against all its assailants.' The fire of his patriotism spread to the masses of the North, and Democrat and Republican rallied to the support of the flag. In Illinois the Democratic and Republican presses vied with each other in the utterance of patriotic sentiments. Large and numer

*

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ously attended Mass meetings met, as it were with one accord, irrespective of parties, and the people of all shades of political opinions buried their party hatchets. Glowing and eloquent orators exhorted the people to ignore political differences in the present crisis, join in the common cause, and rally to the flag of the Union and the Constitution. It was a noble truce. From the many resolutions of that great outpouring of patriotic sentiment, which ignored all previous party ties, we subjoin the following:

"Resolved, that it is the duty of all patriotic citizens of Illinois, without distinction of party or sect, to sustain the Government through the peril which now threatens the existence of the Union; and of our Legislature to grant such aid of men and money as the exigency of the hour and the patriotism of our people shall demand.'

"Governor Yates promptly issued his proclamation, dated the 15th of April, convening the Legislature for the 23rd inst. in Extraordinary Session.

"On the evening of the 25th of April, Mr. Douglas, who had arrived at the Capital the day before, addressed the General Assembly and a densely packed audience, in the Hall of Representatives, in that masterly effort, which must live and be enshrined in the hearts of his countrymen so long as our Government shall endure. Douglas had ever delighted in the mental conflicts of Party strife; but now, when his Country was assailed by the red hand of Treason, he was instantly divested of his Party armor and stood forth panoplied only in the pure garb of a true Patriot.

"He taught his auditory-he taught his Country, for his speeches were telegraphed all over it-the duty of patriotism at that perilous hour of the Nation's Life. He implored both Democrats and Republicans to lay aside their Party creeds and Platforms; to dispense with Party Organizations

and Party Appeals; to forget that they were ever divided until they had first rescued the Government from its assailants. His arguments were clear, convincing, and unanswerable; his appeals for the Salvation of his Country, irresistible. It was the last speech, but one, he ever made."

Among other pithy and patriotic points made by him in that great speech * were these: "So long as there was a hope of a peaceful solution, I prayed and implored for Compromise. I have spared no effort for a peaceful solution of these troubles; I have failed, and there is but one thing to do-to rally under the flag." "The South has no cause of complaint.' "Shall we obey the laws or adopt the Mexican system of War, on every election." "Forget Party-allremember only your Country." "The shortest road to Peace is the most tremendous preparation for War." "It is with a sad heart, and with a grief I have never before experienced, that I have to contemplate this fearful Struggle. * * * But it is our duty to protect the Government and the flag from every assailant, be he who he may.

In Chicago, Douglas repeated his patriotic appeal for the preservation of the Union, and tersely declared that "There can be no Neutrals in this War-only Patriots and Traitors." In that city he was taken with a mortal illness, and expired at the Tremont House, June 3, 1861-just one month prior to the meeting of the called Session of Congress.

The wonderful influence wielded by Douglas throughout the North, was well described afterward by his colleague, Judge Trumbull, in the Senate, when he said: "His course had much to do in producing that unanimity in support of the Government which is now † seen throughout the Loyal States. The sublime spectacle of twenty million people rising as one man in vindication of Constitutional Liberty and Free Government, when assailed by misguided Rebels and plotting Traitors, is, to a considerable extent due to his efforts. His magnanimous and patriotic course in this try

*Arnold's "Lincoln," p. 201.
† July 9, 1861.

ing hour of his Country's destiny was the crowning act of his life."

And Senator McDougall of California--his life-long friend -in describing the shock of the first intelligence that reached him, of his friend's sudden death, with words of even greater power, continued: "But, as, powerless for the moment to resist the tide of emotions, I bowed my head in silent grief, it came to me that the Senator had lived to witness the opening of the present unholy War upon our Government; that, witnessing it, from the Capital of his State, as his highest and best position, he had sent forth a War-cry worthy of that Douglass, who, as ancient legends tell, with the welcome of the knightly Andalusian King, was told,

"Take thou the leading of the van,

And charge the Moors amain;
There is not such a lance as thine
In all the hosts of Spain.'

"Those trumpet notes, with a continuous swell, are sounding still throughout all the borders of our Land, I heard them upon the mountains and in the valleys of the far State whence I come. They have communicated faith and strength to millions. I ceased to grieve for Douglas. The last voice of the dead Douglas I felt to be stronger than the voice of multitudes of living men."

