he declared all aglow with enthusiasm, “we have a connected and uninterrupted navigation for steamboats and large vessels from the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, to all the northern lakes.”  Considerations of war and defense, as well as of peace and commerce, counselled the proposed expenditure.  “We have no fleet upon the lakes; we have no navy-yard there at which we could construct one, and no channel through which we could introduce our vessels from the sea-board.  In times of war, those lakes must be defended, if defended at all, by a fleet from the naval depot and a yard on the Mississippi River.”  After the State of Illinois had expended millions on the Illinois and Michigan canal, was Congress to begrudge a few thousands to remove the sand-bars which impeded navigation in this “national highway by an irrevocable ordinance"?[175]

This special plea for the Illinois River was prefaced by a lengthy exposition of Democratic doctrine respecting internal improvements, for it was incumbent upon every good Democrat to explain a measure which seemed to countenance a broad construction of the powers of the Federal government.  Douglas was at particular pains to show that the bill did not depart from the principles laid down in President Jackson’s famous Maysville Road veto-message.[176] To him Jackson incarnated the party faith; and his public documents were a veritable, political testament.  In the art of reading consistency into his own, or the conduct of another, Douglas had no equal.  To the end of his days he possessed in an extraordinary degree the subtle power of redistributing emphasis so as to produce a desired effect.  It was the most effective and the most insidious of his many natural gifts, for it often won immediate ends at the permanent sacrifice of his reputation for candor and veracity.  The immediate result of this essay in interpretation of Jacksonian principles, was to bring down upon Douglas’s devoted head the withering charge, peculiarly blighting to a budding statesman, that he was conjuring with names to the exclusion of arguments.  With biting sarcasm, Representative Holmes drew attention to the gentleman’s disposition, after the fashion of little men, to advance to the fray under the seven-fold shield of the Telamon Ajax—­a classical allusion which was altogether lost on the young man from Illinois.

The appropriation for the Illinois River was stricken from the Western Harbors bill much to Douglas’s regret.[177] Still, he had evinced a genuine concern for the interests of his constituents and his reward was even now at hand.  Early in the year the Peoria Press had recommended a Democratic convention to nominate a candidate for Congress.[178] The State Register, and other journals friendly to Douglas, took up the cry, giving the movement thus all the marks of spontaneity.  The Democratic organization was found to be intact; the convention was held early in May at Pittsfield; and the Honorable Stephen A. Douglas was unanimously re-nominated for Representative to Congress from the Fifth Congressional District.[179]