"To the one man at the helm it seemed to have been given to know the day and the hour. At the crucial moment, in one of the exalted days of human history,
"'He sounded forth the trumpet that has never called retreat.'
"The men who knew Abraham Lincoln, who saw him face to face, who heard his voice in public assemblage, have with few exceptions passed to the grave. Another generation is upon the busy stage. The book has forever closed upon the dreadful pageant of civil strife. Sectional animosities, thank God, belong now only to the past. The mantle of Peace is over our entire land, and prosperity within our borders.
"'The war-drum throbs no longer,
And the battle flags are furled
In the parliament of men,
The federation of the world.'
"Through the instrumentality, in no small measure, of the man whose memory we now honor, the Government established by our fathers, untouched by the finger of Time, has descended to us. The responsibility of its preservation and transmission rests upon the successive generations as they come and go. To-day, at this auspicious hour sacred to the memory of Lincoln, let us, his countrymen, inspired by the sublime lessons of his wondrous life, and grateful to God for all He has vouchsafed to our fathers and to us in the past, take courage and turn our faces resolutely, hopefully, trustingly to the future. I know of no words more fitting with which to close this humble tribute to the memory of Abraham Lincoln, than those inscribed upon the monument of Moliere:
"'Nothing was wanting to his glory; he was wanting to
ours.'"
VII STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS
DOUGLAS'S HARDSHIPS IN YOUTH—HE IS ADMITTED TO THE BAR—JACKSON'S TRIUMPH OVER ADAMS IN 1828—DOUGLAS ENTERS THE ARENA OF DEBATE AT THE AGE OF 22—BECOMES ATTORNEY-GENERAL—CHOSEN TO THE TENTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF ILLINOIS—BECOMES SECRETARY OF STATE IN ILLINOIS —DEFENDS JACKSON'S DECLARATION OF MARTIAL LAW AT NEW ORLEANS— TAKES PART IN THE OREGON BOUNDARY DEBATE—ADVOCATES THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS—IS ELECTED TO THE SENATE—ADVOCATES THE ADMISSION OF CALIFORNIA AS A FREE STATE—HE PROCURES A LAND GRANT TO THE ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY—IN DEBATING THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA BILL HE CONTENDS FOR POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY—ORIGIN OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY —DOUGLAS LOSES THE FRIENDSHIP OF THE SOUTH—DEBATES BETWEEN DOUGLAS AND LINCOLN—LINCOLN'S EARLY HISTORY—DOUGLAS'S REASONS FOR ADVOCATING POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY—LINCOLN'S REPLY—THE SLAVERY QUESTION —THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY RENT ASUNDER—CONSEQUENT FAILURE OF DOUGLAS TO WIN THE PRESIDENCY—HIS DEATH.
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 write. Chief among the actors, his place was near the middle of the stage during that eventful and epoch-making period.
Stephen A. Douglas was born in Brandon, Vermont, April 23, 1813, and died in Chicago, Illinois, June 3, 1861. Between the dates given lie the years that 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 education. 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 diligence the studies preparatory to a higher course. Supplementing the education thus acquired, by a brief course of study in an academy at Canandaigua, New York, at the age of twenty he turned his footsteps westward.