from Mississippi had no allusion to this letter, when he said that in the next contest he did not desire "to cheat nor be cheated." I am glad that the senator from Mississippi means to have a clear, unequivocal, specific statement of our principles, so that there shall be no cheating on either side. I intend to use language which can be repeated in Chicago as well as in New Orleans, in Charleston the same as in Boston. We live under a common Constitution. No political creed is sound or safe which cannot be proclaimed in the same sense wherever the American flag waves over American soil. If the North and the South cannot come to a common ground on the slavery question, the sooner we know it the better. The Democracy of the North hold, at least, that the people of a Territory have the same right to legislate in respect to slavery, as to all other property; and that, practically, it results in this: if they want slavery, they will have it; and if they do not want it, it shall not be forced upon them by an act of Congress. The senator from Mississippi says that doctrine is right, unless we pass an act of Congress compelling the people of a Territory to have slavery whether they want it or not. The point he wishes to arrive at, is whether we are for or against Congressional intervention. If you repudiate the doctrine of nonintervention, and form a slave code by act of Congress, when the people of a Territory refuse it, you must step off the Democratic platform. We will let you depart in peace, as you no longer belong to us; you are no longer of us when you adopt the principle of Congressional intervention, in violation of the Democratic creed. I stand here defending the great principle of non-intervention by Congress, and self-government by the people of the Territories. That is the Democratic creed. The Democracy in the northern States have so understood it. No northern Democratic State ever would have voted for Mr. Buchanan, but for the fact that he was understood to occupy that position.

Gentlemen of the southern States, I tell you in all candor that I do not believe a Democratic candidate can ever carry any one northern Democratic State on the platform that it is the duty of the Federal Government to force the people of a Territory to have slavery when they do not want it. But if the true principles of State rights and popular sovereignty be maintained and carried out in good faith, as set forth in the Nebraska Bill, and as understood by the people in 1856, a glorious future awaits the Democracy.

Letters to Dorr and Peyton-Speeches in Ohio, and Cincinnati PlatformCharleston Convention-Presidental Aspirants-The Harper ArticleBlack's Reply-Appendix of Attorney General-Rejoinder of Senator Douglas-The Chase and Trumbull Amendments-Consistency of Senator Douglas.

DURING the spring and summer of 1859, Mr. Douglas received many letters from his personal friends, soliciting the use of his name as a candidate for the Presidency before the Charleston Convention, to one of which he replied as follows:

WASHINGTON, Wednesday, June 22, 1859.

MY DEAR SIR: I have received your letter inquiring whether my friends are at liberty to present my name in the Charleston Convention for the Presidential nomination.

Before the question can be finally determined, it will be necessary to understand distinctly upon what issue the canvass is to be condccted. If, as I have full faith they will, the Democratic party shall determine, in the Presidential election of 1860, to adhere to the principles embodied in the Compromise measures of 1850, and ratified by the people in the Presidential election of 1852, and re-affirmed in the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, and incorporated into the Cincinnati platform in 1856, as expounded by Mr. Buchanan in his letter accepting the nomination, and approved by the people-in that event my friends will be at liberty to present my name to the Convention, if they see proper to do so. If, on the contrary, it shall become the policy of the Democratic party-which I cannot anticipate to repudiate these, their time-honored principles, on which we have achieved so many patriotic triumphs, and if, in lieu of them, the Convention shall interpolate into the creed of the party such new issues 10

as the revival of the African slave-trade, or a Congressional slave code for the Territories, or the doctrine that the Constitution of the United States either establishes or prohibits slavery in the Territories, beyond the power of the people legally to control it as other property, it is due to candor to say that, in such an event, I could not accept the nomination if tendered to me. Trusting that this answer will be deemed sufficiently explicit, I am, very respectfully, your friend,

To J. B. DORK, Esq., Dubuque, Iowa.

S. A. DOUGLAS.

The publication of this letter produced immense enthusiasm among Mr. Douglas' friends all over the country, and particularly throughout the Northwest, and was followed by a pressing invitation from the Democratic State Central Committee of Ohio to visit that State and address the people in their pending canvass. In consequence of the ill-health of Mr. Douglas and his family, he was only able to make three speeches in Ohio-at Columbus, Cincinnati and Wooster, in each of which places the Democracy made immense gains at the fall election, averaging one thousand votes in each county. He was met in Cincinnati by large numbers of Democrats from Kentucky, Indiana, and other adjacent States, and wherever he went was greeted with the wildest enthusiasm.

