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seek from its legitimate source, the people, but by the aid of a legislative legerdemain which is sure to come to its end the very moment it seems most to promise success.

Each party is confronted by a tried and courageous statesman, whom Heaven has specially raised up and thoroughly disciplined for this third vindication of Popular Rights. That man is STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. From his earliest days he has been a champion of the people. To-day he is battling with his accustomed bravery for the rights of the masses, against legislative and executive usurpation on the one side, and against political demands made by the assumed representatives of slave property, on the other. He has faith in the people above both. He has thoroughly learned the lesson that the people are superior to all Congresses in forming their local institutions, and superior to all the laws that are sought to be forced upon them for the protection of any sort of property. His faith in popular rights and capabilities is as profound as was that of Thomas Jefferson, and his courage and persistency in the defence of those rights and that capability is as high as was ever that of Andrew Jackson. The crisis and the man have fitly come together, as, under Providence, they always do.

Thus, then, the great Political Triumvirate in our history is complete. JEFFERSONJACKSON-DOUGLAS! all men of the people,each a thorough Democrat in the true sense of that term, all willing and resolved to stake their name and fame on behalf of popular rights and genuine popular sovereignty.

Jefferson was indeed beloved of the masses, and for reason. So was Jackson. So is Douglas. See how they rally to his name. The people, always meaning well where their own interests are at stake, are rarely guilty of error; their instincts are both quick and true, and they know how safe it is to follow them. The career of both Jefferson and Jackson marked the dawn of new eras for the country, when popular rights gained new victories over assumptions that had grown hoary with time, and secured a longer lease for the reign of popular liberty; the career of DOUGLAS betokens the approach of still better days for the people of this country, and his brave championship of popular rights marks the dawn of an era brighter and more full of promise than any to which we can point in the past.

It is solely because Stephen A. Douglas has so faithfully "fought the good fight" for popular rights, that the masses throughout the land respond to the very mention of his name with feverish enthusiasm; and now that a crisis has overtaken us, and a fierce and passionate struggle has begun, tearing old political organizations to tatters, and requiring a high wisdom and calm foresight to reconstruct the elements and array them in permanent order, they instinctively turn their eyes to him with a firm confidence in his courage, his experience, his sagacity, and his thorough democracy, to con

duct them victoriously through the storm of doubts and dangers to final safety and peace. Nor is he the man to fail them in their need. Their instincts are as true as they always were. These guide them to the wise selection of their champion, and always aright. Mr. Douglas, chief of all the public men of our day, holds the attention and sympathies of the nation. People feel that he is their safest counsellor, because they know that he has never failed them in the past. His metal has been tried and proved. He combines the profound Jefferson faith with the high Jackson courage and will. Since the days when the existence of the nation began, no man in the public councils has presented a more marked and conspicuous history.

If evidence was still needed to prove the determination of the man to stand firmly by principle, we find more than sufficient in the fact that for this only he has been hounded down by the dependents and pensioners of a faithless Administration, on which both the people and politicians have set the seal of their condemnation long ago; it was for the single reason that he sternly refused to become a party with them to defraud and betray the people of a young Territory. In that desperate struggle with power securely entrenched in its own position, he was doubly strong in the thought that he was fighting the great battle for the people; just as ready, afterwards, to continue the war with corrupt politicians and fanatical sectionalists for the same rights and principles. It has been the insane resolution of this Administration, stung with remorse and overwhelmed with mortification at finding itself beaten at all points of the issue,-discarded by friends and detested by foes,-to crush out this brave man, whom it hesitated not to brand as a "rebel;" it charged him freely with want of party fealty and the desertion of political principle, while the record proves conclusively that he has been religiously true to both; it allied itself with an open political foe, to defeat him whom it accused so inconsistently with desertion of his party; and it has left no stone unturned, no effort untried, no paltry trick unappealed to, by which to compass the ignominy of this man who is guilty of no higher crime than that of defending the cause of popular rights everywhere. But thus far it has been a fatal experiment. The arrogant leaders told him that no member of the party, however distinguished, had ever defied an Administration in power, and continued his political existence; but he told them in return, that the People are greater than all parties and Administrations, and never deserted the man who made a bold and brave stand for them when their rights were put in peril.

