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owed with the weight of years, the Kentucky statesman, from the retirement he had sought, in recognition of the general desire of his countrymen, again returned to the theatre of his early struggles and triumphs. The fires of ambition had burned low by age and bereavement, but with earnest longing that he might again pour oil upon the troubled waters, he presented to the Senate, as terms of final peaceable adjustment of the slavery question, the once famous compromise measures of 1850. The sectional agitation then at its height was measurably the result of the proposed disposition of territory acquired by the then recent treaty with Mexico. The advocates and opponents of slavery extension were at once in bitter antagonism, and the intensity of feeling such as the country had rarely known. The compromise measures--proposed by Mr. Clay in a general bill --embraced the establishment of Territorial Governments for Utah and New Mexico, the settlement of the Texas boundary, an amendment to the Fugitive Slave Law, and the admission of California as a free State. In entire accord with each proposition, Douglas had--by direction of the Committee on Territories, of which he was the chairman--reported a bill providing for the immediate admission of California under its recently adopted free State Constitution. Separate measures embracing the other propositions of the general bill were likewise duly reported. These measures were advocated by the Illinois Senator in a speech that at once won him recognized place among the great debaters of that illustrious assemblage. After many weeks of earnest, at times vehement, debate, the bills in the form last mentioned were passed, and received the approval of the President. Apart from the significance of these measures as a peace offering to the country, their passage closed a memorable era in our history. During their discussion Clay, Calhoun, and Webster --"the illustrious triumvirate"--were heard for the last time in the Senate. Greatest of the second generation of our statesmen, associated in the advocacy of measures that in the early day of the Republic had given us exalted place among the nations, within brief time of each other, "shattered by the contentions of the Great Hall, they passed to the chamber of reconciliation and of silence." Chief in importance of his public services to his State was that of Senator Douglas in procuring from Congress a land grant to aid in
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