When all was over, he could not rest, for he was still the first man in Congress, but hurried back to Washington and joined in the anxious conferences of such as were striving for a peaceable settlement. When South Carolina seceded, he announced plainly enough that he did not believe in the right of secession or consider that there was any grievance sufficient to justify the act. But he was for concessions if they would save the country from civil war. Crittenden, of Kentucky, coming forward after the manner of Clay with a series of amendments to the Constitution, and another Committee of Thirteen being named, Douglas was ready to play the same part he had played in 1850. But the plan could not pass the Senate, and one after another the cotton States followed South Carolina. Then he labored with the men of the border States, and broke his last lance with Breckinridge, who, when he ceased to be Vice-President, came down for a little while upon the floor as a senator to defend the men whom he was about to join in arms against their country. Douglas engaged him with all the old fire and force, and worsted him in the debate. His bearing toward Lincoln was generous and manly. When Lincoln, rising to pronounce his first inaugural address, looked awkwardly about him for a place to bestow his hat that he might adjust his glasses to read those noble paragraphs, Douglas came forward and took it from his hand. The graceful courtesy won him praise; and that was his attitude toward the new administration. The day Sumter was fired on, he went to the President to offer his help and counsel. There is reason to believe that during those fearful early days of power and trial Lincoln came into a better opinion of his rival. The help of Douglas was of moment, for he had the right to speak for the Democrats of the North. On his way homeward, he was everywhere besought to speak. Once, he was aroused from sleep to address an Ohio regiment marching to the front, and his great voice rolled down upon them, aligned beneath him in the darkness, a word of loyalty and courage. At Chicago he spoke firmly and finally, for himself and for his party. While the hope of compromise lingered, he had gone to the extreme of magnanimity, but the time for conciliation was past. "There can be no neutrals in this war," he said: "only patriots and traitors." They were the best words he could have spoken. They were the last he ever spoke to his countrymen, for at once he was stricken down with a swift and mortal illness and hurried to his end. A little while before the end, his wife bent over him for a message to his sons. He roused himself, and said: "Tell them to obey the laws and support the Constitution of the United States." He died on June 11, 1861, in the forty-ninth year of his age.