The Washington herald., 1911-02-12

In response to the toast Lincoln and
the Constitution" Hon. Hannis Taylor
former Minister to Spain. said, in part:
"Mr. Toastmaster and Gentlemen: On
September II, 1877, the secret conclave
that sat at Philadelphia under the mora
dictatorship of Washington proclaimed 8
great discovery in modern politica
science. which has revOlutionized feder'
alism as a system of government, not
/ only here. but throughout the world.
With that priceless blessing, marvelou:
as it was, some vengeful goddess miXec
! two curses that begot the most dreadful
civil war in all history.
The first of those curses was jealou:
and selfish provincial spirit. The second
| its handmade, was African slavery. thai
deadly original sin of this republic, fol
whose beginnings the North and the Soutf
are equally responsible.
When the Kansas Nebraska question
passed from C,GS-esS :" Illinois, in the
fall of 1854, Stephen A. Douglas was called
upon to defend his claim that the slavery
question was forever settled by his in
vention of popular sovereignty which
he said took it out of Congress and gave
it to the people of the Territories to de-
eide as they pleased. The essence of this
contention was that each state was alb
solutely sovereign over the question OF
slavery within its own borders: that the
responsibility for it and its abuses ended
there with its own citizens.
The little giant who undertook thus
to defend that thesis was one Of the
greatest tribunitian orators who ever
stirred the passions Of men. In the
entire field Of American politics no man
cUualed Douglas in the strategy and eN-
prdientS Of a palestine encounter of tht
oratoricaI kind. If he were lacking in
originality and constructive logic. ne
raore than made up for it by his faculty
Of appropriating by ingenious restat"ment
the thoughts and formulas Of other men
II has been said that he was tirelesS
ub,uuitous. unstable. 1t would have
been as easy to hold a globule of mer-
curry under the fingers tip as to fasten
him to a point he desired to "vad".
When the time came for the anti-Ne'
braska party in Illinois to find cham
pion who could meet the little giant in
debate their choice fell upon one Of tn"
strongest and most picturesque human
beinrs who ever lived. Washington. tho
founder Of this Union, was the product OF
an older civilization: he was great Eng
lish gentleman born on the right side OF
the Atlantic full OF the spirit and ira
ditions Of the mighty race from which
he came Abraham Lincoln. the savior
OF tn, Union. was an indigenous product
Of the new land: he was born an Ameri-
can citizen. with deep. rich flavor OF
the soil that gave him birth. And yet IN
a spiritual sense his race traits were as
marked as those OF Washington himself.
From his Anglo-SaXOn ancestors who
came from the shores of the northern
ocean. lie derived that dark, interpretive
mystic spirir which speaks to us as dis
tinctlv through Lincoln as through the
tragic gloom Of Hamlet or through the
wailing accents Of the ravens Never
more The whole life Of the man wa
pierced through and through by an in
elfabIe melancholy. his very jests were
like
s9anov-fights # song that DIP
Their wings in tear.
In answering Douglas contention thai
under his doctrine lof popular sovereign
ty' responsibility for slavery as an inst,