Eulogy upon the Hon. Stephen A. Douglas : delivered at the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, July 3, 1861 / by John W. Forney.
John W. Forney
973.68 D747zf J)<L%1 EULOGY UPON THE HON. STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS DELIVERED AT THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, JULY 3, 1861, BY JOHN W. FORNEY. PHILADELPHIA: KINGWALT & BROWN, PRINTERS, 34 SOUTH THIRDSTREET. 18(31. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Lyrasis Members and Sloan Foundation http://www.archive.org/details/eulogyuponhonsteOOjohn EULOGY (TON THE HON. STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS, DELIVERED AT THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, JULY 3, 1861, BY JOHN W. FOKNEY. PHILADELPHIA: RINGWALT & BROWN, PRINTERS, 34 SOUTH THIRD STREET. 1861. f IMMEDIATELY after intelligence of the death of Senator Douglas was received in Washington, a meeting of his friends and admirers was held there, to determine upon the best mode of honoring his memory. A Committee then formed — of which the Hon. John B. Haskin was Chairman, and John J. McElhone, Esq., Secretary — decided upon inviting Col. Forney to deliver an Oration or Eulogy upon the great departed, and the Lecture Hall of the Smithsonian Institute was kindly granted as the most suitable audi- torium. At eight o'clock, upon the evening of Wednesday, July 3d, the Hall was crowded — the audience including representatives of numerous classes of poli- tics, with a number of ladies. When Prof. Henry, of the Institute, appeared, accompanied by Gen. Cameron, Col. Forney, and numerous other gentlemen, who took seats upon the platform, he was warmly greeted. Prof. Henry, in introducing the speaker, in a few compact and expressive sentences, said that the place in which they were assembled was exactly suited for the delivery of an estimate of Mr. Douglas, because that lamented and dis- tinguished statesman had been connected with the Institute in an official man- ner, and had also personally taken great interest in its welfare. He was sure that full justice would be done to the character of Mr. Douglas by Col. Forney, whom he now begged leave to introduce to the audience. EULOGY. Mr. President Henry, Ladies and Gentlemen : On the eve of the Anniversary of American Union and Inde- pendence, we have assembled in this classic hall to pay a heart- felt tribute to the memory of a Statesman, who, in his day and time, has conferred lasting benefits upon his country, and who, in the hour of her extremest peril, and in the prime of his life, has been called to his final account. Mingled with the grief which this sad event has inspired — a grief that has obliterated party prejudices among the people of all the loyal States of this Union — is the sad recollection that to-morrow's celebration of our national Sabbath will find us in the midst of an internal strife, which threatens the overthrow of our domestic peace, and the destruction of the liberties purchased by the blood of our forefathers, and consecrated in the deathless charter pro- claimed from Independence Hall on the Fourth Day of July, 1776. [Applause.] We have, therefore, a double cause to mourn — first, in the loss of an unchallenged and unquestioned Patriot, and next, in the fact that, in one section of our happy country, thousands of misguided men are found insensible to all the obligations of the glorious Past, and resolved to entitle themselves to the scorn and detestation of mankind. Yet may we not congratulate our- selves that, if there are those reckless enough to forget the day, (5) 6 and the men who made that day immortal, more than twenty millions of people will greet the rising of to-morrow's sun — will hail the eighty-fifth anniversary of American Independence — with a fervor all the more deep, all the more religious, all the more profound and universal, because the Republic is in immi- nent danger, and the efforts and prayers of all good men are demanded for its preservation? [Applause.] When the impartial historian comes to analyze the character and services of Stephen A. Douglas, he will be amazed at the wonderful versatility of the man, the vast amount of labor he performed, the events in which he moved a principal actor, and the comparatively short period of time during which he figured upon the stage of American politics. Volumes would be re- quired to do justice to the subject. Our greatest national historian, in his marvellous eulogy upon Andrew Jackson, in this very city, sixteen years ago, when he approached that part of the history of the old hero which con- tinued to divide public opinion, said: "We tread on ashes where the fire is not yet extinguished." Many of the acts of Stephen A. Douglas were the acts of yesterday. We can almost hear the echo of the shouts of the hosts in the great conflicts upon one side, of which he was the leader. The theories he advocated still awaken animosities among men; his own passions, and those he aroused, are yet keenly remembered. For all this, I do not feel I approach a forbidden, though a somewhat delicate, theme, when I allude, in passing, to some of his traits as a politician. I am rather invited to this, when I remember that