instructions from President Paredes to the Mexican general commanding on the right bank of the Rio Grande, in which he says, April, 18, 1846, "It is indispensable that hostilities be commenced, yourself taking the initiative against the enemy." In closing this speech, Mr. Douglas paid a glowing tribute to the volunteers who had so gallantly rushed to the standard of their country, and especially to the 7,000 volunteers from Illinois.

PASS TO SANTA ANNA.

Gen. Santa Anna had been an exile from his country when the Mexican War began; and, desiring to return to Mexico, he was permitted to pass through our squadron. This was done in pursuance of orders from the War Department to the commander of our fleet in the Gulf of Mexico. The Government was violently assailed for having permitted this; Mr. Clayton of Delaware having charged the President, by giving this pass to Santa Anna, with being guilty of a blunder worse than a crime. On the 17th of March, Mr. Douglas, in a brief, but comprehensive speech, defended the policy of the administration in this matter, and showed that the admission of Santa Anna, so far from being a blunder, was a wise and politic measure. The results of the war proved that he was right, and that Mr. Clayton was mistaken.

ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD.

The bill granting to the State of Illinois the right of way through the lands of the United States, which had been originally introduced into the Senate by Mr. Douglas, April 10, 1848, was passed on the 31st of May: the measure owing its success mainly to his exertions. The object of the hill was to construct a railroad connecting Chicago and the

great lakes of the North, with the Mississippi River at Cairo. The road was built, and it has proved to be of incalculable benefit, not only to the State of Illinois, but to the whole country.

In the debate on the bill, Mr. Douglas explained that the proposed road was to be the entire length of the State from north to south, not far from 400 miles. The bill proposed to grant the land in alternate sections, increasing the price of the other sections to double the minimum price. It was fol lowing the same system that had been adopted in reference te improvements of a similar character in Ohio, Indiana, Alabama, Iowa, and Wisconsin, by which principle each alternate section of land was ceded, and the price of the alternate sections not ceded was doubled, so that the same price is received for the whole. These lands had been in the market about twenty-three years; but they would not sell at the usual price of $1 25 per acre, because they were distant from any navigable stream. A railroad would make the lands salable at double the usual price. The road was begun by the State of Illinois in 1836, and about a million of dollars were expended upon it by the State. With the exception of the county at the northern end of the road, more than one-halı of the whole of the lands along the line were then vacant; in most of the counties, it was so. Around the towns the land was all taken up and cultivated, but there were large prairies where the land was in all its original wildness.

ITS BENEFIT TO ILLINOIS.

It must be remembered that this was twelve years ago. Illinois twelve years ago was very different from the Illinois of to-day. There was then not a single mile of railroad in the State; and the greater part of the line of the proposed railroad passed for miles and miles without coming in sight

of a house, or any other indication of civilized life. What a contrast now! The proposed road built, known even in Europe as one of the most prosperous in America; other railroads crossing it in all directions; the reserved alternate sections of land nearly all sold, at prices ranging from two dollars and a half to seven and a quarter per acre, thus yielding to the government a much larger sum for one half than was before asked for the whole; the whole of the soil of Illinois, acknowledged to be the richest in the world, redeemed from its primitive wildness, blooming and blossoming like a garden, and teeming with abundant harvests; a market brought to every farmer's door; and this prosperity owing its origin and material progress to the exertions of Mr. Douglas in securing the passage of this bill.

It is but an act of simple justice to those illustrious states men to add, that John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, Danie Webster, Thomas H. Benton, and Lewis Cass, seconded the efforts of Mr. Douglas by able and eloquent speeches in favor of this great measure.

MISSOURI COMPROMISE REPUDIATED.

In August, 1848, Mr. Douglas offered an amendment to the Oregon Bill, extending the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific Ocean, in the same sense and with the same understanding with which it was originally adopted in 1820, and extended through Texas in 1845. The amendment was adopted in the Senate, but was rejected in the House of Representatives by northern votes.

It is important to mark well this fact. The first time that the principles of the Missouri Compromise were even abandoned, the first time they were ever rejected by Congress, was by the defeat of that provision in the House of Representatives, in 1848. That defeat was effected by northern

votes with Freesoil proclivities. It was that defeat which reopened the slavery agitation in all its fury, and caused the tremendous struggle of 1850. It was that defeat which created the necessity for making a new compromise in 1850. Who caused that defeat? Who was faithless to the principles of the compromise of 1820? It was the very men who in 1854, insisted that the Missouri Compromise was a solemn compact that ought never to be violated. The very men who, in 1854, arraigned Mr. Douglas for a departure from the Missouri Compromise, were the men who successfully violated it, repudiated it, and caused it to be superseded.

CALIFORNIA, INDIAN TITLES, ETC.

By the time the next session of Congress assembled, Cali. fornia had been settled by an enterprising people, whose numbers entitled them to admission into the Union as a State. A bill "for the admission of California as a State into the Union," was introduced by Mr. Douglas on the 29th of January, 1849; but was not acted on till long afterward.

On the 18th of December, 1849, Mr. Douglas was reëlected chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories, by 33 out of 40 votes; a position to which he was constantly thereafter reëlected, until December, 1858.

The tribes of Indians which had, until a few years before, occupied the lands in Minnesota, Oregon, California, and New Mexico, had never been fully divested of their title to the same; and their constant presence there, and their depreda tions on the settlers, were very annoying; so much so that the settlement of those new Territories was much impeded. In order to remove the cause of all the trouble at once, Mr. Douglas, on the 7th of January, 1850, offered a resolution; providing for the complete extinguishment of the Indian

title in the Territories above named. The resolution was debated at some length, but it was adopted; and the measures proposed have been faithfully carried out. Ample provision was made for treating the Indians with fairness and justice and while their rights have been respected, and their comforts secured, the vast regions which they occupied have been secured for all time to come for the abodes of civilized men; and for the spread of those great fundamental principles on which our national prosperity rests.

At the time that Mr. Douglas introduced his resolution, however, the emigrants to those Territories, and especially to those of Oregon and California, were annoyed and attacked to such an extent, by roving bands of Indians, that it was considered positively unsafe for emigrants to go any further west than the Missouri River. It was clearly the duty of the Government to afford protection to its citizens on its own soil; and accordingly, on the 31st of January, Mr. Douglas offered a resolution, instructing the committee on military affairs to inquire into the expediency of providing, on the usual emigrant line from the Missouri River to the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains, a sufficient movable military force to protect all emigrants to Oregon and California.

To the legislation growing out of this resolution, many hundreds of families now living in comfort and even in affluence in the smiling villages of Oregon, California, and Minnesota, are indebted, not only for their safety, but their very lives. The instances of emigrant trains saved from the attack and spoliation of the savages, by our gallant troops on the frontier, from 1851 to 1857, are numerous and well authenticated. The settlers in those new countries owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Douglas which they will not soon forget.