This same Administration, having vainly endeavored to compass the defeat of Mr. Douglas, two years ago, by an alliance with Lincoln and his supporters in Illinois, have since attempted the task of defeating him with

open admirers. It is just because he refused to swerve from his high trusts, which have been reposed in him by the people, that both sides are in open hostility against him now. In this respect, no position could be more honor

the people, by an alliance with the secession-
ists and disunionists of the South! A fine
concern, truly, to get up a cry of party faith-
lessness against a statesman like Judge Doug-
las, or to sound a howl of his destitution of
political principle. Its own shameless prac-able than his.
tices betray the complete treachery both to
party and to principle of which it has been
guilty, and the wicked perjury with which it
is justly chargeable. The reason was, not
that Mr. Douglas was false, but that the Admin-
istration was criminal, and he had fearlessly
convicted them of it before the country. They
have only made good his words by their stead-
fast course of persecution and revenge. Thus
we have an Administration willing to back,
with all the influence and power committed to
its trust, either section of fanatics, and to peril
the very existence of the Union for the sake
of wreaking a mean personal revenge! Sure-
ly, it is time all this was changed. Especially,
when such whining and hypocritical professions
of purity are put forth in its own crippled
defence, as are embodied in the Duquesne Let-
ter, or the Protest to the Committee of the
House of Representatives, by the President.

The people everywhere are eager to do justice by men who have unselfishly labored and battled on their behalf; they never refuse to do it, when they once understand the true case. Already they see to what a course of deliberate and heartless persecution Mr. Douglas has been subjected, for no other reason than his uncompromising devotion to them, and they are determined to set the matter right. They are eager for the day to dawn when they may give in for him their verdict of approval and renewed confidence. It has already been the popular purpose, for a considerable time, to invest him with that official dignity and power he knows so well how to maintain on behalf of those who sol

emnly depute it. And that they will do without fail. Every circumstance now points directly that way. The popular preference is unmistakable. The position of the man is all in his favor. The times demand the coming forth of just such a character. And knowing all this, the masses feel armed with a ten-fold resoluteness and enthusiasm.

There is no mistake about the important fact, that Mr. Douglas is the man for the times. The times are uncommon, and so is he. The HOUR AND THE MAN have come together by providential arrangement. If he hesitates not to brave the sullen threats of an Administration in power, and the angrier threats of its followers and those who would use it as an engine for their own destructive ends, because of his devotion to popular rights,- neither will he quail before any other earthly authority or influence, when he sees the same sovereign rights invaded or impaired. No public man of our time has a more thorough experience in matters pertaining to legislation, nor is there one who is likely to surpass him in execu tive ability. Courage he lacks not, and his will, when fixed on what is right, is as inflexible as iron and enduring as adamant.

In the immediate future,- say within the next ten years, the fortunes of these United States are to experience a wonderful advancement. We have but to mention a Pacific Railway across the Continent,- steam to China and Japan,- the opening of commercial relations with four hundred millions of human beings on the other side of the globe,-liberty dawning upon long enslaved Europe, and the uncounted improvements and inventions that are the sole fruits of fraternal peace and concord,- and the mind takes in the outlines of the more than imperial sketch at a grasp. thirty-three States must soon count forty,and then fifty. Our commerce will become colossal; our productions, both for quantity and variety, enormous. All over the round globe our flag will carry the authority of our name and the force of our example, and that flag will still be the flag of the Union.

The

Who so well fitted, so thoroughly disciplined. so courageous, so experienced, so bold, so patri otic, as STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS, to stand at the helm while the good ship of State triumphantly sails forth from these perilous straits into those new and broader seas? Who will keep the old flag nailed more fast to the mast than he? Or, at home, under whose lead can these internal dissensions be sooner healed? If this exciting question is settled now, and in the only way possible, it remains settled forever, for the peo

In the character of Mr. Douglas is to be found every reason for reposing public confidence. Its elements are so combined, each riveted with such a secret power to the other, and the whole made so compact and firm, that among our public men he holds a place as admirable as it is conspicuous. Such char-ple acters are not more rare than they are excellent. Their solidity gives them unusual weight, and their compactness gives them vast force. He has proved himself fearless in the storm of malignant threats that have rained upon his head, and self-possessed and true in the face of more suspicious flattery. It is every thing to say of him what is only true, that his foes, on either side, have been alternately his

take no steps backward; but if the result of this contest is only to keep the dangerous discussion open still, as it will, if either section predominates, patriots everywhere may well despair of the longer continuance of the Union. The safe way lies, as it ever did, between the two extremes. Let us unitedly resolve to go in none other. We understand the perils of the HOUR,-let us fix our eyes on the qualities of the MAN who can deliver us!

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EULOGY

UPON THE

HON. STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS,

DELIVERED AT THE

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE,

WASHINGTON, JULY 3, 1861,

Weiss

BY JOHN W. FORNEY.

PHILADELPHIA:

RINGWALT & BROWN, PRINTERS, 34 SOUTH THIRD STREET.

UPON THE

HON. STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS,

DELIVERED AT THE

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE,

WASHINGTON, JULY 3, 1861,

BY JOHN W. FORNEY.

PHILADELPHIA:

RINGWALT & BROWN, PRINTERS, 34 SOUTH THIRD STREET.

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