within the last month the citizen, now President of the United States, who was defeated by Douglas for the Senate, in 1858, and who mounted in 1860, to the Presidential chair over the prostrate banner of his former successful competitor, directed that the armies of the Republic should crape their colors in mourning for the loss of his former adversary, and that the Departments of the Govern- ment should be closed on the day of his funeral at Chicago. [Great applause.] I am further attracted to the discussion of Douglas as a political leader by the fact that, at the portals of his tomb, the whole people of his own State, irrespective of former differences, paid the sublimest tribute to his memory — that, when he died, his worst opponents elsewhere forgot their animosities, and that the whole body of the loyal States were struck with sudden grief when his death was proclaimed — struck, indeed, as if they had lost their best, and dearest, and most cherished champion. [Applause.] What a scene is this ! When partisans forgot their hostility to Clay, and Jackson, and Webster, they did so over the graves of old men ; but here they bury the recent and the bitter Past, from out of sight, in paying voluntary honor to the youngest, and, for a time, the extremest statesman of his school. Let me, therefore, with this free charter to speak my own mind, say something of Douglas as a leader and a Democrat. He was a very thorough partisan. He belonged to the class who regarded the Democratic party as incapable of error, and created to rule in the administration of the Federal Government. He was so wedded to this idea as to look upon this organization as almost infallible, and sincerely believed that it was an aggregate of wisdom and experience superior to any political organization of early or later times. Extending over tlie whole of the conti- nent, and holding its devotees with almost Masonic attachment, it generally prevailed against all odds, and finally became so strong as to absorb most other organizations. As an oracle of this party, Judge Douglas was frequently severe upon his opponents, and, by his severity, provoked a retaliatory spirit that often bordered upon personal hatred. Yet, I think his faith in what is known as the organization of the Democratic party failed him before his death. When he saw the Southern leaders powerful enough, with the aid of this organization, to drive Mr. Buchanan from the path of duty into the path of depravity ; to make measures like Lecompton a party test, and finally to bring to a candidate for the Presidency, whose object was unquestionably the disrup- tion of the Government, hundreds of thousands of Democratic votes, he must have felt that the prestige of the Democracy had gone, never to be restored until its leaders can resurrect the great examples, and reanimate the great truths which they have lat- terly insanely neglected. [Applause.] If he were now alive, and could see the name of this powerful party flagrantly used as a cloak for treason, even in portions of the Free States, he would, in my opinion, feel that it was time to set aside a machine which has become so potent an engine of individual and general disaster. He was preeminently and always a national man. This was one reason of his consistent championship of the Southern people. He shrank instinctively from what he called sectionalism. He was, undoubtedly, ambitious, and he had an undoubted right to be ambitious. He believed that the election of any President by a solid Northern or a solid Southern vote would be the parent of serious internal strife. Born in cold New England, he cultiva- ted from early life the warmest relations with the Slave States, and at one time was their chiefest favorite. The Southern pol- iticians loved him for many tilings — for his course in the Mexican War, and in the annexation of Texas ; for his opposition to the Wilmot Proviso ; for his speeches on the Compromise measures, and his subsequent gallant bearing when assailed by the turbu- lent populace of Chicago ; for his aid in the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and for his repeated vindications of that measure before the people. No Northern public man, since the commencement of the anti-slavery agitation, has been so steadily and efficiently the friend of the South. It was only when sternly adhering to his reading of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, he refused to stultify himself by accepting the monstrous construction of that measure given to it by ultra Southern men, that he began to lose their confidence. From that hour all his sacrifices and services in their behalf were studiously forgotten. Their compliments were exchanged for curses, their praises for proscriptions ; and it is a melancholy comment upon the boasted intelligence of the Southern people, that so many thousands permitted themselves to desert the great leader, only because that leader would not himself desert the truth and degrade his manhood. [Great applause.] Much has been said by heated partisans in regard to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. It is alleged, on the one hand, that we should have had no Republican party, and on the other, that if