Excerpt from Stephen A. Douglas: Annual Address Delivered Before the Illinois State Historical Society, Springfield, Illinois, January 31, 1908 When the Lecompton constitution came before the Senate, it at once encountered the formidable opposition of Mr. Douglas. In unmeasured terms he denounced it as fraudulent, as antagonistic to the wishes of the people of Kansas, and subversive of the basic principle upon which the territory had been organized. In the attitude just assumed, Mr. Douglas at once found himself in line with the Republicans, and inop position to the administration he had helped toi place in power. The breach thus created was destined to remain unhealed. Moreover, his declaration of hostility to the Lecompton constitution was the beginning of the end of years of close political affiliation with southern democratic statesmen. From that moment, Mr. Douglas lost prestige as a national leader of his party. In more than one-half of the democratic states he ceased to be regarded as a probable or even possible candidate for the presidential succession. The hostility thus engendered followed him to the Charleston convention of 1860, and throughout the exciting presi dential contest which followed. But the humiliation of defeat, brought about as he believed by personal hostility to himself, was yet in the future. In the attempted admission of Kansas under the Lecompton constitution, Mr. Douglas was triumphant over the administration and his former political associates from the south. Under what was known as the English Amendment, the obnoxious constitution was referred to the people of Kansas, and by them overwhelmingly rejected. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.