CHAPTER XIV.

Mr. Douglas leaves Chicago for New Orleans-Received at St. Louis and Memphis Brilliant Reception at New Orleans-Speech at Odd Fellows Hall-Departs for New York-Received by Corporate Authorities—Voted Independence Hall in Philadelphia-Speaks at Baltimore-Receives news of his Reelection as Senator on point of starting for Washington.

SOON after the close of the Illinois campaign, in November, 1858, Mr. Douglas, with his family, left Chicago for the purpose of making a brief visit to New Orleans, to attend to some pressing private matters which his public duties had constrained him too long to neglect. He gave no notice of his intention to make the trip, desiring to perform the journey as speedily and quietly as possible. Remaining in St. Louis a day, for a boat to convey him down the river, the news of his presence soon spread through the city, and that night he was honored with a serenade by a large concourse of citizens, who assembled around the hotel and insisted on a speech. Mr. Douglas acknowledged the compliment in a few appropriate remarks, and expressed his gratification that the people of Missouri, who were so deeply interested in the institution of slavery, so justly appreciated the nature and importance of the contest through which he had recently passed in Illinois.

Proceeding down the river without giving any public notice of his destination, Mr. Douglas was surprised when, nearly a hundred miles above Memphis, he was notified that

the Democracy of that city had learned by telegraph of his intended visit to New Orleans, and had appointed a committee of one hundred persons and chartered a steamer to proceed up the river and meet him, for the purpose of inducing him to stop a day at Memphis and accept of the hospitalities of that city. Not feeling at liberty to decline so flattering an invitation, Mr. Douglas placed himself in the hands of the committee, and on the following day addressed a large meeting of the citizens of Memphis on the political topics of the day. In this speech Mr. Douglas confined himself mainly to a discussion of the points presented in the Illinois campaign, prefacing it with the declaration, that no political creed was sound which could not be proclaimed equally as well in one State of the Union as in the other. On a comparison of the published report of this speech, as it appeared in the newspapers of the day, we find that he asserted the same views on the Territorial question in Memphis as he had done in Illinois.

The cordial and enthusiastic approbation with which his audience received his speech, must have satisfied Mr. Douglas that Democracy was the same in Tennessee as in Illinois.

At New Orleans, Mr. Douglas' reception was truly grand and magnificent. Approaching the Crescent at 9 o'clock at night, he was received by the city authorities, the military and the citizens, amidst the firing of cannon and in the glare of a brilliant illumination. He was escorted to the St. Charles Hotel, where he was lodged as the guest of the city, and addressed by the mayor on behalf of the municipal authorities, and by Hon. Pierre Soulé on behalf of the citizens, in eloquent speeches of congratulation on his brilliant victory in Illinois over the enemies of the Constitution and the Union, to each of which he made an appropriate response.

On the 6th December, he addressed the people of New

Orleans at Odd Fellows Hall, on the political topics of the day, at the request of a large number of citizens, embracing all shades of political opinions. We deem this speech of sufficient importance to the reader to justify us in giving one

or two extracts:

MR. PRESIDENT AND CITIZENS OF NEW ORLEANS: It was with much hesitation and no small degree of reluctance that I was induced to give my consent to address you on this occasion. I have just passed through a fierce conflict in my own State, which required me to perform more speaking than was either agreeable to my wishes or consistent with my strength. When I determined to visit New Orleans, it was only on private business of an imperative character; and it was my desire to arrive and depart as quietly as possible, and without in any way connecting myself with politics. I approached your city, as I supposed, unheralded and unknown, and I was amazed at the magnificent reception extended to me on the Levee by so vast a concourse of people, embracing the municipal authorities, the citizens in their individual capacity, my own political friends, and men of all political parties. This was a compliment which filled my heart with gratitude, and did not leave me at liberty to decline the first request you might make of me in return. I have, therefore, yielded to your solicitations, to make a few remarks on the political topics which now agitate the public mind throughout the length and breadth of our glorious Republic, and I have done so the more readily as I desire to know whether the principles which are admitted to be sound and orthodox in the free States can pass current in the slave States.