he had adhered to that Compromise the Union itself would have stood the shock of battle and of time. But, however men may differ, when they come to discuss this portion of the record of our departed friend, all must agree that the agitation which followed the enactment of the Kansas-Nebraska bill led to the exposure of the plans of the Disunionists, and enabled the American people to realize that these plans had been many years in course of preparation. And how did he bear himself when his former familiars and friends in the South turned from him, first with displeasure, and afterwards with indignation and scorn? Did he respond to their criminations ? Did he retaliate their misrepresentations ? No. Put forward as the regular Democratic candidate for Presi- dent in 1860, he took the field to save them from the fate which has since overtaken them. Denounced by his assailants as afraid to advocate his opinions in the Slave States, he boldly threw himself among the Southern people, and challenged universal admiration by the dignity, the candor, and the eloquence of his arguments. His replies to the celebrated Norfolk questions were the index of his whole canvass in that never-to-be-forgotten year. Applauded by the Republicans and the Northern Demo- crats as an extraordinary exhibition of moral courage, and execrated by the Disunionists as a deliberate defiance of their threats, he never abandoned the high position thus assumed, but maintained his onward march. Beginning at Norfolk in August, and pursuing his way through North Carolina, returning to Virginia, thence to Maryland, and so through Pennsylvania, at 11 every point greeted by thousands, and approached by servile politicians who attempted to turn him from his text and to seduce him from his duty; yet he invariably spoke the same language and advocated the same doctrine. It was not for the South alone, but for the country, that he pleaded. [Applause.] As an evidence of his singular unselfishness, I am authorized to relate an incident by one who accompanied him through all these trying scenes. He never had full confidence in the probability of his election to the Presidency, but he was buoyed up by the faith that was in him, strengthened by the consciousness that if he did not live to enjoy the fruits of his labors, others would do so; and he seemed to be happy in the reflection that he was laboring not for himself, but for the peace, the prosperity, the perpetuity of the Republic. On the morning after the State elections in Pennsylvania and Indiana, in October of this same year, 1860, while at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, he received a despatch from the Associated Press, based upon an editorial of my own, announcing that both these States had declared in favor of the Republican party. His reply is worthy of preservation. "No," he said, " Lincoln is the next President of the United States. I have no hope and no destiny before me, but to do my best to save the Union from overthrow. Now, let us turn our course to the South." [Ap- plause.] And to the South they went. The history of that tour is yet to be written. Every step of his progress was watched with solicitude and surprise by the Northern people of all parties. Although invited by such men as Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, and John Forsyth, of Alabama, then professing to be his warmest friends, admonitions were thrown 12 out that he would not be permitted to speak in the Slave States, and more than one of the Southern journals invoked the spirit of the mob to put him down. But he was not to be deterred or delayed. He was not to be put down by human power. Leaving Chicago, he passed successively through the States of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana, travel- ling and speaking night and day, and returned through Missis- sippi, Tennessee, and Virginia. Wherever he appeared thousands greeted him, and although invectives were plenty and threats hurled at him from the crowds, armed men watching each other, ready to break into open violence for and against him, he main- tained the even tenor of his way. He reached the city of Mo- bile the evening before the Presidential election, and addressed an immense meeting of the people, carrying the district, as the result announced the night after showed, by the force of his logic and the courage of his character. In all this tour, not content with appealing to the masses from the hustings, he in- voked his friends in private life to stand fast by the flag, appealed to the editors friendly to him to keep up the good fight, and never rested, not even after the election of Mr. Lincoln was ascertained, when he addressed the people of New Orleans, until he was prostrated by disease. [Applause.] It is related that after his speech at New Orleans a splendid silk banner was unfurled, bearing an accurate likeness of Douglas, inscribed with the words "Our choice in 1864." I forbear referring in detail to those who assisted in the welcome of this illustrious patriot during his memorable mission to the Slave States, and who have since fallen from his standard, and are now engaged in the parricidal attempt of destroying that Union in whose be- half he