The Life of Stephen A. Douglas [6]
that should thereafter be carved out of South America. The enduring foundation of this tropical empire was to be African slavery, and the governing power was to rest permanently in the hands of a cultured aristocracy of slave-holders. The people of the North-Atlantic States and heir descendents in the Northwest, who churlishly held aloof from these intoxicating dreams, were to be treated with generous justice and permitted to go in peace or continue a minor adjunct of the great aristocratic Republic. Already the irrepressible conflict had begun.
Douglas heartily accepted the plans of his party. He was by temperament an ardent expansionist, a firm believer in the manifest destiny of his country to rule the Western Continent, a pronounced type of exuberant young Americanism. He was an unflinching partisan seeking to establish himself in the higher councils of his party, which was committed to this scheme of conquest. On May 13th, 1846, he delivered in the House a speech, in which he defended the course of the Administration in regard to the Mexican War and, in a spirited colloquy, instructed the venerable John Quincy Adams in the principles of international law. He based his defense of the war upon the treaty with Santa Anna recognizing the independence of Texas. Adams suggested that at the time of its execution Santa Anna was a prisoner incapable of making a treaty. Douglas insisted that, even though a captive, he was a de facto government whose acts were binding upon the country, and to establish his proposition cited the case of Cromwell who, during his successful usurpation, bound England by many important treaties. The niceties of international law were not very punctiliously observed. His arguments were warmly received by men already resolved on a career of conquest.
The war was a romantic military excursion through the heart of Mexico. There were battles between the triumphant invaders and the demoralized natives, which were believed entitled to rank among the supreme achievements of genius and courage. Americans had not yet acquired that deep knowledge of carnage, those stern conceptions of war, which they were destined soon to gain. Military glory and imperial conquest have rarely been so cheaply won. The war gave enduring fame to the commanding generals and shed a real luster over the lives of thousands of men.
The material results were stupendous. We acquired nearly twelve hundred thousand square miles of territory--a region one-third larger than the area of the United States at the close of the Revolution. The extravagant dream of making the Pacific the western boundary of the Republic was realized and no one seriously doubted that this vast domain was surrendered to slavery.
Chapter IV. The Compromise of 1850.
Douglas served two terms in the House and was again elected in 1846, but in January following was chosen Senator, taking his seat on March 4th, 1847. In April following he married Martha Denny Martin, daughter of a wealthy North Carolina planter and slave-owner.
The Senate, during the early years of his service, was in its intellectual gifts altogether the most extraordinary body ever assembled in the United States. Rarely, if ever, in the history of the world, have so many men of remarkable endowment, high training and masterful energy been gathered in a single assembly. It was the period when the generation of Webster, Clay and Calhoun overlapped that of Seward, Chase and Sumner, when the men who had set at the feet of the Revolutionary Fathers and had striven to settle the interpretation of the Constitution met the men who were destined to guide the Nation through the Civil War and settle the perplexing questions arising from it.
Webster was now an old man, his face deep lined with care, disappointment and dissipation. Though sixty-eight years old and the greatest orator of the century, his heart was still consumed with unquenchable thirst of the honor of succeeding John Tyler and James K. Polk. Calhoun, now sixty-five years old, a ghastly physical
Douglas heartily accepted the plans of his party. He was by temperament an ardent expansionist, a firm believer in the manifest destiny of his country to rule the Western Continent, a pronounced type of exuberant young Americanism. He was an unflinching partisan seeking to establish himself in the higher councils of his party, which was committed to this scheme of conquest. On May 13th, 1846, he delivered in the House a speech, in which he defended the course of the Administration in regard to the Mexican War and, in a spirited colloquy, instructed the venerable John Quincy Adams in the principles of international law. He based his defense of the war upon the treaty with Santa Anna recognizing the independence of Texas. Adams suggested that at the time of its execution Santa Anna was a prisoner incapable of making a treaty. Douglas insisted that, even though a captive, he was a de facto government whose acts were binding upon the country, and to establish his proposition cited the case of Cromwell who, during his successful usurpation, bound England by many important treaties. The niceties of international law were not very punctiliously observed. His arguments were warmly received by men already resolved on a career of conquest.
The war was a romantic military excursion through the heart of Mexico. There were battles between the triumphant invaders and the demoralized natives, which were believed entitled to rank among the supreme achievements of genius and courage. Americans had not yet acquired that deep knowledge of carnage, those stern conceptions of war, which they were destined soon to gain. Military glory and imperial conquest have rarely been so cheaply won. The war gave enduring fame to the commanding generals and shed a real luster over the lives of thousands of men.
The material results were stupendous. We acquired nearly twelve hundred thousand square miles of territory--a region one-third larger than the area of the United States at the close of the Revolution. The extravagant dream of making the Pacific the western boundary of the Republic was realized and no one seriously doubted that this vast domain was surrendered to slavery.
Chapter IV. The Compromise of 1850.
Douglas served two terms in the House and was again elected in 1846, but in January following was chosen Senator, taking his seat on March 4th, 1847. In April following he married Martha Denny Martin, daughter of a wealthy North Carolina planter and slave-owner.
The Senate, during the early years of his service, was in its intellectual gifts altogether the most extraordinary body ever assembled in the United States. Rarely, if ever, in the history of the world, have so many men of remarkable endowment, high training and masterful energy been gathered in a single assembly. It was the period when the generation of Webster, Clay and Calhoun overlapped that of Seward, Chase and Sumner, when the men who had set at the feet of the Revolutionary Fathers and had striven to settle the interpretation of the Constitution met the men who were destined to guide the Nation through the Civil War and settle the perplexing questions arising from it.
Webster was now an old man, his face deep lined with care, disappointment and dissipation. Though sixty-eight years old and the greatest orator of the century, his heart was still consumed with unquenchable thirst of the honor of succeeding John Tyler and James K. Polk. Calhoun, now sixty-five years old, a ghastly physical