The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1910-03-10
Stephen A. Douelas--Fiis Life, Public Services,
Speeches and Patriotism.

from the New Orleans Times-Democrat.l
By Clark E. Carr, LID. Chicago: A. c. McClurg
e. Co., Publishers. 81 net.
Although himself Republican in poll
tics, and identified with the party that was
directly in antagonism to Senator Douglas
and his later politics, Mr. Carr has become
convinced that the great Democratic leader
has not received his full mead of apprecia-
ton from the American people. The ex-
allied character and achievements of Abra-
ham Lincoln have so overshadowed the
public services of his one-time opponent
and rival that the nation is in danger of
forgetting what these were-forgetting who
it was that fought valiant, though losing
fight, for the "Fifty four forty" line in
the dispute with Great Britain about the
Oregon boundary; who foresaw with such
clear, prophetic vision the complications
that must arise from the clause in the
Bulwer- Clayton treaty, pledging both Eng
land and our own country never "to buy,
annex, or colonize, or acquire, or erect
Notifications upon any portion of Central
America a pledge which he predicted
would embarrass the government should it
ever undertake the work of building an
Isthmian canal, and which in fact had to
be annulled at the cost of much controversy
and persevering negotiation before the
great task-then apparently so unlikely
could be entered upon. Douglas it was,
Mr.. Carr reminds us, who carried through
Congress the measure that made possible
the building of the Illinois Central Railway,
and eloquently advocated the building of
the Pacific Railway as early as 1858, urg-
ing it as "the greatest practical measure
now pending before the country de-
manded alike by the "interests of COM
merce, the great interests of travel and
communication, those still greater interests
which bind the nation together and are to
make and preserve the continent as one
and indivisible." Douglas was the first
statesman who showed that in the river
and harbor appropriations inland naviga-
ton had not received just and proper rec
ignition. 'He frequently expressed him
self in the Senate upon this NATTER" said
Mr.. Carr, "but never so ably as in letter
to his friend, Gov. Madison of Illinois, in
in the course of which he said
81 repeat that the policy has proved
worse than failure. If we expect to pro-
vide facilities and securities for our navi-
cation interests, we must adopt system
commensurate with our wants-one that
will be just and equal in its operations upon
lake, river and ocean, wherever the water
is navigable, fresh or salt, tide or no tide;
system which will not depend for it's sue
cess upon the dubious and fluctuating
issues of political campaigns and congress
sional combinations-one which will be
certain, uniform and unvarying in its re-
sults.''
This is a very good document for the
inland waterways cause, and might we'll
be incorporated just as it stands into the
brief of its present day advocates. 1t is
well that words like these, coming like
voices from supernal heights, should be
recalled from time to time for the encour-
agement of those who are still fighting in
the ranks for broad national policy, in
dependent of the "auctuating issues of
political campaigns and Congressional
combinations" But the most heroic act
of his life, thinks Mr.. Carr was the de-
termined stand he took against the Lee
compton Constitution, as it was called
which it was proposed to force upon the
people of Kansas as their fundamental law
contrary to their expressed will. Strictly
party measure and backed up by all the
power and authority of President Buchanan,
who sent it to Congress with special mes
sage recommending its passage, Douglas,
the idol of his party in every State Of the
Union, resolutely opposed it, rising from a
sick bed to make zone of the greatest
speeches of his life" against it on the day
the final vote was to be cast. 1t was not,
on the part of Senator Douglas, fight
against slavery, but one for the mainte-
nance OF the principles of popular sover-
eighty, of which he was the constant and
consistent advocate. The fatal mistake of
Mr.. Douglas life, according to our author,
was the repeal of the Missouri Compromise,
which was accomplished through his efforts,
not for the purpose of introducing slavery
into the Territories, but, as he hoped, to
remove the agitation of the question from
Congress by leaving it to be decided by the