las then conceived the idea of a bill to admit California as a State, leaving the people to form a constitution, and to settle the question of slavery afterward to suit themselves. This bill was introduced by Mr. Douglas with the sanction of President Polk. It recognized the right of the people of California to determine all questions relating to their domestic concerns in their own way; but the Senate refused to pass the bill. All this took place before the Compromise measures of Mr. Clay were brought forward. During the period of five years that Mr. Douglas had been laboring for the adoption of the Missouri Compromise, his votes on the Oregon question, and upon all questions touching slavery, were given with reference to a settlement on that basis, and were consistent with it.

MR. DOUGLAS THE AUTHOR OF THE COMPROMISE OF 1850.

When Congress met, in December, 1849, Mr. Douglas was again placed by the Senate at the head of the Committee on Territories, and it became his duty to prepare and submit some plan for the settlement of those momentous questions, the agitation of which had convulsed the whole nation. Early in December, within the first two or three weeks of the session, he wrote and laid before the Committee on Territories, for their examination, two bills: one for the admission of California into the Union, and the other containing three distinct measures; first, for the establishment of a territorial government for Utah; second, for the establishment of a territorial government for New Mexico; and third, for the settlement of the Texas boundary. These bills remained before the Committee on Territories from the month of December, 1849, to the 25th of March, 1850. On that day Mr. Douglas reported the bills, and they were, on his motion, ordered to be printed. These

printed bills having laid on the tables of all the senators for four weeks, the Senate appointed a committee of thirteen, Henry Clay, of Kentucky, chairman. That committee took the two printed bills of Mr. Douglas, pasted them together, and reported them to the Senate as one bill, which was thenceforth known as the Omnibus Bill. Mr. Douglas made this statement to the Senate on the 23d of December, 1851, while the original Omnibus Bill was yet upon the clerk's table. The Committee of Thirteen had drawn a black line through the words, " Mr. Douglas, from the Committee on Territories," and in place of them, interlined these other words, "Mr. Clay, from the Committee of Thirteen, reported the following bill."

The report of the committee will be found in a subsequent part of this work.

Mr. Douglas supported the Omnibus Bill as a joint measure; but the Senate refused to pass the measures together. Each one, however, was passed separately; and each one was supported by Mr. Douglas. Well might Mr. Polk remark in the House of Representatives, in April, 1852, after speaking of the eminent services of Mr. Douglas: "History will cherish the record of such fearless and faithful service, and administer the proper rebuke to those who from malice or envy may seek to detract from his fair fame.”

We give the material features of these bills as they were passed, as a part of the history of the times, in the Appendix.

THE RIGHT OF INSTRUCTION.

On the 23d of December, 1851, Mr. Douglas made a speech in the Senate, on the resolutions declaring the Compromise measures of 1850 to be a definitive and final settlement of all the questions growing out of the subject of

domestic slavery, in the course of which he took a brief review of the votes he had given since the introduction of the Compromise measures, and showed that he had supported them all. In this speech he said:

MR. PRESIDENT: I claim no merit for having originated and proposed the measures contained in the Omnibus Bill. There was no remarkable feature about them. They were merely ordinary measures of legislation, well adapted to the circumstances, and their merit consisted in the fact that separately they could and did pass both Houses of Congress. Being responsible for these bills, as they came from the hands of the Committee on Territories, I wish to call attention to the fact that they contained no prohibition of slavery-no provision upon the subject. And now I come to the point which explains my object in stating my votes. The legislature of Illinois had passed a resolution instructing me to vote for a bill for the government of the territory acquired from Mexico, which should contain an express prohibition of slavery in that territory while it remained as territories, leaving the people to do as they pleased when they became a State. The instruction was designed in order to compel me to resign my seat and give place to a Freesoiler. The legislature knew my inflexible opposition to the principles asserted in the instructions, and wished me to give place to a Freesoiler, who would come here and carry out abolition doctrines. Notwithstanding these instructions, I wrote the bills and reported them from the Committee on Territories without the prohibition, in order that the record might show what my opinions were; but, lest the trick against me might fail, a Freesoil senator offered an amendment in the language of my instructions. I knew that the amendment could not prevail, even if the vote of Illinois was recorded in its favor. But if I resigned my place to an abolitionist, it was almost certain that the bills would fail on their passage. I came to the conclusion that duty required me to retain my seat. I was prepared to fight and defy abolitionism in all its forms, but I was not willing to repudiate the settled doctrine of my State, in regard to the right of instruction. Before the vote was taken, I defined my position. I denounced the doctrine of the amendment, declared my unalterable opposition to it, and gave notice that any vote which might be recorded in my name seemingly in its favor, would be the vote of those who gave the instructions, and not my own. Under this protest, I recorded a vote for this and two other amendments embracing the same principle, and then renewed my protest against them, and gave notice that I should not hold myself responsible for them. Immediately on my return

