But he managed to live down his blunder and to regain much of his old strength by reason of his winning personality; yet made another blunder when he agreed to meet Abraham Lincoln in debate—­and one which cost him the presidency.  For his opponent drove him into corners from which he could find no way out except at the risk of offending the South.  In those days, one had to be either for or against slavery; there was no middle course, and the man who attempted to find one, fell between two stools, as Douglas himself soon learned.

Last scene of all, pitted against that same Abraham Lincoln who had greased the plank for him and shorn him of his southern support, in the presidential contest of 1860, defeated and wounded to death by it, for he knew that never again would he be within sight of that long-sought prize; yet rising nobly at the last to a height of purest patriotism, declaring for the Union, pledging his support to Lincoln, pointing the way of duty to his million followers, and destroying at a blow the South’s hope of a divided North—­let us do Stephen A. Douglas, that justice, and render him that meed of praise; for whatever the mistakes and turnings and evasions of his career, that last great work of his outweighed them all.

A man who had a great reputation in his own day as an orator and statesman, but whose polished periods appeal less and less to succeeding generations was Edward Everett—­an evidence, perhaps, that the head alone can never win lasting fame.  Everett was a New Englander; a Harvard man, graduating with the highest honors; and two years later, pastor of a Unitarian church in Boston.  There his eloquence soon attracted attention, and won him a wide reputation.  At the age of twenty-one, he was appointed professor of Greek at Harvard; and in 1824, at the age of thirty, he was chosen to represent the Boston district in Congress.  He remained there for ten years, served four terms as governor of Massachusetts, was ambassador to England, and then, president of Harvard from 1846-1849; was appointed secretary of state on the death of Daniel Webster in 1852; and finally, in the following year, was elected to the Senate, but was soon forced to resign on account of ill-health.

Soon afterwards, he threw himself into the project to purchase Mount Vernon by private subscription, delivered his oration on Washington 122 times, netting more than $58,000 toward the project; obtained another $10,000 from the Public Ledger by writing for it a weekly article for the period of a year, and added $3,000 more, secured from the readers of that paper.  From that time on, he delivered various lectures for philanthropic causes, the receipts aggregating nearly a hundred thousand dollars.  They are little read to-day because, in spite of his erudition, polish and high attainments, Everett really had no new message to deliver.

* * * * *