Daily union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, 1866-09-09

only ltdllFS III our iOlAtlC&l OOlSllluAlOt,
which has ever been regarded as inconsist-
ent with its fundamental principles Of free
dom and equality, the country is indebted
to the present Chief Magistrate of the
Union. His personal influence with the
South has achieved what no power of the
Government could have ef1ected-the adop-
ton by three-fourths Of the States of the
constitutional amendment, declaring slavery
forever abolished throughout the Union.
The glory of President LINCOLN is to have,
by an act Of his own will, emancipated all
slaves within the reach of his legitimate
power. The glory of President JOHNSON
is to have completed what the former left
unfinished, and to have made the Constitu-
ton what eleven of the thirteen original
parties to it desired to make it at its for
nation.
Two of the slave States refused to concur
in the great measure of 1866, and it will be
recorded in our history as one of the mar
wells Of the times, that slavery was abolished
in Kentucky and Delaware by the votes of
South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi and AL
ALBANIA. Let the fact be proclaimed in honor
Of the last named States, and it need not be
doubted that the time is near at hand when
they will find in high moral considerations
and an immeasura5ly increased prosperity
/
names are enrolled in the great army Of
emancipators throughout the civilized world.
In the State Of Illinois there has been no
great interest for a quarter of "a century with
which Mr.. DOUGLAS was not in some de-
gree identified. His views were eminently
conservative. He opposed all useless ex-
penditures, all loose interpretations of or
ganic or administrative laws all attempts to
evade obligations resting upon legitimate
contracts; and yet he was always one Of the
foremost ia advocating judicious internal
| improvements. He was particularly con-
spicuous for his perseVering efforts to secure
the grant of lands from the United States
for the Illinois Central Railroad, to which
so much Of the prosperity of the State is
| due. 1t is no injustice to the representa-
/ tives in Congress from Illinois, to whose
active and jealous cooperation with him
| that invaluable grant was obtained, to say
| that but for his determined opposition it
would have been made to private company,
and not, as he insisted it should be, to the
State.
You all remember his earnest and long
continued exertions, extending through
series of years, to procure the passage of a
| bill by Congress for the construction of the
Pacific Railroad, the most gigantic enter
prise of this or any other age. He address |
ed public meetings, and wrote papers to en-
force upon the judgment of the country the |
necessity of executing a work which he re- |
garded as destined to become one of the |
strongest bonds of union between the States |
and the people on the two shores of this |
continent, and as essential to the full devel- |
opment of our internal resources and COM
mercial capacity. He did not live to see |
the great enterprise commenced. But thanks |
to him and those who like him foresaw its
importance without being appalled, by its |
magnitude it is now in a course of rapid 1
execution. II was commenced a year ago;
the track-layers passed Fort Kearney on the
10Th of last month; they are now more than
two hundred miles west of Omaha; they are
more than half way across the continent; on
the LIST of April next this city will reach,
by one unbroken railway communication,
into the heart of the great plains which
stretch from the Rocky Mountains eastward,
and be within two hundred miles of Dem
yer, in Colorado. OF the $500 miles of
railroad required in this parallel of latitude
to cross the continent only 300 win remain
unfinished. There is every reason to believe,
should no unforeseen event occur to retard
it, that in five years from this time the work
will be completed, the Atlantic and Pacific
4
i've shores will be united by bonds of iron
which no time can break, and large por-
ton of the trade with China will be turned
from maritime into overland channels.
The results to which this improvement must
lead, no human sagacity can torsee and no
human calculation compute.
In connection with this subject, let me re-
call to your remembrance the general
gloom which overspread the country when
the late civil war broke out. The stoutest
hearts were not without their misgivings,
and even those of us who never doubted the
issue, and who were determined from the
beginning to fight it out to the end, without
regard to consequences, had our hours and
days of the deepest anxiety. While calling
out, like the psalmist, from the depths of
cur distress, ode pr0fuRdis," the gates of our
valleys and our everlasting hills were un-
locked, as if in response to our cry, and
treasures, which had lain buried in the dark
ness of ages, were poured out in boundless
profusion to sustain us under the enormous
burdens cast upon US by the war. To these
prolific fountains of wealth the Pacific /
Railroad is to convey us on its way across
the continent-to the Rocky Mountains, the |
Sierra Nevada and the lower gold and sill |
ver-bearing ranges. The auriferous noun |
tain chains of Europe and Asia have been |
penetrated and ransacked for thousands of |
years for the precious metals they contain. |
Ours are, as yet almost untouched; and |
there is every reason to believe had al |
most said to fear, that the treasures which |
are to be developed and distributed among |
us, will exceed all that history has pictured |
Of the riches Of the great oriental Empires. |
For let us bear in our remembrance that |
| the administration of wealth by Govern |
ments is always a source of corruption; that |
communities grow less scrupulous as they |
| grow more rich; that simplicity of man |
ners gives way to luxury and economy to |
extravaganza; and that rivalry, in industry |
is succeeded by that worst and most demon |
/ alizing Of all mpetition-emulation in ex- |
penditure. Social evils of this sort may be |
| endured and made comparatively innocuous |
| SO long as public legislation is pure. L say |
to you, then, men of the West, look to the |
purity of your representatives in your State |
| Legislatures and in Congress. Let them be |
men of talent, ifthey are also men of integ- |
rity. But let them, first Of all, be honest |
and incorruptible. 1t was the good fortune |
of Mr.. DOUGLAS to have borne his part in |
/ the National councils when incorruptibility |
was deemed as essential in public legisla-
tor as chastity in a woman, and to have gone |
| through life, during the highest party ex-
citement, without a stain on his reputation
in his personal or public relations. Impure
legislation was the evil, for which, above all |
others, the founders of our Government had |
the deepest concern
"Quod nostri timuere pdtres,"
and it is ON you, as voters, holding in your
hands the power of selection, that the re-
| sponsibility rests ofmaintaining the stability
of the Government by confding its admin
istration, and especially its Legislative func-
| tions, 10 pure men.
It has pleased the Sovereign Ruler Of the
universe to strengthen and uphold US in the
seasons of our adversely and peril. Let US
implore Him not to leave US to ourselves
in the more dangerous ordeal of our pros
/ perity.
The oratory of Mr. DOUGLAS was marked
by the same characteristics which distin-
| guished him in all the actions of his life. Ii
was bold, earnest forcible and impressive.
| II is quite manifest that he never chose as
model any one of the great orators Of his
own time or of the past. II is equally GER
tain that ne bestowed little labor on orna-
ment. He seems to have had single object
| in the preparation Of his speeches: to ex-
rress his thoucbts in the simplest and most