Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1858-07-15
Reception Of Senator Douglas at
Chicago.
CHICAGO. July 8

evening with a great display, At one
o'clock a committee of four hundred from
Chicago and the adjoining counties pro-
ceeded to Michigan city and there met
Judge Douglas and escorted him to this
city. The arrival of the train was greet
ed with the firing of cannon and the
cheers of the people.
A procession was formed and conduct
ed to the fremont House, where he was
welcomed in a brief speech in behalf of
the citizens, by Charles Walker, Presi-
dent of the Board of Trade. Judge
Douglas replied at great length.
Mr.. Douglas, after returning his thanks
for the magnificent reception, reviewed
the action of the last Congress on the
Kansas bill. He extolled the Crittenden
bill as honest, and as the very best pro-
position for the practical illustration of
popular sovereignty. He claimed that
the struggle with Lecomptonism was for
the integrity of principle. That strug-
gle was triumphant, and Lecomptonism
was virtually abandoned by its friends,
and had been defeated forever. He had
opposed the English bill, although prac-
tically it sent back the constitution TO be
accepted or rejected by the people, be-
cause the manner as well as the form OF
that submission was at variance with
every just principle of popular govern
ment-a submission of the constitution
to the people with the threat that if they
did not accept a slave constitution its
thirty-fve thousand inhabitants should
not come in as a free State until it had
ninety-lhree thousand. He could never
countenance such a discrimination be-
tween free and slave States.
The best energies of his mind had been
several years devoted to the great prin
ciple Of the rights of the people of the
Territories to frame their own funda-
mental laws, and he intended to devote
all his future life to the same doctrine.
He commended that the compromise mea-
sures Of 1850 were founded on that prin-
ciple, and were carried out in the Kan
sas-Nebraska bill. He affirmed the
/ Cincinnati platform, and reaffirmed Pres
ident Buchanan's Inaugural. He regret
ted to see however, political part Of
this country determined not to acquiesce
in this line of policy. The Republican
Convention recently assembled at Spring
+ field, nominated Mr.. Lincoln as his
/ (Douglas') successor to the Senate to re-
pudiate the doctrine of popular sover-
eighty. Mr.. Lincoln proclaimed that
Congress, and not the people of the Ter
rite,rie=., had the right r., establish tl1E
domestic institutions of the Territories.
Dir. Lincoln endorsed not only this doc
trine, but proclaimed line of policy
which was incompatible with the exist
| ence of the Union for he declared that
the Union divided into an equal number
I of free and slave States cannot endure.
Mr.. Douglas showed the dangerous tend
ency of this doctrine, and said that it in
vited and proclaimed war Of extermina-
tion, one section against the other. He
regretted it as subversive of the funda-
mental principles upon which our COM
plete system of government rested. He
denied that a uniformity of local policy
and domestic institutions in the different
States was either or even possible; on
the contrary he held that our political
system rested upon the theory and the
practice of dissimilarity of local policy
and of domestic institutions in the differ
ent States. Our forefathers cIeary per
ceived that the kind of domestic institu-
tons which would suit New Hampshire
would be totally unfit for the rice planta-
tons of Carolina. Hence they adopted
Constitution which provides that each
State should be sovereign and supreme
within its own limits, On the supposition
that they would be as diversified as
States as they were numerous. Thus it
would seem the diversity and dissimilar-
ity Of the domestic institutions Of the
sovereign States are the cardinal princi-
pies underlying the whole system Of our
+ government. Its strength, harmony and
adaptation to the wants Of the people, all
depended upon the right of each State to
form and regulate its own internal policy
without reference to its similarity or dis
similarity to other States. Herepeated,
uniformity is neither desirable or posi-
bic.
/ Il possible, how can it be obtained
There Is but one process through which
it can be accomplished, and that would
be to abolish the State Legislatures, con