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And here it may not be considered out of place for a brief reference to the writer's own position at this time; especially as it has been much misapprehended and misstated. One of the fairest of these statements* runs thus:

"It is said that Logan did not approve the great speech made by Senator Douglas, at Springfield, in April, 1861, wherein he took the bold ground that in the contest which was then clearly imminent to him, between the North and the South, that there could be but two parties, Patriots and Traitors. But granting that there was a difference between Douglas and Logan at that time, it did not relate to their adhesion to the Cause of their Country Logan had fought for the Union upon the plains of Mexico, and again stood *Lusk's History of the Politics of Illinois from 1856 to 1884, p. 175.

ready to give his life, if need be, for his Country, even amid the cowardly slanders that were then following his pathway.

"The difference between Douglas and Logan was this: Mr. Douglas was fresh from an extended campaign in the dissatisfied Sections of the Southern States, and he was fully apprised of their intention to attempt the overthrow of the Union, and was therefore in favor of the most stupendous preparations for War.

“Mr. Logan, on the other hand, believed in exhausting all peaceable means before a resort to Arms, and in this he was like President Lincoln; but when he saw there was no alternative but to fight, he was ready and willing for armed resistance, and, resigning his seat in Congress, entered the Army, as Colonel of the Thirty-first Illinois Infantry, and remained in the field in active service until Peace was declared."

This statement is, in the main, both fair and correct.

It is no more correct, however, in intimating that “Logan did not approve the great speech made by Senator Douglas, at Springfield, in April, 1861, wherein he took the bold ground that in the contest which was then clearly imminent to him, between the North and the South, that there could be but two parties, Patriots and Traitors," than others have been in intimating that he was disloyal to the Union, prior to the breaking out of hostilities—a charge which was laid out flat in the Senate Chamber,* April 19,

1881.

*In Dawson's Life of Logan, pp. 348-353, this matter is thus alluded to: "In an early part of this work the base charge that Logan was not loyal before the War has been briefly touched on. It may be well here to touch on it more fully. As was then remarked, the only man that ever dared insinuate to Logan's face that he was a Secession sympathizer before the War, was Senator Ben Hill of Georgia, in the United States Senate Chamber, March 30, 1881; and Logan instantly retorted: Any man who insinuates that I sympathized with it at that time insinuates what is false,' and Senator Hill at once retracted the insinuation."

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'Subsequently, April 19, 1881, Senator Logan, in a speech, fortified with indisputable record and documentary evidence, forever set at rest the atrocious calumny. From that record it appears that on the 17th December, 1860, while still a Douglas Democrat, immediately after Lincoln's

So far from this being the case, the fact is-and it is here mentioned in part to bring out the interesting point that, had he lived, Douglas would have been no idle spectator of the great War that was about to be waged—that when election, and long before his inauguration, and before even the first gun of the war was fired, Mr. Logan, then a Representative in the House, voted affirmatively on a resolution, offered by Morris of Illinois, which declared an immovable attachment' to our National Union,' and that it is our patriotic duty to stand by it as our hope in peace and our defense in war;' that on the 7th January, 1861, Mr. Adrian having offered the following: 'Resolved, That we fully approve of the bold and patriotic act of Major Anderson in withdrawing from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, and of the determination of the President to maintain that fearless officer in his present position; and that we will support the President in all constitutional measures to enforce the laws and preserve the Union'-Mr. Logan, in casting his vote, said: 'As the resolution receives my unqualified approval, I vote Aye;' and that further on the 5th of February, 1861, before the inauguration of President Lincoln, in a speech made by Logan in the House in favor of the Crittenden Compromise measures, he used the following language touching Secession:

"Sir, I have always denied, and do yet deny, the right of Secession. There is no warrant for it in the Constitution. It is wrong, it is unlawful, unconstitutional, and should be called by the right name-revolution. No good, sir, can result from it, but much mischief may. It is no remedy for any grievances. I hold that all grievances can be much easier redressed inside the Union than out of it.'

"I have been taught that the preservation of this glorious Union, with its broad flag waving over us as the shield for our protection on land and on sea, is paramount to all the parties and platforms that ever have existed or ever can exist. I would, to day, if I had the power, sink my own party and every other one, with all their platforms, into the vortex of ruin, without heaving a sigh or shedding a tear, to save the Union, or even stop the revolution where it is.'

"In this most complete speech of vindication-which Senator Logan said he put upon record, 'First, that my children, after me, may not have these slanders thrown in their faces without the power of dispelling or refuting them; and second, that they may endure in this Senate Chamber, so that it may be a notice to Senators of all parties and all creeds that hereafter, while I am here in the Senate, no insinuation of that kind will be submitted to by me,'-the proofs of the falsity of the charge were piled mountain-high, and among them the following voluntary statements from two Democratic Senators, who were with him before the War, in the House of Representatives:

"United States Senate Chamber, WASHINGTON, April 14, 1881. "DEAR SIR: In a discussion in the Senate a few weeks since you