Alas, that princes cannot abide with us forever!  His Royal Highness bade farewell to St. Louis, and presently that same ‘City of Alton’ which bore him northward came back again in like royal state, and this time it was in honor of a Democrat potentate.  He is an old friend now, Senator and Judge and Presidential Candidate,—­Stephen Arnold Douglas,—­father of the doctrine of Local Sovereignty, which he has come to preach.  So goes the world.  We are no sooner rid of one hero than we are ready for another.

Blow, you bandsmen on the hurricane deck, let the shores echo with your national airs!  Let the gay bunting wave in the river breeze!  Uniforms flash upon the guards, for no campaign is complete without the military.  Here are brave companies of the Douglas Guards, the Hickory Sprouts, and the Little Giants to do honor to the person of their hero.  Cannon are booming as he steps into his open carriage that evening on the levee, where the piles of river freight are covered with people.  Transparencies are dodging in the darkness.  A fresh band strikes up “Hail Columbia,” and the four horses prance away, followed closely by the “Independent Broom Rangers.”  “The shouts for Douglas,” remarked a keen observer who was present, “must have penetrated Abraham’s bosom at Springfield.”

Mr. Jacob Cluyme, who had been a Bell and Everett man until that day, was not the only person of prominence converted.  After the speech he assured the Judge that he was now undergoing the greatest pleasure of his life in meeting the popular orator, the true representative man of the Great West, the matured statesman, and the able advocate of national principles.  And although Mr. Douglas looked as if he had heard something of the kind before, he pressed Mr. Cluyme’s hand warmly.

So was the author of Popular Sovereignty, “the great Bulwark of American Independence,” escorted to the Court House steps, past houses of his stanch supporters; which were illuminated in his honor.  Stephen, wedged. among the people, remarked that the Judge had lost none of his self-confidence since that day at Freeport.  Who, seeing the Democratic candidate smiling and bowing to the audience that blocked the wide square, would guess that the Question troubled him at all, or that he missed the votes of the solid South?  How gravely the Judge listened to the eulogy of the prominent citizen, who reminded him that his work was not yet finished, and that he still was harnessed to the cause of the people!  And how happy was the choice of that word harnessed!

The Judge had heard (so he said) with deep emotion the remarks of the chairman.  Then followed one of those masterful speeches which wove a spell about those who listened,—­which, like the most popular of novels, moved to laughter and to tears, to anger and to pity.  Mr. Brice and Mr Richter were not the only Black Republicans who were depressed that night.  And they trudged homeward with the wild enthusiasm still ringing in their ears, heavy with the thought that the long, hot campaign of their own Wide-Awakes might be in vain.