Douglas, himself a migratory child of fortune, was in thorough sympathy with this somewhat premature Western longing of the people; and as chairman of the Committee on Territories was the recipient of all the letters, petitions, and personal solicitations from the various interests which were seeking their advantage in this exodus toward the setting sun. He was the natural center for all the embryo mail contractors, office-holders, Indian traders, land-sharks, and railroad visionaries whose coveted opportunities lay in the Western territories. It is but just to his fame, however, to say that he comprehended equally well the true philosophical and political necessities which now demanded the opening of Kansas and Nebraska as a secure highway and protecting bridge to the Rocky Mountains and our new-found El Dorado, no less than as a bond of union between the older States and the improvised "Young America" on the Pacific coast. The subject was not yet ripe for action during the stormy politics of 1850-1, and had again to be postponed for the presidential campaign of 1852. But after Pierce was triumphantly elected, with a Democratic Congress to sustain him, the legislative calm which both parties had adjured in their platforms seemed favorable for pushing measures of local interest. The control of legislation for the territories was for the moment completely in the hands of Douglas. He was himself chairman of the Committee of the Senate; and his special personal friend and political lieutenant in his own State, William A. Richardson, of Illinois, was chairman of the Territorial Committee of the House, He could therefore choose his own time and mode of introducing measures of this character in either house of Congress, under the majority control of his party--a fact to be constantly borne in mind when we consider the origin and progress of "the three Nebraska bills." [Sidenote: "Globe," Feb. 2, 1853, p. 474.] [Sidenote: Ibid., Feb. 8, p. 542-544.] [Sidenote: Ibid., Feb. 10, p. 566.] [Sidenote: Ibid., Feb. 10, p. 559.]