Part 1 (2/2)

He announced that he would now devote himself to his profession But it was by this time very difficult, even if he so wished, to withdraw from politics He was constantly in council with the leaders of his party, and belonged to a sort of ”third house” at Springfield which nowadays would probably be called a lobby During the winter there was an angry controversy between the De senate over the question of the governor's right to appoint a secretary of state, the senate refusing to confirround that the office was not vacant The question was brought before the supreovernor, strengthened a growing feeling of discontent with the whole judiciary around in favor of reorganizing the court In March, addressing a great inia and Kentucky resolutions of 1798, and when the presidential can opened in Nove orators He was, in fact, the leading Den in Illinois, and there is no doubt that his enthusiasm and his shrewdness had much to do with the result there Of all the Northern States, only Illinois and New Hampshi+re went for Van Buren

Meanwhile, however, he had practiced laith such success that no account of the Illinois bar of those days omits his name from the list of eminent attorneys It was noted that whereas Lincoln was never very successful save in those cases where his client's cause was just, a client with but a slender clailas a far better advocate He never see of law or to the ordinary drudgery of preparing cases for trial, but he mastered the main facts of his cases with the utmost facility, and his mind went at once to the points that were sure to affect the decision Early in his experience as a lawyer he had to be content with fees that seeton to argue a case, and got but five dollars for his services

But he was a first-rate ood incoislature, now De incuovernor at once appointed Douglas to succeed him That office, however, he held less than a islature had also reconstructed the suprees, and in February, being then less than twenty-eight years old, he was named for one of the new places One of the reasons why the court was reconstructed was its opposition to the De a famous franchise case before it, had made hi the right to vote, and had thus established hi constituency throughout the State Under the ne, each justice was assigned to a particular circuit,--Douglas to the westernmost, whose principal toas Quincy, on the Illinois River, where he made his home

The Mormon settle of all the cases brought before Judge Douglas grew out of the troubles between the followers of Joe Shbors On one occasion, Joe Smith was hihborhood, long incensed against hi for his life The sheriff, a feeble-bodied and spiritless official, showed signs of yielding, and the judge, pro a power not vested in his office, appointed a stalwart Kentuckian sheriff, and ordered him to summon a _posse_ and clear the roolas, notwithstanding various decisions of his against theious enthusiasts There is a story that soe, but a ainst Nauvoo, he was ordered to take a hundred men and arrest the ”twelve apostles” The Mor the las, however, proceeded alone into their lines, persuaded the twelve to enter their apostolic coach and coreee and as a las stood out with cohout the country during the hard tiot a coislatures, in favor of the relief of debtors He enforced the old laws for the collection of debts, and he baulked several legislative sche the nes unconstitutional For the rest, his decisions have seeal ability and grasp of principles and a corresponding power of state to the Alas” all the rest of his life, but the state bench no more satisfied his ambition than the other state offices he had held In Deceislature proceeded to ballot for a United States senator, his naal requireainst the fifty-six which elected his successful co noress, he accepted, and at once resigned his place on the bench, though the district had a Whig complexion At the end of a canvass which left both hi, seriously ill, he was elected by a ton, he visited Cleveland, where his ard journey had co, and then his houa He was but thirty years old, yet he had held five ih rank in his profession, he was the leader of the doreat State; and all this he had done alone, unaided Few aged ht back such laurels fro In December, 1843, he took his seat in the House of Representatives and began to display before the whole country the say, and success which had captivated the people of Illinois

CHAPTER II

THE HOUSE AND THE SENATE

It was the aggressive energy of the man, unrestrained by such formality as was still observed by the public men of the older Eastern communities, which ed Adams, doubtless the best representative of the older school in either branch of Congress, gave a page of his diary to one of Douglas's early speeches

”His face was convulsed,”--so the esticulation frantic, and he lashed himself into such a heat that if his body had been made of combustible , to save hi, he stripped and cast away his cravat, unbuttoned his waistcoat, and had the air and aspect of a half-naked pugilist And this man comes from a judicial bench, and passes for an eloquent orator!” On another occasion, the salas ”raved an hour about delophobia and universal empire” Adams had been professor of rhetoric and oratory at Harvard College, and he was the last man in the country to appreciate an oratorical manner that departed from the established rules and traditions of the art Alas a perfect representative of the energetic builders of the Western commonwealths, and predicted that he would come into pohen it should be the turn of the West to dominate the country ”Small, black, stocky,” so this observer described him, ”his speech is full of nervous power, his action silas, however, quickly adapted himself to his new environment,--no man in the country excelled him in that art,--and took on all the polish which the Washi+ngton of that day de spirit or any abandonot a good opportunity to plant hi, in a really excellent speech, that the country should repay to the aged Jackson the fine which had been i the defense of New Orleans An experienced opponent found hi objected that there was absolutely no precedent for refunding the fine, ”I presume,” he replied, ”that no case can be found on record, or traced by tradition, where a fine, i his country, at the peril of his life and reputation, has ever been refunded” When he visited The Herled hiuished party and thanked hi his course at New Orleans better than he hilas won further distinction during the session by defending, in a report froht of the several States to deterress should be chosen Later, in a debate with John J Hardin, his rival in Congress as in the Illinois legislature, he contrasted the Whig and Democratic positions on the questions of the day with so much force and skill that the speech was used as the principal Den of 1844

