acquitted hi duties of Secretary of the Interior So long as h airateful remembrance, his name will have honored place in our country's annals
The career upon which Douglas now entered was the one for which he was pre-einning 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, Deceues were Semple and Breese of the Senate, and Hardin, McClernand, Ficklin, and Wentworth of the House Mr
Stephens of Georgia,--hoood fortune to serve in the forty-fourth and forty-sixth Congresses--told las, 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 aress were Haton Hunt, Henry A Wise, Howell Cobb, Joshua R Giddings, Linn Boyd, John Slidell, Barnwell Rhett, Robert C
Winthrop, the Speaker, Hannibal 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 nearly two decades of faithful service as a Representative in Congress
The period that witnessed the entrance of 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 n the party dissentions that eventually cole for the Presidency Daniel Webster, regardless of the criticis 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 ith 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 hostility to President Jackson For his declaration of martial law in New Orleans just prior to the battle--hich his own name is associated for all time--General Jackson had been subjected to a heavy fine by a judge of that city Repeated atte to his vindication and rei the floor for the first tireat victory--delivered an impassioned speech in vindication of Jackson which at once challenged the attention of the country, and gave hiress In reply to the deislation, Douglas quickly responded:
”Possibly, sir, no case can be found on any page of A officer has been fined for an act absolutely necessary to the salvation of his country As to precedents, let us e the ades”
After a graphic description of conditions existing in New Orleans at the time of Jackson's declaration of martial law, ”the city filled with traitors, anxious to surrender; spies transulars--four-fold the nu to the attack--in this terrible eency, necessity became the paramount law, the responsibility was taken, martial law declared, and a victory achieved unparalleled in the annals of war; a victory that avenged the infa 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 e, he received the earnest thanks of the venerable commander for his masterly vindication
Two of the salient and far-reaching questions confronting the statesress pertained to the settleon boundary question, and to the annexation of the republic of Texas The first-named question--left unsettled by the treaty of Ghent--had been for two generations the apple of discord between the Aovern the two nations in a war is a well-known fact in history The platform upon which Mr Polk had, in 1844, been elected to the Presidency, asserted unequivocally the 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 ord in that las, in full accord with his party upon this question, ably canvassed Illinois in earnest advocacy of Mr Polk's election