labored so heroically. I have never doubted, that during this campaign the seeds of the fatal disease that finally carried him off were planted in his constitution. Here again he displayed his singular sagacity and boldness ; for while the Republican leaders were uncertain how to treat the first Message of the President, he put himself forward, and with an ingenuity and an audacity, too, that attracted general obser- vation, insisted that Mr. Lincoln's policy was that of an amicable adjustment of our national differences. [Applause.] The se- cret is to be found in his earnest desire to save the people of the South from their leaders — in other words, to keep the Union together, and, as it were, to appeal to the men specially interested in the prosperity of the new Administration, to adopt the same course. It was only when Sumpter fell ; it was only when he perceived that all the amicable proffers of the Admin- istration had been coldly rejected by the conspirators against our country's honor ; it was only when these conspirators 14 refused to allow the starving garrison at Sumpter to be pro- visioned that he threw off the mantle of the pacificator and appealed to the God of battles to decide the great question whether we were to have a government or not. [Applause.] Now, if his voice had been for war before, his appeal to his friends throughout the loyal States in that dread hour must have been ineffectual. If he had faltered before the threats of the Southern Disunionists after his nomination for the Presidency in 1860 — if he had refused to answer the Norfolk questions as he did answer them — if he had broken up his intended journey into the Southern States when the October elections in Indiana and Pennsylvania made the election of Mr. Lincoln a certainty — if he had not grappled with Breck- inridge in the special session of the Senate and pulverized him [great applause] with the massive force of truth and intellect — of what avail would his invocation have been when Sumpter fell ? He would have been regarded as a mere instrument of Faction. But when he spoke for war and for the Government, millions rose at his call, and the Administration felt that the country had rallied an element to the standard of the Union which could never be defeated. The most unjust of all the imputations upon the memory of Douglas, however, is that of recent coinage and circulation. — It comes appropriately from those who followed him with oblo- quy to the grave — from the advocates first of a policy which produced a bitter alienation between the North and the South, and now of secession and separation. Rejecting the last, and probably the greatest speech of his life — short, it is true, but a mine of gold in thought and precious example — they now put him forward as the opponent of the righteous cause of his country, and quote him as the defamer of the Government, and by consequence, as the apologist of the men banded for its 15 destruction. There is a refined injustice in this aspersion of his fame — a cruelty in this calumny that would dishonor any cause but that which is in itself unrelieved dishonor. Not content with having repaid his long years of service to the Southern people — service in which he displayed the noblest attributes of man — services in rendering which, indeed, he sacrificed his life — with ingratitude as base as that which might be supposed to inflame a recreant son to slay his sleeping father in cold blood, they now attempt to tarnish his memory with the incredible falsehood that he was opposed to the mighty move- ment which has stirred the ocean of public opinion in the loyal States. [Sensation.] I need only give a single sentence from his last address to the people of Chicago in last May, to estab- lish alike the malevolence of his enemies and the courageous consistency of his patriotism : " The election of Mr. Lincoln is a mere pretext. The pres- ent Secession movement is the result of a tremendous, enor- mous conspiracy formed more than a year ago. [Cheers.] This conspiracy to break up the Union, was formed by the leaders in the Southern Confederacy more than twelve months ago. They use the slavery question as a means to accomplish their desired end. They desired a Northern man to be elected President by a sectional vote, in order to consider that as evi- dence that the two sections could not live in peace, and so they might break up the Union. " But this is not the time to go into a discussion of the causes that have produced these results. The conspiracy to break up the Union is a fact now known to all. Armies are being raised and war levied to accomplish it. There can be but two sides to this controversy. [Applause.] Every man must be on the side of the United States or against it. [Immense ap- plause, cheers, and cries of 'Good !' 