In Congress, distinction does not always, or usually, ilas was consus are in fact accoton Whatever therapidity to positive views He was never without a clear purpose, and he had the skill and the tee htful, to threaten the timid, to button-hole and flatter and cajole He breathed freely the heated air of lobbies and corew, his actual i of his second term he was appointed chaired in an especial ith the affairs of the remoter West In the course of that service, he framed many lahich have affected very notably the developer commonwealths He was particularly opposed to the policy ofthe Indians in reservations west of the Mississippi, fearing that the new Northwest, the Oregon country, over which ere still in controversy with Great Britain, would thus be isolated To prevent this, he introduced during his first teranize into a territory that part of the Louisiana Purchase which lay north and west of Missouri As yet, however, there were scarcely any white settlers in the region, and no interest could be enlisted in support of the bill But he renewed his motion year after year until finally, as we shall see, he made it the most celebrated measure of his time

His advocacy of the internal iht him in opposition to a powerful ele in his diary under date of April 17, 1844, says: ”The Western harbor bill was taken up, and the previous question ithdrawn for the _holas to poke out a speech in favor of the constitutionality of appropriations for the improvement of Western rivers and harbors The debate was continued between the conflicting absurdities of the Southern Democracy, which is slavery, and the Western Democracy, which is knavery” Under the leadershi+p of Jackson and other Southerners, the De ascendency, had adhered to their position on internal improvements more consistently, perhaps, than to any other of the contentions which they had las did not, indeed, commit himself to that interpretation of the Constitution which justified appropriations for any enterprise which could be considered a contribution to the ”general welfare,” and he protested against various items in river and harbor bills But as a rule he voted for the bills

He was particularly interested in the sche a railroad which should run north and south the entire length of Illinois, and favored a grant of public lands to aid the State in the enterprise For years, however, he had to contend with a corporation which had got fro to get help froress In 1843, and for several sessions thereafter, bills were introduced to give aid directly to the Great Western Railway Colas that finally secured alands to the State, and not to the corin, however, the proislature to pass a bill transferring to therant to the State for the railroad He at once sent for Holbrook, the leading man in the company, and informed him that no bill would be permitted to pass until he and his associates should first execute a release of all the rights they had obtained froislature Such a release they were at last forced to sign, the bill passed, and the Illinois Central was built It becaency in the development, not of Illinois merely, but of the whole Mississippi Valley; and it is the islation But throughout the whole course of his service at Washi+ngton he never neglected, in his concern about the great national questions hich his name is forever associated, the material interests of the people whom he especially represented His district and his State never had cause to complain of his devotion to his party and his country

But the questions which had the foremost place while he was a n relations, and as it happened they were questions to which he could give hi his distinctive role as the chaon boundary dispute and the proposed annexation of Texas were uppern of 1844, and on both it was coressive policy was demanded by Western interests and Western sention boundary that he first took the attitude of bitter opposition to all European, and particularly to all English interference in the affairs of the American continents which he steadily reeon country he characterized as in practice an agree notice of the termination of the convention, he shrewdly pointed out that as the British settlers were for the ricultural, ould ”squat them out” if no hindrance were put upon the ard anize a territorial governon, and take measures to protect it; if Great Britain threatened war, he would put the country in a state of defense ”If war coret the necessity which produced it, but when it does come, I would administer to our citizens Hannibal's oath of eternal enmity I would blot out the lines on the map which now mark our territorial boundaries on this continent, and make the area of liberty as broad as the continent itself” He even broke with the Polk administration when it retreated fro the can, and was one of a hardy ten who, in the debate over the resolutions that led to the final settlement, voted for a substitute declaration that the question was ”no longer a subject of negotiation and coland, as well as his robust Americanism, commended him at that time to the mass of his countrymen everywhere but in the commercial East

