as proposed, as a substitute, to divide the country
into nine circuits, and to establish in each of these a court of appeals
which should sit once a year and which should consist of one supreme
court justice and the district judges of the circuit, the assignment of
each justice to be changed from year to year. His aim was twofold: to
relieve the Supreme Court by making the circuit courts the final resort
in all cases below a certain importance, and to keep the justices in
touch with the people, and familiar with the courts, the procedure, and
the local laws in all parts of the country. The scheme, though different
in details, is in its main features strikingly like the system of
circuit court of appeals which was adopted in 1891.

But the questions, apart from that of slavery, on which Douglas's course
has the most interest for a later generation were still questions of
our foreign relations. On the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, on the Treaty of
Peace with Mexico, on the Oregon Boundary Treaty of 1853, on the
negotiations for the purchase of Cuba, on the filibuster expeditions of
1858, and the controversy of that year over Great Britain's reassertion
of the right of search--on all these questions he had very positive
opinions and maintained them vigorously. In the year 1853, he went
abroad, studied the workings of European systems, and made the
acquaintance of various foreign statesmen; but he did not change his
opinions or his temper of mind. In England, rather than put on court
costume, he gave up an opportunity to be presented to the Queen; and in
Russia he appears to have made good his contention that, as persons of
other nationalities are presented to foreign rulers in the dress which
they would wear before their own sovereigns, an American should be
presented in such dress as he would wear before the President.

But if he maintained the traditional, old-fashioned American attitude
toward "abroad," he was very sure, when he dealt with a particular case,
to take a practical and modern line of reasoning. Opposing the treaty of
peace with Mexico, he objected to the boundary line, to the promise we
made never to acquire any more Mexican territory as we acquired Texas,
and to the stipulations about the Indians. His objections were
disregarded, and the treaty was ratified; but five years later the
United States paid ten million dollars to get it altered in those
respects. He vigorously opposed the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty in 1850,