home, and in a speech to my constituents, I renewed my protest against these votes, and repeated the notice to that infuriated meeting, that they were their votes, and not mine. In that speech at Chicago, I said of the territorial bills: These measures are predicated on the great fundamental principle that every people ought to possess the right of forming and regulating their own internal concerns and domestic institutions in their own way. If those who emigrate to the territories have the requisite intelligence and honesty to enact laws for the government of white men, I know of no reason why they should not be deemed competent to legislate for the negro. If they are sufficiently enlightened to make laws for the protection of life, liberty, and property, of morals and education, to determine the relation of husband and wife, of parent and child, I am not aware that it requires any higher degree of civilization to regulate the affairs of master and servant. My votes and acts have been in accordance with these views in all cases, except in the instances in which I voted under your instructions. Those were your votes, and not mine. I entered my protest against them at the time, before and after they were recorded, and shall never hold myself responsible for them.' I made a good many speeches of the same tenor, the last of which was at the capital of Illinois. A few weeks afterward the legislature of Illinois assembled, and one of their first acts was to repeal the resolution of instructions to which I have referred, and to pass resolutions approving of the course of my colleague, General Shields, and myself, on the Compromise measures. From that day Illinois has stood firm and unwavering in support of the Compromise measures, and of all the compromises of the Constitution.

Mr. President, if I have said anything that savors of egotism, the Senate will pardon me. If I had omitted all that was personal to myself, my defence would have been incomplete. I am willing to be held responsible for all my acts, but I wish to be judged by my acts, and not by mali. cious misrepresentations. I may have committed errors; but when I am convinced of them, I will acknowledge them like a man, and promptly correct them. The Democratic party is as good a Union party as I want, and I want to preserve its principles and its organization, and to triumph upon its old issues. I desire no new tests, no interpolations upon the old creed."

In December 1853, Mr. Douglas reported the bill to organize the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, which formed the issues upon which the Democratic and Republican parties became arrayed against each other, He opposed the treaty

with England in relation to the Oregon boundary, contending that England had no rights on that coast. He opposed the Trist peace treaty with Mexico upon the ground that the boun. daries were unnatural and inconvenient, and that the provisions in relation to the Indians could never be executed. The United States government has since paid Mexico ten millions of dollars to change the boundaries, and to relinquish the stipulations in regard to the Indians. He opposed the Clayton and Bulwer treaty, because it pledged the United States in all time to come, never to annex Central America. He declared that he did not desire to annex Central America at that time, but maintained that the isthmus routes must be kept open as highways to the American possessions on the Pacific; that the time would come when the United States would be compelled to occupy Central America, and that he would never pledge the faith of the republic not to do in the future what its interests and safety might require. He also declared himself in favor of the acquisition of Cuba, whenever that island can be obtained consistently with the laws of nations and the honor of the United States. We give this speech entire in a subsequent part of this work.

On the 4th of January 1854, Senator Douglas made the following Report relative to the organization of the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas:

The Committee on Territories, to whom was referred a bill for an act to establish the Territories of Nebraska, have given the same that serious and deliberate consideration which its great importance demands, and beg leave to report it back to the Senate, with various amendments, in the form of a substitute for the bill:

The principal amendments which your committee deem it their duty to commend to the favorable action of the Senate, in a special report, are those in which the principles established by the Compromise measures of 1850, so far as they are applicable to territorial organizations, are proposed to be affirmed and carried into practical operation within the limits of the new Territory.