Union County courier. [volume] (Elk Point, Union County, D.T. [S.D.]) 187?-1913, 1886-06-23
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. Of PUBIIC TEE,
BY BEN: pERLsY PooRE.

By BEN: PERLEY POORE.
Senator McDougall, Of California, a
fcw days after he had made an offensive
speech, when drunk, in the Senate
Chamber, made q handsome apology.
II have" said he, always thought
that it was nobler to confess an UMPIRE
meditated wrong than to maintain the
right. With this conviction l have
risen to acknowledge the wrong, to
express my profound regret, and to ask
the pardon Of this body. / do this with
more than mere satisfaction. It is fur
Their due to myself, as also to the Sen
ator, my colleague, that / should request
his pardon. This / now do. / had at
the moment forgotten the old rule, a
conclusion stated in a supposed Socratic
discussion. dd tnsculum: Avoid the
perturbations.' l violated the %injunc-
ton: Let not the sun 60 down upon
your wrath With the morning, when
the morn stood tiptoe on the misty
mountain top, there came penitence.
These short remarks are designed to be
penitential."
Hon. Sam Hooper. the m~erchant-rep-
r~esentatiye from Boston, called on Gen.
Grant on New Years day of 1866, and
handed him a letter signed by himself
and forty-nine other "solid men of Bos-
ton" presenting a library Of well-se-
lected books which had cost So, 100.
The debates in the Senate on the
kansas-N ebraska question were a pro-
logue to the great Rebellion, and when
it came the turn Of Stephen A. Douglas
to speak on the Lecompton bill, the
spacious galleries Of the new Senate
Chamber were packed. The day-it
was the 22d Of March, 185S--was con-
sumed by Senators Stuart, of Michigan,
Bayerd, of Delaware, and Frederick, of
California, the latter concluding at five
o'clock, when a recess took place until
seven.
The scene presented in the Senate
was n Of the most brilliant and excit-
ing l have ever witnessed. No sooner
We're the galleries cleared, when the
recess was taken, than the crowds who
expected Douglas would speak, all the
morning having patiently awaited u
chance to get in, filed up the seats. At
five minutes after five the galleries
were empty; in five minutes more they
were filed with a brilliant, fashionable
and intelligent array. In the gentle
mems gallery the people were literally
walking on each other. They formed a
human pyramid reaching up to the
windows, on the inside stills of which
some persons were fortunate enough to
be lifted.
The reporters gallery was captured
by gentlemen who made a press, though
they dill not belong to it, and rendered
it utterly impossible for my friends of
the quill, save with one or two excep-
lions, to more than preserve themselves
from furnishing a local item of"crushed
to death" to their neighbor. For two
hours the throng of people were wedged
together in expectancy of the great
speech. Some ladies brought books,
others their knitting, and thus, having
early secured seats, industriously killed
the time between 5 and 7 p. m.
When the chamber was called to
order, Gwin and Seward simultaneously
arose with the same purpose, to move
the admission of ladies to the floor of the
Senate. II was agreed to. The doors
were thrown open, and q perfect flood
of beauty, bearing on the tide all man
ner OF broken hoops and draggled erin
oline, poured into the chamber. In a
few moments every spot was occupied,
while in all the lobbies such discomfort
arose from the unaccommodated crowds
OF gentlemen and ladies there, that sew
eral times the chair was called on to
dispatch officers to allay the disorder.
The appearance of Senator Douglas
was the token for a round of applause.
The sight must have been deeply graft
flying to him, as it was to that mother and
daughter, who, from the reporters
gallery, looked upon the scene with that
anxious pleasure which might tell the
physiognomist that they, of all the
great and brilliant crowd, had the
deepest and most exalted interest in it.
For three hours Senator Douglas
spoke. Commencing calmly, with an
expression of doubt of his own physical
strength to carry him through the duty
before him, he warmed up by degrees,
lifting the head and heart of the multi
tude with him, until one almost felt as
if he were in Europe during the revolu-
tons, listening to some powerful tribune
of the people expounding their rights
and inspiring them to such action as
made America a republic. He went
through his public course. The period
embraced some of the most prominent
and vital acts in the history of American
politics. He showed, not as q defense,
but in q proud, manly and almost def
ant spirit, what his acts had been. He
echoed his own words, he was proud of
his deeds; deeds and words which were
recognized portions of the Democratic
party.
As he proceeded with emphatic and
measured dignity to define his position
in the present crisis-what the duty of
q Senator from a sovereign State was,
and the responsibility he owed to the
people whose voices eliminated in him
he held the multitude chained with
that peculiar eloqnence which, based on
common sense and the rights of man. |
reaches its destination without the aid
of winged rhetoric. Such eloquence
does not dazzle, it %convinces; it does
not stretch the fancy, but solidifies the
head; it does not hold the breath, but
makes one breathe freer, for it cheers
tIlS IICuIbs
The great burst of applause which
broke from the galleries and rolled over
the chamber was a nobler testimony to
the principles enunciated by the elo-
quent Senator than might be written.
He was there the defender of the peo-
pie, the representative of a State, and
not the vassal Of the Executive, nor the
valet of the administration, to do its
bidding without consulting his own
Judgment or the interests of his people.
He stood forth as the champion of State
sovereignty. This Union was not an
empire or absolute monarchy, in which
the States were but provinces, without
individual and distinct and different
rights. 1t was a confederacy of nations,
each one Of which was equally repre-
scented in The Senate.
As he exposed the fallacy of making
the Lecomptonism a test question with
the Democracy. and claimed the right