A fascinating address by Stephen A. Douglas, Abraham Lincoln's political nemesis, defending the Compromise of 1850. Together with Henry Clay and President Millard Fillmore, he drafted the compromise that temporarily quelled hostilities between slaveholding and non-slaveholding states. The Compromise had embedded in it The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which became a key point of contention between its implementation and the beginning of the Civil War.

Here, Douglass defends the speech in his home State of Illinois, explaining why the Fugitive Slave Act was in the best interest of the Country. 

Douglass, Stephen A. Speech of Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, on the "Measures of Adjustment," Delivered in the City Hall, Chicago, October 23, 1850. Washington. Gideon & Co., Printers. 1851. 32pp.

A good copy, bound in wraps, nearly disbound, with some toning.