of the Illinois Central railroad.  He knew what railroads meant to the country.  He was of the West and he understood it.  He was quick to offer a bill in the Senate for a grant of land for the construction of this railroad from Chicago to New Orleans, and it was passed.  In the debate over the bill Douglas of Illinois faced Webster of Massachusetts.  It was a dramatic antithesis.  Douglas, young and devoted to the prairies, Webster, old and fixed in his admirations for the East.  The old question of disunion arose.  If we would have liberty and union forever, railroads would insure them.  Douglas had said that if the North should ever be arrayed against the South, the pioneers of the northwest and the southwest would balance the contest.  Webster had spoken slightingly of the West which Douglas so greatly loved.  And these were Douglas’ inspiring and prophetic words in reply: 

“There is a power in this nation greater either than the North or the South—­a growing, increasing, swelling power that will be able to speak the law to this nation and to execute the law as spoken.  That power is the country known as the Great West—­the valley of the Mississippi, one and indivisible from the Gulf to the Great Lakes, and stretching on the one side and the other to the extreme sources of the Ohio and the Mississippi—­from the Alleghenies to the Rocky Mountains.  There, sir, is the hope of this nation, the resting place of the power that is not only to control but to save the Union.  We furnish the water that makes the Mississippi; and we intend to follow, navigate, and use it until it loses itself in the briny ocean.  So with the St. Lawrence.  We intend to keep open and enjoy both of these great outlets to the ocean, and all between them we intend to take under our special protection, and preserve and keep as one happy, free, and united people.  This is the mission of the great Mississippi valley, the heart and soul of the nation and the continent.”

Did these words have any definite meaning to Webster?  He knew nothing of the West.  He sat with his leonine eyes fixed upon young America in the person of Douglas.  No, as for that, Douglas did not know how truly he was speaking.  He could not see in what manner time would fulfill his words.  No, not even though there was thrilling conviction in his great voice, which filled the Senate chamber.

On the subject of the territories Douglas had offered several bills of his own.  I can’t remember their order, their substance, beyond the fact that they looked to the territorial control of slavery.  But I remember a very cutting reply that he made to one Senator who interrupted him to ask by what authority a territory could legislate upon slavery.  “Your bill conceded that a representative government is necessary—­a government founded upon the principles of popular sovereignty, and the right of the people to enact their own laws; and for this reason you give them a legislature constituted