So long as we live under a common Constitution, binding on the people of all the States, any political creed which cannot be proclaimed in Louisiana as boldly as in Illinois, must be unsound and unsafe. I shall not attempt to enter upon any new views, or propound any original ideas, with the view of testing the truth of this proposition, but shall simply discuss these questions now at issue in the country, in the same manner that I am in the habit of doing before an Illinois audience. The tendency of events during the past fifteen years has been to force the organization of political parties on a geographical basis, to array the North against the South, embittering the one against the other, under the misapprehension that there is some irreconcilable antagonism in their interests which prevents harmony between them. For the last twenty-five years I have been in public life; fifteen years have been spent in the Congress of the United States,

and the whole of my life has been devoted to the discovery and elucidation of some common ground on which northern and southern men might stand on terms of equality and justice. If you will take pains to examine the history of this sectional strife which has grown up in our midst, you will find that the whole contest has arisen from an attempt on the part of the Federal Government to assume, or usurp, the exercise of powers not conferred by the federal Constitution.

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NON-INTERVENTION THE ONLY POLICY THAT CAN SAVE THE UNION.

The Democracy of Illinois, in the first place, accepts the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Dred Scott, as an authoritative interpretation of the Constitution. In accordance with that decision, we hold that slaves are property, and hence on an equality with all other kinds of property, and that the owner of a slave has the same right to move into a Territory and carry his slave property with him, as the owner of any other property has to go there and carry his property. All citizens of the United States, no matter whether they come from the North or the South, from a free State or a slave State, can enter a Territory with their property on an equal footing. And, I apprehend, when you arrive there with your property, of whatever description, it is subject to the local laws of the Territory. How can your slave property be protected without local law, any more than any other kind of property? The Constitution gives you the right to go into a Territory and carry your slaves with you, the same as any other species of property; but it does not punish any man for stealing your slaves any more than stealing any other kind of property. Congress has never yet passed a law providing a criminal code or furnishing protection to any kind of property. It has simply organized the Territory and established a legislature, that legislature being vested with legislative power over all rightful subjects of legislation, subject only to the Constitution of the United States. Hence, whatever jurisdiction the legislature possesses over other property, it has over slave property-no more, no less. Let me ask you, as southern men, whether you can hold slaves anywhere unless protected by the local law? Would not the inaction of the local legislature, its refusal to provide a slave code, or to punish offences against that species of property, exclude slavery just as effectually as a constitutional prohibition? Would it not have that effect in Louisiana and

Then, let me ask you, if the code, how are you going to

in every other State? No one will deny it. people of a Territory refuse to pass a slave make them do it? When you give them power to legislate on all rightful subjects of legislation, it becomes a question for them to decide and not for you.

If the local legislature imposes a tax on horses, or any other kind of property, you may think it a hardship, but how are you going to help it? Just so it is with regard to traffic in liquors. If you are dealing in liquors you have the same right to take your liquors into the Territory that anybody else has to take any other species of property. You may pass through and take your liquors in transitu, and you will be protected in your right of property under the Constitution of the United States; but if you open the packages they become subject to the local law; and should the Maine law happen to prevail in the Territory, you had better travel with your liquors. Hence, if the local legislature has the same power over slave property as over every other species of property, what right have you to complain of that equality? But if you do complain, where is your remedy? And let me say to you that if you oppose this just doctrine, if you attempt to exempt slaves from the same rules that apply to every other kind of property, you will abandon your strongest ground of defence against the assaults of the Black Republicans and Abolitionists. If the people of a Territory are in favor of slavery they will make laws to protect it; if opposed to slavery they will not make those laws, and you cannot compel them to do it. But I will tell you when they will have it, and when slavery will find protection in a Territory. It is when the Territory lies in those latitudes and climates which adapt it to the profitable production of rice and sugar and cotton, and where slave labor will be remunerative. Thus, slavery will exist wherever soil, climate, and productions demand it, and it will exist nowhere else. Now, if climate, and soil, and self-interest will regulate this question, why should we quarrel about it? When you arrive at a certain distance to the north of the line there cannot be any doubt of the result and so when you go to a certain distance south, the result will be equally certain the other way. But in the great central regions, where there may be some doubt as to the effect of natural causes, who ought to decide the question except the people residing there, who have all their interest there; who have gone there to live with their wives and children? Any party which attempts, by a system of coercion, to force any institutions into regions not adapted to them, violates the great principles on which our government is founded.

You now have my views on the subject of slavery in the Territories.