Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1857-09-23

SENATOR DoUaLAs By AN OPPosT1IoN PAPER.-The
following sketch Of Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, by
(Mass.) Herald is graphic and amusing: Accord
ing to our policy Of giving every shade Of opinion
fair hearing, we let this writer speak for himself
It appears that he was . passenger with Judge
Douglas on trip in the cars from St. Louis to
Chicago at the close of the celebration Of the OPEN
ing Of the Ohio and Mississippi railroad in June
last
That little man, with big, round head, a brow
almost as broad as Webster's; and . quick, active
eye, that rolls under the heavy projecting brow,
watching every other man, and not allowing mo-
ton to escape him-with arms too short for his
body which is full and round though it never
lacked the juices that supply life and with small
duck legs, which, had they grown as thick as his
backbone, (and they would probably, if Providence
had not foreseen that he would want backbone
more than legs in his battle of life) would have
made him Of respectable stature that little man is
no less than the grea. politician of the West, who
has attracted more attention in the last four years
than any other man of the nation and done more to
give direction to public affairs than even the Pres-
dent with million and half Of voters at his back
at his command. 1t is the "Little Giant" Stephen
A. Douglas, with whom we parted company at Vim
cennes, and who has slowly come along feeling the
public pulse to learn the political health OF the
suckers," up to Springfield, the capital of the State
The means of success in Senator Douglas are
a great man. Eastern people who view him only as
low politician, should dsabuse their minds in re-
lation to who is to exercise wide influence IN
the affairs of the country, and very probaby-tor
he is vet young-to be the head of the Republic.
He is massive in his conceptions broad and compre-
hensive in his views, and in good measure is en-
lowed with all those powers of mind that make
statesman.
But he is greater still in energy of character.
There are those who think that defeat of him next
year would be his death in politics; but the man
who sprung from a cabinet makers shop in Yer
mont, and without father or friend worked his way
to an honorable place upon the bench of judges,
who entered Illinois with less than fifty cents in
money and not cent in credit, and has acquired
great wealth and the highest station and influence,
in mind, and greater in energy, he is greatest in
those winning manners for which the world calls
him dcmagogue. Scarcely man, woman, or child
in the escaped his attention. or was passed by
unspoken to. At one moment he talks with the old,
stern visaged politician, who has been soured by
thousand defeats and disappointments, in the next
to that welnformed and genial Kentuckian, who
has just sought fee State; now he sits down with
the little girl approaching her teens and asks of her
school studies; and he pats the little boy on the
head, and, in the presence Of his fond mother and
proud father (what father is not proud to see his
boy notcedO says word of his mild eyes or glossy
locks. Again the lady is approached with fair
word and bland SMILE and goes home pleased to
tell her husband or father how he looks and what
he says, and then half dozen are about him, all
standing together. He can talk religion with the
priest as well as politics with the statesman he can
congratulate the newly appointed Buchanan office.
holder who has supplanted his friend, tell the dis
placed friend of the good time coming" when his
wing shall be up; and at every station more regu-
larly than the conductor, Mr.. Douglas is upon the
platform, with good bye to the leaving, and well
come to the departing traveller shake Of the
hand with one man that stands at the depot, and q
touch Of the hat to another He knows everybody !;
tell the question that affects each locality call
the name Of every farm owner on the way tell all
travellers something of the homes they left that they
never knew themselves and suggest what they are
adapted for in this life and what place they deserve
in heaven. Now, such man as that, in contact
with everybody, knowing everybody, and capable of
pleasing everybody, and at the bottom wrapped up
with the idea Of prcferment, power, and do'nin
ion among men, is not easily to be put down; and
his opponents might we'll believe at once, that
when they fight him they fight a strong mana
little giant indeed He would be popular in Boston
or anywhere else, and half the three thousand
clergymen" he denounced would have their hearts
stolen if he could speak to them half hour.