'good !' etc.] There can be no neutrals in this Avar. [Prolonged cheers.] " There can be none but patriots and traitors. [Applause.] Thank God ! Illinois will not be divided on that question. [Cheers.] I know that they have expected to present a united South against a divided North. The conspirators have been led to hope that, in the Northern States, it would be made a party question, producing civil war between Democrats and Republicans, and the South being united, could step in with their legions, and help the one to destroy the other, and then conquer the victor. [Laughter and applause.] Their scheme was bloodshed and all the horrors of civil war in every Nor- 17 thern State ! There is but one way to prevent it : united action on the part of Illinois, closing up the ranks, and thus rendering it impossible that war shall rage on our soil. [Applause.] "I repeat that, so long as it was possible to settle this ques- tion by peaceful means, I was willing to make any reasonable sacrifice for that purpose ; but when the question comes whether the war shall be transferred from the cotton fields of the South to the corn-fields of Illinois, I choose to say that the further off that war the better. [Applause.] " War does exist. It is a sad thought to every patriot. — War — civil war — must be recognized as existing in the United States. We may no longer close our eyes to that solemn fact. This government must be maintained, the enemies of the coun- try overthrown, and the more stupendous and overwhelming our preparations, the less bloodshed and the shorter the struggle." Here, in the capital, which was the scene of some of his proudest triumphs, let us resolve to wear these immortal words in our heart of hearts, and to transmit them to endless genera- tions. [Applause.] I now speak to the people of the Free States, who are again approached by the enemies of Douglas, and once more called upon to strike at the safety of the Re- public. Be no longer deceived by wicked and ambitious men. Remember that every appeal to party against the Government is an argument intended to demoralize the energies of the pres- ent Executive and his ministers ; is but a crafty preparation for a still more fearful evil than disunion itself — even to the death of all personal liberty, and to the perpetuity of a civil feud before which the wars of other days and other nations will seem but the pastimes of a village fair. His magnanimity was a leading characteristic. He was less permanently controlled by party feelings or personal prejudices than any man I ever knew. He was impulsive, and frequently B 18 dealt in harsh invective, but so generous a soul could not nurse his wrath to keep it warm. If he said a bitter thing, he soon regretted and frankly admitted it. If he struck a hard blow, the same clenched hand that gave it was promptly opened to reconciliation. This trait was, probably, the secret of his pop- ularity in society and in the Senate. In fact, his manner could not be resisted. He disarmed prejudice by a double charm — by his ability and his magnanimity.- [Applause.] After the most acrimonious debate, it was no uncommon thing for him to jest with the men he had been recently denouncing. If he offended like a man, he forgave like a God. I shall never for- get his appearance when the electoral vote was read, in the House of Representatives, in February last. That was a mem- orable scene. According to law, Vice President Breckinridge presided. Only three Southern States had deserted the flag and faith of their fathers. The galleries were crow'ded, and some interest was excited by the rumor that violence was in- tended to prevent the formal proclamation of the constitutional verdict of the American people. I looked round me to see whether certain men, who continued to retain seats in that great Convention, Senators and Representatives, with all their boasted chivalry, and honor, and courage, could lend themselves to the studied denunciation of an election of the ruler of thirty mil- lions of people — could participate in all the solemn ceremonials belonging to it — could hear the vote of every State read off and recorded, even while their souls were black with sin, and their hearts filled with the pre-ordained purpose of disregarding that election, and of making it the pretext of a war intended to con- vert this capital into a Gahenna, a Phlegethon, a very hell on earth. [Applause.] The Vice President, calm, cold, and com- placent,— for so young a man, very calm, cold, and complacent, — announced every State before the vote was read, and seemed 19 to be the impersonation of Senatorial rectitude and dignity. Before him were the Senators and Representatives from Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee, States that have since been stolen out of the Union by the treachery of their executives, not to speak of the Senators from other States who lived under a system of successful terrorism, all aiding in the ceremony, and yet nearly all pledged to put the dagger to the heart of their country. The reading had not progressed far, before Judge Douglas walked down the main aisle. Every eye was turned upon him. Taking his seat between Senators Seward and Lane, the one now the honored head of the State Depart- ment under President Lincoln, the other a dishonored echo of the Secession conspiracy, he proceeded to enter into a pleasant side-conversation with both, no doubt in reference to the fact that while Mr. Seward had been defeated for the Presidential nomination of his own party, and Mr. Lane had aided to break up the Democracy, he, Judge Douglas, felt as proud of his few