a graphic description of conditions existing in New Orleans at
the time of Jackson's declaration of martial law, "the city filled
with traitors, anxious to surrender; spies transmitting information
to the camp of the enemy, British regulars--four-fold the number
of the American defenders--advancing to the attack--in this terrible
emergency, necessity became the paramount law, the responsibility was
taken, martial law declared, and a victory achieved unparalleled
in the annals of war; a victory that avenged the infamy of the
wanton burning of our nation's Capitol, fully, and for all time."

The speech was unanswered, the bill passed, and probably Douglas
knew no prouder moment than when, a few months later, upon a visit
to the Hermitage, he received the earnest thanks of the venerable
commander for his masterly vindication.

Two of the salient and far-reaching questions confronting the
statesmen of that eventful Congress pertained to the settlement of
the Oregon boundary question, and to the annexation of the republic
of Texas. The first-named question--left unsettled by the treaty of
Ghent--had been for two generations the apple of discord between
the American and British governments. That it at a critical moment
came near involving the two nations in a war is a well-known fact
in history. The platform upon which Mr. Polk had, in 1844, been
elected to the Presidency, asserted unequivocally the right of the
United States to the whole of the Oregon Territory. The boundary line
of "fifty-four-forty" was in many of the States the decisive party
watchword in that masterful contest.

Douglas, in full accord with his party upon this question, ably
canvassed Illinois in earnest advocacy of Mr. Polk's election.
When, at a later day, it was determined by the President and his
official advisers to abandon the party platform demand of "fifty-four
degrees and forty minutes" as the only settlement of the
disputed boundary, and accept that of the parallel of forty-nine
degrees--reluctantly proposed by Great Britain as a peaceable final
settlement--Mr. Douglas earnestly antagonizing any concession, was
at once in opposition to the administration he had assisted to
bring into power. Whether the part of wisdom was a strict adherence
to the platform dicta of "the whole of Oregon," or a reasonable
concession in the interest of peaceable adjustment of a dangerous
question, was long a matter of vehement discussion. It suffices that