ole vast land be bound together in quick communication!

So it was, Douglas was offering bills in Congress for creating the
territory of Nebraska, for establishing military posts in Oregon, and
for extending settlements across the West under military protection. He
advocated means of communication across the Rocky Mountains. He thought
of his own unprotected youth. He would have the young men from Peoria
and from every place feel confident in the knowledge that as builders of
the nation's greatness they had the friendship and the strong arm of the
government around them.

What was Great Britain doing? Reaching for California, hungering for
Texas, eyeing Cuba. She hated republican institutions. She would gird
them with her own monarchist principles, bodied forth in fortifications
and military posts. It should not be. Douglas had said: "I would blot
out the lines of the map which now mark our national boundaries on this
continent and make the area of liberty as broad as the continent itself.
I would not suffer petty rival republics to grow up here, engendering
jealousy of each other, and interfering with each other's domestic
affairs, and continually endangering their peace. I do not wish to go
beyond the great ocean--beyond those boundaries which the God of nature
has marked out. I would limit myself only by that boundary which is so
clearly defined by nature."

Meanwhile President Polk was saying: "Our title to Oregon is clear and
unquestionable." He was urging the termination of the treaty for joint
occupation with Great Britain of Oregon. War! Yes, but Douglas did not
fear it. At the beginning of the thirties of his years, he was leading
Congress in the formation of an ocean-bound republic.

These were his words: "The great point at issue between us and Great
Britain is for the freedom of the Pacific Ocean, for the trade of China
and Japan, of the East Indies, and for our maritime ascendency on all
these waters."

I watched these proceedings to the end, and until the Oregon territory
was settled by the fixing of the 49th parallel as the boundary between
Great Britain and the United States. Douglas had striven with all his
might to extend the boundary to the 54th parallel. He had failed in
this, and was bitterly disappointed. He had been accused of boyish dash
and temerity in affronting English feeling with a larger demand. It had
come to the point where I could not discuss, particularly in Dorothy's
presence, the