the prospects of Mr. Douglas' reëlection to the Senate. Indeed, it was suggested that the Vice-President had expressed a desire to lend the weight of his great talents and exertions in the good cause; and, if invited, would cheerfully engage in the canvass, as he had done before when himself a candidate in the contest of 1856. Accordingly, invitations were sent to Mr. Breckinridge, and Governor Wise of Virginia, who, it was understood, warmly sympathized with Judge Douglas in his struggle, as he had done through his whole anti-Lecompton course in Congress; to which invitations these gentlemen sent characteristic replies, which we think of sufficient importance to here insert.

LETTER OF MR. BRECKINRIDGE.

VERSAILLES, Ky., Oct. 4, 1858.

DEAR SIR: I received this morning your letters of the 28th and 29th ult., written as chairman of the Democratic State Committee of Illinois, also one of Mr. V. Hickox, who informs me that he is a member of the same committee.

this answer.

My absence from home will account for the delay of

In these letters it is said that I am reported to have expressed a desire that Mr. Douglas shall defeat Mr. Lincoln in their contest for a seat in the Senate of the United States, and a willingness to visit Illinois and make public speeches in aid of such result; and if these reports are true, I am invited to deliver addresses at certain points in the State.

The rumor of my readiness to visit Illinois and address the people in the present canvass is without foundation. I do not propose to leave Kentucky for the purpose of mingling in the political discussions in other States. The two or three speeches which I delivered recently in this State rested on peculiar grounds, which I need not now discuss.

The rumor to which you refer is true. I have often, in conversation, expressed the wish that Mr. Douglas may succeed over his Bepublican competitor. But it is due to candor to say, that this preference is not founded on his course at the late session of Congress, and would not exist if I supposed it would be construed as an indorsement of the attitude which he then chose to assume toward his party, or of all the positions he has taken in the present canvass. It is not necessary to enlarge on these things.

I will only add, that my preference rests mainly on these considerations: that the Kansas question is practically ended-that Mr. Douglas, in recent speeches, has explicitly declared his adherence to the regular Democratic party organization-that he seems to be the candidate of the Illinois Democracy, and the most formidable opponent in that State of the Republican party, and that on more than one occasion during his public life he has defended the union of the States and the rights of the States with fidelity, courage, and great ability.

I have not desired to say anything upon this or any other subject about which a difference may be supposed to exist in our political family, but I did not feel at liberty to decline an answer to the courteous letter of your committee.

With cordial wishes for the harmony of the Illinois Democracy, and the hope that your great and growing State, which has never yet given a sectional vote, may continue true to our constitutional Union,

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

HON. JOHN MOORE, Chairman of the Committee.

JOHN C. BRECKINRIDGE.

LETTER OF GOVERNOR WISE.

TO HON. JOHN MOORE, Chairman of the Democratic
State Committee of Illinois:

RICHMOND, VA., 1858.

DEAR SIR: I cannot express to you the emotions of my bosom, excited by your appeal to me for aid in the warm contest which your noble Democracy is waging with abolitionism. Every impulse prompts me to rush to your side. Your position is a grand one, and in some respects unexampled. In the face of doubt and distrust attempted to be thrown upon your Democracy, and its gallant leader, by the pretext of pretenders that you were giving aid and comfort to the arch enemy of our country, peace and safety, and our party integrity, I see you standing alone-isolated by a tyrannical proscription, which would, alike foolishly and wickedly, lop off one of the most vigorous limbs of national Democracy, the limb of glorious Illinois! I see you, in spite of this imputation, firmly fronting the foe, and battling to maintain conservative nationality-against embittered and implacable sectionalism-constitutional rights, operating proprid vigore, and every way against all unequal and unjust federal or territorial legislation;

The right of the people to govern themselves against all force or fraud; The right of the sovereign people to look at the "returns," and behind

the "returns," of all their representative bodies, agents, trustees, or servants;

The responsibility of all governors, representatives, trustees, agents, and servants, to their principals, the people, who are "the governed," and the source of all political power;

Utter opposition to the detestable doctrine of the absolutism of conventions to prescribe and proclaim fundamental forms of government at their will, without submission to the sovereign people-a doctrine fit only for slaves, and claimed only by legitimists and despots of the old world; Powers of any sort not expressly delegated to any man, or body of men, are expressly "reserved to the people ;"

No absolute or dictatorial authority in representative bodies. The representative principle as claiming submission and obedience to the will of the constituents;

The sovereignty of the organized people supreme above all mere representative bodies, conventions, or legislatures, to decide, vote upon, and determine what shall be their supreme law;