On the annexation of Texas, popular sentiment, even in his own party, was far frohly committed to it After the election, when it appeared that Tyler was quite as favorable to the las was one of those who ca territory by joint resolution of Congress, and in January, 1845, he stated as well as it ever has been stated the argument that Texas became ours by the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, and ithout the consent of her people retroceded to Spain by the treaty of 1819 When President Polk sent in his announcelas was ready with a defense of that doubtful _casus belli_ and an ardent support of the army bill which followed His speech on the army bill was an admirable exhibition of his powers, and it was the best speech on that side in the debate Adams, who interrupted him, was instantly put upon the defensive by a citation froument which he himself, as Secretary of State, had made in 1819 for the American claim to the line of the Rio del Norte When he asked if the treaty of peace and boundaries concluded by Mexico and Texas in 1836 had not since been discarded by the Mexican governlas retorted that he was unaware of any treaty ever overnment which was not either violated or repudiated Adae the unusual powers of the Western ”_homunculus_” as a debater

But the reputation and the influence won in the House of Representatives were to be extended in anow thirty-three years of age, the Illinois legislature elected hi March 4, 1847 In April, 1847, he was hter of Colonel Robert Martin, of Rockinghae slaveholder

Active as he continued to be in politics, he found ti He invested boldly in the lands over which Chicago was now spreading in its rapid growth andcity his home

His investments were fortunate, and within a few years he was a wealthyto the standard of those times He used his wealth freely in hospitality, in charity, and in the furtherance of his political enterprises In the year 1856, the corner-stone of the University of Chicago was laid on land which he had given

The asseradually risen to a higher place in our system than the founders intended The House, partly by reason of its exclusive right to originate measures of a certain class, partly because it was felt to be more accurately representative of the people, had at first a sort of ascendency The great constructive measures of the first administration were House measures Even so late as Jefferson's and Madison's administrations, one must look oftenest to the records of that chaislative history

But in Jackson's time the Senate profited by its coes, by its veto on appointreater freedom of debate which its limited membershi+p permitted It came to stand, as the House could not, for conservatism, for deliberation, for independence of the executive The advantage thus gained was increased as the growth of the Speaker's power into a virtual premiershi+p and the development of the committee system undermined the importance of the individual representative, and as the more rapid increase of population in the free States destroyed in the House that balance of the sections which in the Senate was still carefully est er favorable to that theory of the government which, as Marshall expounded it, had tended so ained not ainst the executive and the judiciary The ablest and most experienced statesmen were apt to be senators; and the Senate was the true battleground in a contest that was beginning to dwarf all others Fro a brief, delusive interval after the Compromise of 1850, the slavery question in its territorial phase was constantly uppermost, and in the Senate, if anywhere, those reed on, which should save the country from disunion or war There was open to hiht prove, was at least a plain one To win a his fellows in the Senate a leadershi+p such as he had readily won afield, in the legislature and the De to in the lower house when he left it, and then to find and establish the right policy with slavery, and particularly with slavery in the Territories--there lay his path It was a task that dehest powers, a public service adequate to the loftiest patriotism How he did, in fact, attempt it, how nearly he succeeded in it, and why he failed in it, are the inquiries hich any study of his life las was too alert and alive to lile subject or class of subjects Save that he does not appear to have taken up the tariff question in any conspicuous way, he had a leading part in all the important discussions of his time, whether in the Senate or before the people Unquestionably, his would be the best naraphical form a political history of the period of his senatorshi+p

The very day he took his seat, he was appointed chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories, and so kept the role of sponsor for young coun to play in the House No other publicof Territories and the ad of States into the Union; probably no other islation He reported the bills by which Utah, New Mexico, Washi+ngton, Kansas, Nebraska, Oregon, and Minnesota became Territories, and those by which Texas, Iowa, Florida, California, Wisconsin, Oregon, and Minnesota beca the public do with both subjects, he seeuided by his confidence in the Western people themselves He was for a liberal policy with individual settlers, holding that the govern of its lands, should aim at development and not at profit; and he was no less liberal in his view of the rights and privileges hich each new political coht to be invested

As to the lands, he held to such a policy as looked forward to the time when they should be turned into farovernment of the Territories, he held to such a policy with the States, and his theory was that all the powers of the general government in reference to them were based on its power to admit States into the Union To that rule of construction, however, hethat the Mormons were for theto subvert the authority of the United States, that they themselves were unfit for citizenshi+p and their community unfit for membershi+p in the Union, he favored the repeal of the act by which the territorial government of Utah was set up He went farther, and maintained that only such territory as is set apart to foroverned in accordance with those constitutional clauses which relate to the admission of States, and that territory acquired or held for other purposes could be governed quite without reference to any rights which through statehood, or the expectation of statehood, its inhabitants ht claim This theory of his has assumed in our later history an interest and ilas in that and in encies as have brought us to a practical adoption of his view