We omit to insert extracts from these speeches, which are among the ablest and best of his political life, for the reason that they relate chiefly to the line of argument which has been so fully illustrated in the previous pages of this work. These speeches appeared in the columns of the New York press the morning after their delivery, having been deemed of sufficient consequence to be telegraphed entire. A marked feature of these addresses was his solemn protest against the incorporation of any new tests of faith into the Democratic creed which would tend to divide and defeat the party, insisting upon "the re-adoption of the Cincinnati platform without the addition of a word or the subtraction of a letter."

We omitted to state, that on his way to Ohio, Mr. Douglas was induced, by the earnest entreaties of the Democrats of Pittsburg, to remain a day and address the people of that city in behalf of the regularly nominated State ticket, with a view to the pending election.

It was in this speech that Mr. Douglas, in kind but firm language, rebuked those Democrats who had permitted their passions to array them in opposition to the regular organization of their party, and thus contribute to the success of the common enemy.

Notwithstanding these speeches which had been so recently published throughout the country, the attorney-general of the United States did not hesitate, a few weeks afterward, in an anonymous pamphlet, the authorship of which he subsequently assumed, to call in question Mr. Douglas' fidelity to the party and the principles of the Cincinnati platform. In reply, after arraigning Judge Black and his confederates for their unnatural coalition with the Black Republicans in the memorable Illinois campaign, Mr. Douglas thus meets and crushes his assailant in his allegation that the former intended to insist on the Charleston Convention adopting his interpretation of the Cincinnati platform:

The administration claimed the right to "change and interpolate the Cincinnati platform, and prescribe new and different tests;" while the gallant Democracy of that noble State denied "the right of any power on earth, except a like body," to change the Cincinnati platform or prescribe new tests; and declared that "they will neither do it themselves, nor permit it to be done by others, but will recognize all men as Democrats who stand by and uphold Democratic principles."

We were assailed and proscribed because we did stand by the Cincinnati platform; because we would not recognize the right of any power on earth except a regularly constituted convention of the party to change the platform and interpolate new articles into the creed; because we would not sanction the new issues and submit to the new tests; because we would not proscribe any Democrat, no permit the proscription of Democrats in con

sequence of difference of opinion upon questions which had arisen subse quently to the adoption of the platform; and because we recognized all men as Democrats who supported the nominees and upheld the principles of the party as defined by the last National Convention. It was upon this issue and for these reasons that the power and patronage of the Federal Government were wielded in concert with the Black Republicans for the election of their candidates in preference to the regular nominees of the Democratic party. This system of proscription still continues in Illinois, and is being extended throughout the Union, with the view of controlling the Charleston nomination. Fidelity to the Cincinnati platform and opposition to the new issues and tests prescribed by men in power, in direct conflict with the professions upon which they were elected, are deemed disqualifications for office and cause of removal.

THE CHARLESTON CONVENTION-PRESIDENTIAL ASPIRANTS.

The reasons for singling me out as the especial object for anathema will be found in the first page of the attorney-general's pamphlet, where he says:

"He (Douglas) has been for years a working, struggling candidate for the Presidency !"

Suppose it were true, that I am a Presidential aspirant; does that fact justify a combination by a host of other Presidential aspirants, each of whom may imagine that his success depends upon my destruction, and the preaching a crusade against me for boldly avowing now the same principles to which they and I were pledged at the last Presidential election? Is this a sufficient excuse for devising a new test of political orthodoxy; and, under pretext of fidelity to it, getting up a set of bolting delegates to the Charleston Convention in those States where they are unable to control the regular organization? The time is not far distant when the Democracy of the whole Union will be called upon to consider and pronounce judgment upon this question.

What authority has the attorney-general, aside from his fears and hopes, for saying that I am "a working, struggling candidate for the Presidency?" My best friends know that I have positively and peremptorily refused to have anything to do with the machinery of the conventions in the several States by which the delegates to the Charleston Convention are to be ap pointed. They know that personally I do not desire the Presidency at this