Justice and equality between States and their citizens, and between voters to elect their agents and representatives, and to ratify or reject any proposed system of government;

Submission to the constitution and laws of the federal Union, and strict observance of all the rights of the States and their citizens, but resistance to the dictation or bribes of Congress, or any other power, to yield the inalienable right of self-government;

Protection in the Territories, and everywhere, to all rights of persons and of property, in accordance with the rights of the States, and with the constitution and laws of the Union;

Equity and uniformity in the mode of admitting new States into the Union, making the same rules and ratios to apply to all alike;

The rejection of all compromises, conditions or terms which would discriminate between forms of republican constitutions, admitting one, with one number of population, and requiring three times that number for another form equally republican;

The great law of settlement of the public domain of the United States, free, equal, and just, never to be "temporized" or "localized" by temporary or partial expedients, but to be adjusted by permanent, uniform and universal rules of right and justice.

Maintaining these and the like principles, I deem it to be the aim of the struggle of the devoted Democracy in this signal contest. And so understanding them, I glory in their declaration and defence. I would sacrifice much and go far to uphold your arms in this battle. I would most gladly

visit your people, address them, and invoke them to stand fast by the standard of their faith and freedom, and never to let go the truths for which they contend, for they are vital and cardinal, and essential, and can never be yielded without yielding liberty itself.

But, sir, I am like a tied man, bound to my duties here; and, if my office would allow me to leave it, I could not depart from the bedside of illness in my family, which would probably recall me before I could reach Illinois; and my own state of health admonishes me that I ought not to undertake a campaign as arduous as that you propose. I know what the labors of the stump are, and am not yet done suffering bodily from my efforts for Democracy in 1855. For these reasons, I cannot obey your call; but, permit me to add: Fight on! fight on! fight on!-never yield but in death or victory! And, oh! that I was unbound and could do more than look on, throbbing with every pulse of your glorious strugglewith its every blow and breath-cheered with its hopes, and chafed by its doubts-You have my prayers, and I am,

Yours truly,

HENRY A. WISE.

The Democracy of Illinois were not satisfied with the spirit and tone of Mr. Breckinridge's letter, nor did they acknowledge the justice of the Vice-President's insinuation, that their position was no better than Black Republicanism, contained in the following paragraph:

I have often, in conversation, expressed the wish that Mr. Douglas may succeed over his competitor; but it is due to candor to say, that this preference is not founded on his course at the last session of Congress, and would not exist if I supposed it would be construed as an indorsement of the attitude which he then chose to assume toward his party, or of all the positions he has taken in the present canvass.

The speeches of Mr. Breckinridge, in favor of the Nebraska Bill, while that measure was pending in Congress, and in 1856, when a candidate for the Vice-Presidency, in each of which he advocated the doctrine of popular sovereignty, in terms quite as explicit as those employed by Mr. Douglas in his Freeport speech, were too fresh in the minds of Illinoisans to permit this implied rebuke from a gen

tleman whom they had so recently aided in electing to the second office in the gift of the people to pass without hard thoughts. Nor did the Illinois Democrats exactly relish the ambiguous and equivocal language in which the Vice-President gave his reasons for preferring Mr. Douglas to Mr. Lincoln. The tone and temper of the noble letter of Governor Wise, replete with fervid interest in the struggle, is in striking contrast with that of Mr. Breckinridge, and the two letters appearing about the same time, produced a profound impression on the minds and feelings of the Illinois Democracy.

MR. DIXON'S LETTER.

Pending the campaign, the Hon. Archibald Dixon, late United States senator from Kentucky, addressed a letter to the Hon. Henry S. Foote, under date of September 30, 1858, in which the public career of Mr. Douglas was referred to, his position on the Lecompton constitution sustained, and his course on the Nebraska Bill vindicated. Mr. Dixon

is an Old Line Whig, and will be remembered as having first moved the repeal of the Missouri restriction in the Senate, an amendment which was modified and accepted by Mr. Douglas, and subsequently incorporated into the NebraskaKansas Bill.

The following extract will show in what estimation Mr. Douglas is held by one of the retired statesmen of the country, no longer influenced by partisan feeling and personal rivalry:

Of Judge Douglas, personally, I have a few words to utter which I could not withhold, without greatly wronging my own conscience. When I entered the United States Senate a few years since, I found him a decided favorite with the political party then dominant both in the Senate and the country. My mind had been greatly prejudiced against him, and I felt no It soon disposition whatever to sympathize, or to coöperate with him.