Edward Dickinson Baker (1811-1861) had a colorful and wide-ranging career: United States Representative from Illinois, friend of Abraham Lincoln, Mexican War colonel, California lawyer, United States Senator for Oregon, and finally colonel of the California Regiment in the Civil War, where he fell at the Battle of Ball's Bluff--the only sitting senator ever to die in battle. This speech was delivered at a Republican Party meeting in Foresthill, CA, a mining town northeast of Sacramento. It discusses popular sovereignty, the 1852 and 1856 elections, Stephen Douglas, and the fight over slavery. Greenwood, California Imprints, page 315. None traced at auction, and one in OCLC, at the California Historical Society.