electoral votes, and of the million of Democrats at his back, as even the successful competitor, then shortly to be inaugurated into the Presidency for four years. [Applause.] No confusion in him on that great day, for he indulged in no guilty reserva- tions. He was ready to die for his country. If in the near future there was a dagger and a bowl for that country, his hand was not ready to drive the one or to drug the other. He had, therefore, no cause for self-reproach. He yielded to the decree of the ballot box with a grace and promptitude all his own. — Around him were gathered the dark conspirators that he knew were plotting his country's ruin, and, like so many Catalines, affecting a show of deference to a Constitution they were sworn to assail and to trample under foot. [Sensation.] I have spoken of his rare magnanimity. A dozen instances of this could be produced — a single one will suffice : His name 20 ■was presented for the Presidency to the Cincinnati Convention in 1856. His friends were among the bold and daring men of the party, skillful veterans, and ardent young politicians from every section. They loved him so warmly that they scarcely dreamed of yielding him to another. Douglas was in Washington watching the progress of the Convention, and when he saw that bad feeling was being created in the debate and the voting, he telegraphed to his friend Col. Richardson, a member of the Congress that assembles here to- morrow, three despatches, demanding of his supporters to yield to Mr. Buchanan's nomination as soon as he received "a major- ity of the Convention," and asserting his gratification at the unanimous adoption of the platform, in which the popular princi- ple of committing the slavery question forever to the people of the Territories was endorsed, had accomplished all the objects he had in view in allowing his friends the use of his name. He followed this act of self-abnegation by a canvass in support of his successful rival, marvellous for the eloquence he displayed, and for the vast sums of money expended out of his private fortune, to secure him the vote of Illinois. [Applause.] The impartial and inexorable historian will record how this magna- nimity was reciprocated. The fidelity of 1856 was rewarded by the proscriptions of '57 and '58. The President nominated by the friends of Douglas at Cincinnati, after he had received the majority of the Democratic Convention, refused to accept or recognize or support the nomination of Douglas when he had received a fair majority at Charleston, and the platform upon which Mr. Buchanan was elected, and without which he could 21 not have been elected, which made Douglas so potential a cham- pion of his cause, was rejected and broken under circumstances of unblushing and unparalleled perfidy. [Applause.] The experience of a public man, especially one engaged in American politics, is nearly always a thankless and painful experience. There have been many instances of the truth of this assertion. From early days, with the exceptional cases of Jefferson, Washington, and Jackson, few of our great leaders have been properly appreciated by the people they have served. Much as we prate of corruption of politicians, and of their am- bition, it is a fact, a thousand times vindicated, that the most faithful of our representative men, after having given their best years to their country, have died poor. Absorbed in general duties, they can afford to give little time to their own interests. It is well known that General Jackson retired from Washington in debt — that Mr. Webster left no legacy to his children but the record of his immortal eloquence — that Mr. Clay was not a rich man in any sense — that the simple manners and frugal tastes of Mr. Calhoun alone prevented him from being annoyed by pecuniary troubles. Harrison, Taylor, Fillmore, and Pierce, were men in but moderate circumstances ; and in looking along the catalogue of names that now adorn our history, I cannot lay my hand upon one who has rightly served his country in the councils of the nation that has given consistent attention to his own business affairs. [Sensation.] Indeed, wherever an Amer- ican statesman has fallen short in the discharge of his obliga- tions to the country and the Constitution, has yielded to faction or expediency, has been tainted with corruption, it will be found that his mercenary, and grasping, and dishonest spirit has been directed to the accumulation of a fortune for himself. Who that knew the departed patriot, whose death the whole liberal world deplores — who that knew Stephen A. Douglas will refuse to say 22 that at no period of his life could such a charge be laid at his door ? It is true that but for the great commercial tempest of 1857, Judge Douglas would have died immensely rich ; but it ought to be remembered that his possessions were the result rather of happy and sudden purchases, than of any studied pur- pose of promoting his own welfare. He was not a speculator. Liberal to a fault, ready to serve his friends at whatever risk, prominent in every public charity, he never gave a vote in Con- gress that could be tortured by his most ingenious enemy into a selfish vote. [Great applause.] One of the boldest