put he will plant his batteries on this side of the Ohio, where he is safe and secure for a retreat, and will then throw his bomb-shells-his abolition documents-over the river, and will carry on a political warfare and get up strife between the North and South until he elects a sectional President, reduces the South to the condition of dependent colonies, raises the negro to an equality, and forces the South to submit to the doctrine that a house divided against itself cannot stand, that the Union divided into half slave States and half free cannot endure, that they must all be slave or they must all be free, and that as we in the North are in the majority we will not permit them to be all slave, and, therefore, they in the South must consent to the States all being free. (Laughter.) Now, fellow-citizens, I submit whether these doctrines are consistent with the peace and harmony of this Union. ("No, no.") I submit to you, whether they are consistent with our duty as citizens of a common confederacy; whether they are consistent with the principles which ought to govern brethren of the same family. I recognize all the people of these States, North and South, East and West, old or new, Atlantic and Pacific, as our brethren, flesh of one flesh, and I will do no act unto them that I would not be willing they should do unto us. I would apply the same Christian rule to the States of this Union that we are taught to apply to individuals, "do unto others as you would have others do unto you," and this would secure peace. Why should this slavery agitation be kept up? Does it benefit the white man or the slave? Who does it benefit except the Republican politicians, who use it as their hobby to ride into office. (Cheers.) Why, I repeat, should it be continued? Why cannot we be content to administer this government as it was made-a confederacy of sovereign and independent States. Let us recognize the sovereignty and independence of each State, refrain from interfering with the domestic institutions and regulations of other States, permit the Territories and new States to decide their institutions for themselves as we did when we were in their condition; blot out these lines of North and South and resort back to those lines of State boundaries which the Constitution has marked out and engraved upon the face of the country; have no other dividing lines but these and we will be one united, harmonious people, with fraternal feelings and no discord or dissension. (Cheers.)

These are my views and these are the principles to which I have devoted all my energies since 1850, when I acted side by side with the immortal Clay and the godlike Webster in that memorable struggle in which Whigs and Democrats united upon a common platform of patriotism and the Constitution, throwing aside partisan feelings in order to restore peace and harmony to a distracted country. And when I stood beside the death

bed of Mr. Clay and heard him refer with feelings and emotions of the deepest solicitude to the welfare of the country, and saw that he looked upon the principle embodied in the great Compromise measures of 1850, the principle of the Nebraska Bill, the doctrine of leaving each State and Territory free to decide its institutions for itself, as the only means by which the peace of the country could be preserved, and the Union perpetuated, I pledged him, on that death-bed of his, that so long as I lived my caergies should be devoted to the vindication of that principle, and of his fame as connected with it. ("Hear, hear," and great enthusiasm.) I gave the same pledge to the great expounder of the Constitution, he who has been called the "godlike Webster." I looked up to Clay and him as a son would to a father, and I call upon the people of Illinois, and the people of the whole Union to bear testimony that never since the sod has been laid upon the graves of those eminent statesmen have I failed on any occasion to vindicate the principle with which the last great, crowning acts of their lives were identified, or to vindicate their names whenever they have been assailed; and now my life and energy are devoted to this great work as the means of preserving this Union. (Cheers.) This Union can only be preserved by maintaining the fraternal feeling between the North and the South, the East and the West. If that good feeling can be preserved the Union will be as perpetual as the fame of its great founders. It can be maintained by preserving the sovereignty of the States, the right of each State and each Territory to settle its domestic concerns for itself, and the duty of each to refrain from interfering with the other in any of its local or domestic institutions. Let that be done and the Union will be perpetual; let that be done, and this republic, which began with thirteen States, and which now numbers thirty-two, which when it began only extended from the Atlantic to the Mississippi but now reaches to the Pacific, may yet expand North and South until it covers the whole continent and becomes one vast ocean-bound confederacy. (Great cheering.) Then, my friends, the path of duty, of honor, of patriotism is plain. There are a few simple principles to be preserved. Bear in mind the dividing line between State rights and federal authority; let us maintain the great principles of popular sovereignty, of State rights, and of the Federal Union as the Constitution has made it, and this republic will endure forever.

UNITY OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.

In the course of Mr. Douglas' speech at Edwardsville, on the 6th of August, an old Democrat sprang to his feet and

exélaimed, "These are the principles of all us Douglas Democrats!" To which Mr. Douglas replied:

My friend-you will pardon me for telling you that there is no such term in the Democratic vocabulary as Douglas Democrats. Let there be no divisions in our ranks no such distinction as Douglas Democrats, or Buchanan Democrats, or any other peculiar kind of Democrats. Let us retain the old name of Democrat, and under that name recognize all men as good Democrats who stand firmly by the principles and organization of the party, and support its regular nominations. Let us have no divisions in our ranks on account of past differences, but treating bygcnes as bygones let the party be a unit in the accomplishment of the great mission which it has to perform.

