may take it to yourself? When you contemplate these things, do you ever remember that God is just ?" And again, in the same speech: "Mr. Chairman, when you come to annex the conquered territory to the United States, another question will have to be considered and decided: shall it be free, or shall it be slave territory? And here, and now, I propose to say something on this question. I shall, I trust, speak with candor, but I mean to speak with freedom. So long as you confined this question of slavery to the states, I admit that Congress could rightfully have nothing to do with it; but, sir, you have not kept it there. You have brought it here, and made it one of national concernment. It lies at the foundation, and enters into every part of the superstructure of this war, and I do not feel called upon to make any excuses for discussing it, so far as it is connected with the subject in hand. The people of most (I will not say all) of the free states are resolved to prevent the annexation to this Union of any more slave territory, if they can. You may call it fanaticism, or treason, or, what some gentlemen seem to regard as worse than either, federalism, it will not change their determination, nor distract them on this question. They will be united as one man, and they expect their representatives to carry out their views in good faith. When the question of annexing more slave territory comes before this House, Northern representatives must be here. It will not do to be sick, nor to have a family sick, nor to go abroad on business then. They must be here in their places, and they must vote, and they must vote right. They must disregard the 'gag.' They must disregard the organ.' They must disregard the 'party.' Woe to the Northern representative who shall prove recreant, or falter on that question. Mr. Polk has not a land-office so far in the wilderness, a sub-treasury so deep and strong, nor a mission so distant, as that it will protect him from the wrath of his constituents. It will follow him to his grave, and his children to the fourth generation.” The question was mooted by Mr. Sawyer, in a discussion in the House, whether the constituents of Mr. Root had sustained him in his opposition to the war. In 1844, the date of his first election to Congress, he received about five hundred more votes than his Democratic competitor; but as the "Liberty" candidate received about one thousand, Mr. Root did not get a majority of the votes cast in his district. In 1846, the date of his last election, there were about nine hundred and seventy more votes given for him than for the Democratic candidate, the "Liberty" candidate receiving about fifteen hundred. On this state of facts, Mr. Sawyer insisted that Mr. Root's constituents had not sustained his course on the war. This declaration led to an inquiry by Mr. Giddings (Mr. Root not being, at the moment, in his seat), whether Mr. Sawyer supposed that the "Liberty" men, who had voted for their own candidate, were in favor of the war. Mr. Sawyer replied that he presumed they were not, but that they and Mr. Root were alike opposed to it. At the present session Mr. Root has been appointed by the speaker chairman of two committees the Committee on the Post-office and Post-roads, and the Committee on Expenditures in the Treasury Department. DOUGLAS, STEPHEN ARNOLD (SENATOR). THE HE State of Illinois has recently elevated this gentleman to a seat in the Senate of the United States. If perfect fidelity to his constituents, to his state, and to the Democratic cause, sustained by an ability which all must concede, and an energy which has never drooped, may constitute a passport to the distinguished body of which he is a member, no man can exhibit a more respectable title. Our own knowledge of him is confined almost entirely to the House of Representatives, in which connection, mainly, it now becomes our duty to speak of him. He was born in the town of Brandon, Rutland county, Vermont, on the 23d of April, 1813. His father, Doctor-Stephen A. Douglas, was a native of Rensselaer county, New York, and removed with his father's family to the State of Vermont in early life. He was educated at Middlebury College, and became a physician of considerable eminence. He died on the 1st of July, 1813, suddenly, of apoplexy, leaving two children-a daughter twenty months old, and Stephen A., then little over two months old. His mother, Sally Fisk, was the daughter of an extensive farmer in Brandon. On the death of her husband, she removed with her children to a farm which she and an unmarried brother had inherited from their father. This brother was a bachelor, and was supposed to entertain a mortal aversion to the whole female race, with the solitary exception of his favorite sister, whose bereavement had induced her to rejoin him in the old family mansion. For many years the brother and sister, with the two children, whom the former had already adopted as his own, designing to make them heirs of his entire estate, lived in seclusion and contentment in the beautiful valley of the Green Mountains, practicing the most rigid economy and industry for the purpose of insuring a liberal competency to those favorite children. The value of the property was enhanced every succeeding year, and |