advocates of every great improvement, the earnest supporter of measures assailed in certain quarters as extravagant, but which looked to the promotion of the general comfort, and to the increase of the stock of human knowledge — as, for instance, the donations of public land to the several States and Territories for railroad pur- poses, the establishment of great lines of steam intercommuni- cation, and the encouragement of overland mail routes to bind the two great seaboards together — it is eminently creditable that, although bitterly assailed for his opinions, no opponent could make and maintain an accusation affecting his personal integrity. Other men in our past public councils — some in the Cabinet and some in Congress — have been accused of corruption, and the accusation has been believed, and sometimes proved; but it will be one of the brightest pages in the records of Douglas that, in supporting what he conceived to be the cause of his country, he forgot himself; and, although surrounded with temptations, and enabled to take advantage of many alluring opportunities to make himself a wealthy man, he left the stage of life with no other patrimony than his illustrious fame. [Great applause.] He was neither a copyist nor an imitator. He never waited until others had spoken on a great question. Nothing seemed intricate or abstruse to him. The most embarrassing issues had 23 no terrors in his eyes. Thus he defended General Jackson's case in resisting the civil process for the purpose of saving a great city — an example that may be commended to the casuists of our own day in a neighboring State, who think the law can be made a cover for treason, and the Judiciary the right arm of rebellion. Thus he confronted John Quincy Adams on the dis- puted boundary of Texas, by quoting a forgotten dispatch writ- ten years before, while that extraordinary man was Secretary of State. In the annexation of Texas he aided to unravel a tangled skein of diplomancy and double-dealing. By his speeches in the House during the pendency of the Compromise Measures, he almost divided the honors equally with Clay, Webster, and Cass. When the Utah complication came to disturb politicians, he suggested a remedy equally clear and sensible. I need not refer to his amazing discussions of our relations to other Gov- ernments, and particularly to the future designs of Great Britain, nor to his memorable arguments in the exciting debates of the Kansas and Nebraska bill, when all men bowed to his superior intellect. He was as original as he was daring, in the forum and upon the hustings, never allowing his opponent to recover time from one surprise, before turning his flank with another and taking his batteries. Indeed, the whole life of Judge Douglas was a succession of triumphs won by his prompt and original policy. He was self-reliant. Few men have relied so little upon oth- ers. In debate, he was a match for the greatest, and as against a number he was like a lion at bay. [Applause.] When his adversaries surrounded him, and their blows were rained fast and thick upon him, he never retreated, but planting himself upon his principles, challenged universal admiration by the rapidity of his movements, the fertility of his invention, the readiness of his replies, and the preeminent courtesy of his language and his bearing. Many instances of this occur to my mind— one during the historical debate on the night previous to the passage of the Kansas and Nebraska bill in the Senate, when, for three hours, he maintained his position against a host of opponents. Mr. Seward, with his characteristic frankness, could not resist the expression of his feelings during that debate, when he assured the Senator from Illinois that he had • 25 never admired him more than during that contest. " Sir," said Mr. Douglas, "I know how to command the respect and the praise of the Senator from New York." He rarely or never quoted poetry. He had little taste for the music of the schools, but he was singularly alive to poetry when read by others, and had his own favorite airs which he loved to listen to and linger over. I have heard him narrate incidents of his own life and of the lives of others which abounded in the most exquisite and pathetic touches. His journey through Russia ; his reception by the old Emperor pre- vious to his death ; his conversation with the Empress Euge- nie' ; his presence at one of the Greek Islands when he received the news of the arrest of Koszta by Captain Ingraham ; the effect produced upon his imagination by London and Paris, were described with a grace and a spirit that alternately recalled the delightful diction of Irving, and the stately style of Ma- cauley. His humor was intuitive. Never indulging; in vulgar wit, he was so prompt in repartee, so apt in discovering the weak points of his adversary, and, withal, so generally careful to avoid offence, that in the hottest controversy he turned the laugh upon his opponent, and compelled him to yield to the general contagion. This man, who thought so profoundly and was ever ready in a crisis, was a man of the greatest leisure. He was fre- quently in society. He delighted to mingle with the gay and 26 the gifted, and was the soul