caricature, this picture of the young man from Illinois certainly hits
off the style which he affected, in common with most Western orators.

Notwithstanding his very substantial services to his party, Douglas
had sooner or later to face his constituents with an answer to the
crucial question, "What have you done for us?" It is a hard, brutal
question, which has blighted many a promising career in American
politics. The interest which Douglas exhibited in the Western Harbors
bill was due, in part at least, to his desire to propitiate those by
virtue of whose suffrages he was a member of the House of
Representatives. At the same time, he was no doubt sincerely devoted
to the measure, because he believed profoundly in its national
character. Local and national interests were so inseparable in his
mind, that he could urge the improvement of the Illinois River as a
truly national undertaking. "Through this channel, and this alone," 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