date of April 17, 1844, says: "The Western harbor bill was taken up, and the previous question was withdrawn for the homunculus Douglas to poke out a speech in favor of the constitutionality of appropriations for the improvement of Western rivers and harbors. The debate was continued between the conflicting absurdities of the Southern Democracy, which is slavery, and the Western Democracy, which is knavery." Under the leadership of Jackson and other Southerners, the Democrats, notwithstanding their long ascendency, had adhered to their position on internal improvements more consistently, perhaps, than to any other of the contentions which they had made before they came into power. Douglas did not, indeed, commit himself to that interpretation of the Constitution which justified appropriations for any enterprise which could be considered a contribution to the "general welfare," and he protested against various items in river and harbor bills. But as a rule he voted for the bills.

He was particularly interested in the scheme for building a railroad which should run north and south the entire length of Illinois, and favored a grant of public lands to aid the State in the enterprise. For years, however, he had to contend with a corporation which had got from the State a charter for such a railroad and was now trying to get help from Congress. In 1843, and for several sessions thereafter, bills were introduced to give aid directly to the Great Western Railway Company, and it was mainly the work of Douglas that finally secured a majority in Congress for the plan of granting lands to the State, and not to the company. That was in 1851. To his chagrin, however, the promoters of the company then persuaded the Illinois legislature to pass a bill transferring to them whatever lands Congress might grant to the State for the railroad. He at once sent for Holbrook, the leading man in the company, and informed him that no bill would be permitted to pass until he and his associates should first execute a release of all the rights they had obtained from the legislature. Such a release they were at last forced to sign, the bill passed, and the Illinois Central was built. It became an important agency in the development, not of Illinois merely, but of the whole Mississippi Valley; and it is the most notable material result of Douglas's skill in legislation. But throughout the whole course of his service at Washington he never neglected, in his concern about the great national questions with which his name is forever associated, the material interests of the people whom he especially represented. His district and his State never had cause to complain of his devotion to his party and his country.

But the questions which had the foremost place while he was a member of the lower house were questions of our foreign relations, and as it happened they were questions to which he could give himself freely without risking his distinctive rôle as the champion of the newer West. The Oregon boundary dispute and the proposed annexation of Texas were uppermost in the campaign of 1844, and on both it was competent for him to argue that an aggressive policy was demanded by Western interests and Western sentiment. It was in discussing the Oregon boundary that he first took the attitude of bitter opposition to all European, and particularly to all English interference in the affairs of the American continents which he steadily maintained thereafter. The long-standing agreement with Great Britain for joint occupation of the Oregon country he characterized as in practice an agreement for non-occupation. Arguing in favor of giving notice of the termination of the convention, he shrewdly pointed out that as the British settlers were for the most part fur-traders and the American settlements were agricultural, we would "squat them out" if no hindrance were put upon the westward movement of our pioneers. He would at once organize a territorial government for Oregon, and take measures to protect it; if Great Britain threatened war, he would put the country in a state of defense. "If war comes," he cried, "let it come. We may regret the necessity which produced it, but when it does come, I would administer to our citizens Hannibal's oath of eternal enmity. I would blot out the lines on the map which now mark our territorial boundaries on this continent, and make the area of liberty as broad as the continent itself." He even broke with the Polk administration when it retreated from the advanced position which the party had taken during the campaign, and was one of a hardy ten who, in the debate over the resolutions that led to the final settlement, voted for a substitute declaration that the question was "no longer a subject of negotiation and compromise." There can be little doubt that his hostility to England, as well as his robust Americanism, commended him at that time to the mass of his countrymen everywhere but in the commercial East.

On the annexation of Texas, popular sentiment, even in his own party, was far from unanimous, but the party was, nevertheless, thoroughly committed to it. After the election, when it appeared that Tyler was quite as favorable to the measure as his incoming Democratic successor, Douglas was one of those who came forward with a new plan for annexing territory by joint resolution of Congress, and in January, 1845, he stated as well as it ever has been stated the argument that Texas became ours by the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, and was without the consent of her people retroceded to Spain by the treaty of 1819. When President Polk sent in his announcement that war existed by the act of Mexico, Douglas was ready with a defense of that doubtful casus belli and an ardent support of the army bill which followed. His speech on the army bill was an admirable exhibition of his powers, and it was the best speech on that side in the debate. Adams, who interrupted him, was instantly put upon the defensive by a citation from the argument which he himself, as Secretary of State, had made in 1819 for the American claim to the line of the Rio del Norte. When he asked if the treaty of peace and boundaries concluded by Mexico and Texas in 1836 had not since been discarded by the Mexican government, Douglas retorted that he was unaware of any treaty ever made by a Mexican government which was not either violated or repudiated. Adams came finally to acknowledge the unusual powers of the Western "homunculus" as a debater.

But the reputation and the influence won in the House of Representatives were to be extended in a more favorable arena. In 1846, Douglas being now thirty-three years of age, the Illinois legislature elected him United States senator for the six years beginning March 4, 1847. In April, 1847, he was married to Martha, daughter of Colonel Robert Martin, of Rockingham, N.C., a wealthy planter and a large slaveholder. Active as he continued to be in politics, he found time for business as well as love-making. He invested boldly in the lands over which Chicago was now spreading in its rapid growth and made the young city his home. His investments were fortunate, and within a few years he was a wealthy man according to the standard of those times. He used his wealth freely in hospitality, in charity, and in the furtherance of his political enterprises. In the year 1856, the corner-stone of the University of Chicago was laid on land which he had given.

The assembly of which Douglas was now a member had gradually risen to a higher place in our system than the founders intended. The House, partly by reason of its exclusive right to originate measures of a certain class, partly