of every social circle. Those who saw him at a reception or a levee were surprised to find him in the Senate next morning, as ready for business as if he had given the whole of the previous night to reading and reflection. Nobody ever knew when he did read, and yet he referred to volume, page, and date, with a quick correctness that surprised all. He would loiter in the Senate, converse with the ladies in the galleries, talk with the politicians, smoke his cigar with his friends, and all this time apparently indifferent to the dis- cussion going on in the body itself, and when least expected would plunge into the billows of the debate, dashing every obstacle aside, and generally coming out the victor. [Great applause.] He was great in the parliamentary skirmish, but he was greater in the protracted battle. His small arms were effective, but his Dahlgrens were terrible. [Applause.] He would laugh through or fight through a contest, precisely as circumstances required. His short speeches reminded us of John Forsyth, in his best days ; but when he planted himself for an elaborate discussion, he displayed wonderful patience and endurance. Thus, he could play the part of a leader in a sudden dash, or in a long siege, with equal success. Death has been busy with the noble little Congressional band that refused to respond to the exactions of the Disunionists on the Kansas question nearly four years ago. The first called was that type of the gentleman, the soldier, and the statesman, Thomas L. Harris, of Illinois. I think I can see his pale face and flashing eye now as he almost staggered, stricken with wasting disease, to his seat in the Hall of the House of Repre- sentatives. I can almost hear his manly voice protesting against the wrong under which a great party reeled to its last- ing overthrow. He lived long enough to prove his more than human courage, and left us just before his repeated prophecies 27 came near their fulfilment. The next summoned to the eternal bar was David C. Broderick, of California. God had stamped him for a leader. Too virtuous to be bribed, too fearless to falter, too disinterested to be corruptly ambitious, he sleeps on the breezy hills that overlook the proud metropolis of his adopted State, within the sound of the anthem of the sea, sur- rounded by a population who loved him living and mourn him dead. [Applause.] Slaughtered for his opinions, deliberately marked out for sacrifice, his farewell words were a sad presage to the events of which his death was the equally sad beginning : " They have killed me because I was opposed to the extension of Slavery and a corrupt Administration." And then, saddest loss of all, comes the death of the man, who, however criticised during his eventful struggle with Power, was the leader of the most heroic, disinterested protest against political crime in high places our New World has ever known. The men engaged with Douglas, in this protest, were Democrats whose whole experience had been that of close relationship with Southern statesmen, and that of earnest devotion to Southern rights. When they took up arms against their party organization, it was not without reluctance. When they arrayed themselves against an Administration new in office, and in the full possession of undisposed-of patronage, they did not do so without counting the cost of the experiment. They were re- minded of others, in by-gone days, who had grappled with power and had fallen under its severe displeasure ; but they were men of iron nerve and conscientious convictions. They felt that, whatever might happen to them, the truths they advocated must triumph, and so they persevered till the whole work of destiny was completed. [Applause.] The three characters alluded to, were characters of extraor- dinary endurance, fitted to give counsel to common party lead- 28 ers — created for the bitterest responsibilities of the scenes in which they lived. They began their movement full of deter- mination— they closed their connection with it by offering their lives as an evidence of their sincerity. I am not accustomed to the habit of studied eulogy. Real- izing, profoundly, the loss of our great national leader, who fell in the prime of life, and at a moment when he would have been most effective to defend the Administration of the general Government against the attacks of secret and of open enemies, and, with no disposition to invade the sanctity of that home of which he was the household god, I can only repeat, in conclu- sion, the appropriate lines of Walter Scott : •'He is gone on the mountain, He is lost to the forest, Like a summer-dried fountain, When our need was the sorest. The font reappearing, From the rain drops shall borrow, But to us comes no cheering — No Douglas to-morrow. '•The hand of the reaper Takes the ears that are hoary, But the voice of the weeper Wails manhood in glory. The autumn winds, rushing, Waft the leaves that are searest, But our flower was in flushing When blighting was nearest. •• Fleet foot on the correi, Sage counsel in cumber, lied hand in the foray, How sound is thy slumber! Like the dew on the mountain, Like the foam on the river, Like the bubble on the fountain, Thou art gone, and forever!''. 