are as completely obsolete as the political issues of the
ante-diluvians. Douglas was elected by a small majority.

He was in Washington at the opening of Congress and entered upon
his eventful and brilliant career on that elevated theatre, though
he was as yet only the crude material out of which a statesman
might be evolved. He was a vigorous, pushing Western politician,
with half developed faculties and vague, unlimited ambition, whose
early congressional service gave small promise of the great leader
of after years.

The famous description of him contained in the Adams diary relates
to this period of his life. The venerable ex-President, then
a Member of the House, mentions him as the homunculus Douglas and
with acrid malevolence describes him as raving out his hour in
abusive invectives, his face convulsed, his gesticulation frantic,
and lashing himself into such heat that if his body had been made
of combustible matter it would have burned out.

"In the midst of his roaring," he declares, "to save himself from
choking, he stripped off and cast away his cravat, unbuttoned his
waistcoat and had the air and aspect of a half-naked pugilist."
With all its extravagance and exaggeration, it is impossible to
doubt the substantial truth of this charicature. Adams did not
live to see the young Member become the most powerful debater, the
most accomplished political leader and most influential statesman
of the great and stirring period that ensued.

The time was strange, as difficult of comprehension to the generation
that has grown up since the War as the England of Hengist and Horsa