Charles Duran - Or, The Career of a Bad Boy - By the author of "The Waldos",",31/15507.txt,841
15508,"Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics by Unknown
page 205 of 549 (37%)
page 205 of 549 (37%)
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do. He must be 'a tried civilian, not a second and third rate general.'
"Withal, a practical statesman, not to be discomfited in argument, or led wild by theory, but one who has already, in the councils and tribunals of the nation, reared his front to the dismay of the shallow conservative, to the exposure of the humanitarian incendiary, and the discomfiture of the antiquated rhetorician." If anyone was so dense as not to recognize the portrait here painted, he had only to turn to an article entitled "Intervention," to find the name of the hero who was to usher in the new era. The author of this paper finds his sentiments so nearly identical with those of Stephen A. Douglas, that he resorts to copious extracts from his speech delivered in the Senate on the welcome of Kossuth, "entertaining no doubt that the American people, the _democracy_ of the country will endorse these doctrines by an overwhelming majority." Still another article in this formidable broadside from the editors of the _Democratic Review_, deprecated Foote's efforts to thrust the slavery issue again upon Congress, and expressed the pious wish that Southern delegates might join with Northern in the Baltimore convention, to nominate a candidate who would in future "evince the most profound ignorance as to the topographical bearing of that line of discord known as 'Mason and Dixon's.'" If all this was really the work of Douglas's friends,--and it is more than likely,--he had reason to pray to be delivered from them. At best the whole manoeuvre was clumsily planned and wretchedly executed; it probably did him irreparable harm. His strength was not sufficient to confront all his rivals; yet the almost inevitable consequence of the odious comparisons in the _Review_ was combinations against him. The leading article gave mortal offense in quarters where he stood most in |
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