all its domestic institutions. Slavery is not the only question which comes up in this controversy. There is a far more important one to you; and that is, What shall be done with the free negro? We have settled the slavery question as far as we are concerned: we have prohibited it in Illinois forever, and, in doing so, I think we have done wisely, and there is no man in the State who would be more strenuous in his opposition to the introduction of slavery than I would; but, when we settled it for ourselves, we exhausted all our power over that subject.

We

We have done our whole duty, and can do no more. must leave each and every other State to decide for itself the same question. In relation to the policy to be pursued toward the free negroes, we have said that they shall not vote; whilst Maine, on the other hand, has said that they shall vote. Maine is a sovereign State, and has the power to regulate the qualifications of voters within her limits. I would never consent to confer the right of voting and of citizenship upon a the free negro? We have settled the slavery question as far ing from me in opinion. Let Maine take care of her own negroes, and fix the qualifications of her own voters to suit herself, without interfering with Illinois; and Illinois will not interfere with Maine. So with the State of New York. She allows the negro to vote provided he owns two hundred and fifty dollars' worth of property, but not otherwise. While I would not make any distinction whatever between a negro who held property and one who did not, yet, if the sovereign State of New York chooses to make that distinction it is her business and not mine, and I will not quarrel with her for it. She can do as she pleases on this question if she minds her own business and we will do the same thing. Now, my friends, if we will only act conscientiously and rigidly upon this great

principle of popular sovereignty, which guarantees to each State and Territory the right to do as it pleases on all things local and domestic, instead of Congress interfering, we will continue at peace one with another. Why should Illinois be at war with Missouri, or Kentucky with Ohio, or Virginia with New York, merely because their institutions differ? Our fathers intended that our institutions should differ. They knew that the North and the South, having different climates, productions, and interests, required different institutions. This doctrine of Mr. Lincoln, of uniformity among the institutions of the different States, is a new doctrine, never dreamed of by Washington, Madison, or the framers of this government.

Mr. Lincoln and the Republican party set themselves up as wiser than these men who made this government, which has flourished for seventy years under the principle of popular sovereignty, recognizing the right of each State to do as it pleased. Under that principle, we have grown from a nation of three or four millions to a nation of about thirty millions of people. We have crossed the Alleghany Mountains and filled up the whole northwest, turning the prairie into a garden, and building up churches and schools, thus spreading civilization and Christianity where before there was nothing but savage barbarism.

Under that principle we have become, from a feeble nation, the most powerful on the face of the earth; and, if we only adhere to that principle, we can go forward increasing in territory, in power, in strength, and in glory until the Republic of America shall be the north star that shall guide the friends of freedom throughout the civilized world.

And why can we not adhere to the great principle of selfgovernment upon which our institutions were originally

based? I believe that this new doctrine preached by Mr. Lincoln and his party will dissolve the Union if it succeeds. They are trying to array all the northern States in one body against the South, to excite a sectional war between the free States and the slave States, in order that the one or the other may be driven to the wall.

THURMAN

A

LLEN GRANBERY THURMAN, an American jurist, the son of a Methodist clergyman, was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, November 13, 1813. At the age of six he removed with his parents to Chillicothe, Ohio, where he lived until 1853, after which he made his home in Columbus, Ohio. His early education was obtained at the Chillicothe Academy, and after some little experience in surveying he took up the study of the law and was admitted to the bar in 1835. His abilities soon secured him a large practice, and in 1845 he entered Congress as a Democrat and its youngest member. Declining a renomination after the expiration of his term, he continued his practice until 1851, when he was elected to the Ohio supreme bench and for the last year of his term was chief justice of the State. In 1867 he was an unsuccessful candidate for governor of Ohio, and in 1869 was elected to the United States Senate, of which he remained a member until 1881. During this period he was for a number of years chairman of the committee on the judiciary. He originated "the Thurman Act," which compelled Pacific railroad corporations to keep their obligations to the government, and endeavored to secure favorable reconstruction legislation for the States which had seceded. He was several times brought forward as a presidential candidate, and in 1888 ran for vice-president on the unsuccessful Cleveland ticket. He died at Columbus, Ohio, December 12, 1895. Thurman was a fair-minded, logical debater, who always retained the high regard of his political opponents.

ADDRESS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

DELIVERED AT CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA, JUNE 26, 1872

HE theme upon which I propose to offer some observations to-night is the future of our country, or,

rather, the dangers likely to menace the existence of the republic and the means of averting them.

In the outset I assume, what I believe to be true, that, whatever differences of opinion have existed or may yet exist as to the advantages or disadvantages of preserving the Union, every American citizen now wishes it to be preserved if at the same time liberty can be secured and the rights and interests of every section promoted.

The proposition that freedom has no safe dwelling-place save in small communities is an old idea, and, whether true or false, I have no quarrel with him who sincerely believes it. Nay, more, were the sad alternative forced upon us to choose between a splendid despotism ruling over a vast territory and an oppressed people on the one hand, and, on the other, freedom in a small state and an humble community, no true man should hesitate to choose the latter.

For freedom is of such transcendent value that it far outweighs all the distinction, pomp, and power that the most successful despotism can ever achieve. But the experiment has to be made whether a vast republic may not co-exist with freedom and with advantage to all its parts; and every one of us, I am sure, whatever may be his forebodings, is anxious to give the experiment a fair trial.

Therefore it is that I speak upon this theme to-night. I know of none more appropriate for an address to an assemblage of American youth. The mature men of to-day will ere long be gone. Whatever, of good or of evil, government may confer or inflict, will soon cease to trouble them. Their mantles will fall upon your shoulders and the shoulders of those who, like you, are just entering upon manhood, and upon you and your fellows will rest the grave responsibility of contributing to the happiness or the misery, not of one only, but perhaps of many generations. Wisely to prepare for that responsibility is a task than which none can be nobler, none more elevating, none that better deserves to engage the understanding or warm the heart.

The first danger to the duration of the republic of which I shall speak is that likely to result from its magnitude. It is a trite observation that nations, like men, have their infancy, youth, manhood, old age, decay, and dissolution.