This sentiment was received with rapturous applause.

SPEECH AT WINCHESTER-TOUCHING INCIDENTS.

At Winchester, where he settled when he first emigrated to Illinois, in 1833, he responded to the address of welcome, thus:

To say that I am profoundly impressed with the keenest gratitude for the kind and cordial welcome you have given me, in the eloquent and too partial remarks which have been addressed to me, is but a feeble expression of the emotions of my heart. There is no spot in this vast globe

izes me with such emotions as when I come to this place, and recog

the faces of my old and good friends who now surround me and bid me welcome. Twenty-five years ago I entered this town on foot, with my coat upon my arm, without an acquaintance in a thousand miles, and without knowing where I could get money to pay a week's board. Here I made the first six dollars I ever earned in my life, and obtained the first regular occupation that I ever pursued. For the first time in my life I then felt that the responsibilities of manhood were upon me, although I was under age, for I had none to advise with, and knew no one upon whom I had a right to call for assistance or for friendship. Here I found the then settlers of the country my friends-my first start in life was taken here, not only as a private citizen, but my first election to public office by the people was conferred upon me by those whom I am now addressing, and by their fathers. A quarter of a century has passed, and that pen

niless boy stands before you, with his heart full and gushing with the sen timents which such associations and recollections necessarily inspire.

In the midst of that portion of his speech, in which ho was vindicating the doctrine of popular sovereignty, applicable to the Territories, one of his early friends exclaimed, in a loud voice, "Stephen, you shall be the next President;" to which Mr. Douglas instantly replied:

My friend, I appreciate the kindness of heart which makes you put forth that prediction, but will assure you that it is more important to this country, to your children and to mine, that the great principles which we are now discussing shall be carried out in good faith by the party, than it is that I or any other man shall be President of the United States. (Three cheers.) I am also free to say to you that whenever the question arises with me whether I shall be elevated to the Presidency or any other high position, by the sacrifice of my principles, I will stand by my principles and allow the position to take care of itself. (Three cheers.) I have always admired that great sentiment put forth by the illustrious Clay, that he would rather be right than be President. (“Good.") I say to you that 1 have more pride in my history connected with the vindication of this great principle of popular sovereignty than I would have in a thousand Presidencies. (Three cheers.)

Mr. Douglas, again advocating that "by-gones be bygones," when Kansas rejected the English bill, said, in a speech at Pittsfield:

By the rejection of the Lecompton constitution the controversy which it caused is terminated forever, and there will be no cause for reviving it, and it never will be revived unless it is brought up in an improper and mischievous manner, for improper and mischievous purposes. I say that the controversy can never rise again if we act properly, and for this reason: the President of the United States, in his annual message, declared that he regretted that the Lecompton constitution had not been submitted to the people. I joined him in that regret, and thus far we agreed. He further declared in that message, that it was a just and sound principle to require the submission of every constitution to the people who were to live under it, and to this I also subscribed. He then declared that, in his opinion, the example set in the Minnesota case, wherein Congress required

the submission of the constitution to the people, should be followed hereafter forever as a rule of action; in which opinion I heartily concurred. So far we agreed perfectly, and were together. Well, then, what did we differ about? He said that while it was a sound principle that the constitution should be submitted to the people, and while he hoped that hereafter Congress would always require it to be done, yet that there were such circumstances connected with Kansas as rendered it politic and expedient to admit her unconditionally under the Lecompton constitution. I differed with him on that one point, and it was the whole matter at issue between him and me, his friends and mine. That point is now decided. The people of Kansas have set it at rest forever, and I trust that he is satisfied with their decision as well as myself. That being the case, why should we not come together in the future and stand firmly by his recommendationthat hereafter Congress shall, as in the Minnesota case, require the constitution of all new States to be submitted to the people in all cases? If we only do stand by that principle in the future, another Lecompton controversy can never arise-the friends of self-government will then all be united, and there will be no more discord or dissensions in our ranks. Why not rally on that plank as the common plank in the platform of our party, upon which not only all Democrats, but all national men, all friends of popular sovereignty, can stand together, shoulder to shoulder.

THE FREEPORT SPEECH.

In the joint debate at Freeport, Mr. Lincoln propounded to Mr. Douglas a series of questions, and among them was the following, to which he desired an explicit reply :

"Can the people of a Territory of the United States in any lawful way, against the wishes of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a State constitution ?"

To this question Mr. Douglas gave an affirmative reply, in accordance with the opinions which he had so often expressed, in 1850, during the pendency of the Compromise measures, and in 1854, in support of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and in harmony with the known opinions of the most eminent men of the Democratic party, and especially of