ALTHOUGH primarily responsible for all that had taken place in Kansas,
Mr. Douglas appeared to be suddenly animated by a new and burning zeal
in behalf of the Free-State party in the Territory. It struck him very
forcibly, just when he needed most to be struck by a new idea, that
the Lecompton Constitution was not "the act and deed of the people of
Kansas."
Accordingly, Mr. Douglas took his stand against Lecompton at the first
note of the long conflict in Congress. We shall make no analysis of the
debates, nor set out the votes of senators and representatives which
marked the intervals of that fierce struggle between sections, parties,
and factions which followed. It is enough to say here, that Mr. Douglas
was found speaking and voting with the Republicans upon every phase of
the question. He had but one or two followers in the Senate, and a mere
handful in the House; yet these were faithful to his lead until a final
conference committee and the English Bill afforded an opportunity for
some of them to escape. For himself he scorned all compromises, voted
against the English Bill, and returned to Illinois to ask the votes
of the people upon a winter's record wholly and consistently
anti-Democratic. The fact is mentioned, not to obscure the fame of the
statesman, nor to impugn the honesty of the politician, but because it
had an important influence upon the canvass of the ensuing summer.
During the winter Mr. Douglas held frequent consultations with the
leaders of the Republican party. Their meetings were secret, and for
that reason the more significant. By this means, harmony of action was
secured for the present, and something provided for the future. Mr.
Douglas covertly announced himself as a convert to the Republicans,
declared his uncompromising enmity to "the slave power," and said that,
however he might be distrusted then, he would be seen "fighting their
battles in 1860;" but for the time he thought it wise to conceal his
ultimate intentions. He could manage the Democracy more effectually
by remaining with them until better opportunities should occur. "He
insisted that he would never be driven from the party, but would remain
in it until he exposed the administration and the Disunionists; and,
when he went out, he would go of his own accord. He was in the habit of
remarking, that it was policy for him to remain in the party, in order
to hold certain of the rank-and-file; so that, if he went over from the
Democracy to any other party, he would be able to take the crowd along
with him; and, when he got them all over, he would cut down the bridges,
and sink the boats." When asked if he knew precisely where his present
course was taking him, he answered repeatedly, "I do; and I have checked
all my baggage, and taken a through ticket."
He was a proselyte not to be despised: his weight might be sufficient
to turn the scale in the Presidential election. The Republicans were
naturally pleased with his protestations of friendship, and more than
pleased with his proffers of active service; but he was not content with
this alone. He contrived to convince many of his late opponents that the
Kansas-Nebraska Bill itself was actually conceived in the interests
of antislavery, and that the device was the most cunning of political
tricks, intended to give back to "freedom" all the vast expanse of
territory which the Missouri line had dedicated forever to slavery. "Mr.
Douglas's plan for destroying the Missouri line," said one Republican,
"and thereby opening the way for the march of freedom beyond the limits
forever prohibited by that line, and the opening up of Free States in
territory which it was conceded belonged to the Slave States, and its
march westward, embracing the whole line of the Pacific from the British
possessions to Mexico, struck me as the most magnificent scheme
ever conceived by the human mind. This character of conversation, so
frequently employed by Mr. Douglas with those with whom he talked, made
the deepest impression upon their minds, enlisted them in his behalf,
and changed, in almost every instance, their opinion of the man." In
support of this view, Mr. Douglas could point to Kansas, where the
battle under his bill was being fought out. The Free-State men had,
perhaps from the very beginning, been in a majority, and could take
possession of the Territory or the new State, as the case might be,
whenever they could secure a fair vote. The laboring classes of, the
North were the natural settlers of the western Territories. If these
failed in numbers, the enormous and increasing European immigration
was at their back; and, if both together failed, the churches, aid
societies, and antislavery organizations were at hand to raise, arm,
and equip great bodies of emigrants, as they would regular forces for a
public purpose. The South had no such facilities: its social, political,
and material conditions made a sudden exodus of its voting population
to new countries a thing impossible. It might send here a man with a few
negroes, and there another. It might insist vehemently upon its supposed
rights in the common Territories, and be ready to fight for them; but
it could never cover the surface of those Territories with cosey
farmsteads, or crowd them with intelligent and muscular white men; and
yet these last would inevitably give political character to the
rising communities. Such clearly were to be the results of "popular
sovereignty," as Mr. Douglas had up to that time maintained it under the
Nebraska Bill.
It signified the right of the people of a Territory "to form and
regulate their domestic institutions in their own way" when, and not
before, they came to frame a State constitution. The Missouri line, on
the contrary, had been a sort of convention, which, by common consent,
gave all north of it to freedom, and all south of it to slavery. But
popular sovereignty disregarded all previous compacts, all ordinances,
and all laws. With this doctrine in practice, the North were sure to be
victors in every serious contest. But when Mr. Douglas changed ground
again, and popular sovereignty became squatter sovereignty, he had
reason to boast himself the most efficient, although the wiliest and
coolest, antislavery agitator on the continent. The new doctrine implied
the right of a handful of settlers to determine the slavery question in
their first Legislature. It made no difference whether they did this by
direct or "unfriendly legislation:" the result was the same.
"Popular sovereignty! popular sovereignty!" said Mr. Lincoln. "Let us
for a moment inquire into this vast matter of popular sovereignty. What
is popular sovereignty? We recollect, that, in an early period in
the history of this struggle, there was another name for the
same thing,--_squatter sovereignty_. It was not exactly popular
sovereignty,--squatter sovereignty. What do these terms mean? What do
those terms mean when used now? And vast credit is taken by our friend,
the Judge, in regard to his support of it, when he declares the last
years of his life have been, and all the future years of his life shall
be, devoted to this matter of popular sovereignty. What is it? Why,
it is the sovereignty of the people! What was squatter sovereignty?
I suppose, if it had any significance at all, it was the right of the
people to govern themselves, to be sovereign in their own affairs while
they were squatted down in a country not their own, while they had
squatted on a territory that did not belong to them; in the sense that
a State belongs to the people who inhabit it, when it belongs to
the nation. Such right to govern themselves was called 'squatter
sovereignty.'"
Again, and on another occasion, but still before Mr. Douglas had
substituted "squatter" for "popular" sovereignty,--a feat which was not
performed until September, 1859,--Mr. Lincoln said,--
"I suppose almost every one knows, that in this controversy, whatever
has been said has had reference to negro slavery. We have not been in
a controversy about the right of the people to govern themselves in the
ordinary matters of domestic concern in the States and Territories.
Mr. Buchanan, in one of his late messages (I think when he sent up the
Lecompton Constitution), urged that the main point to which the public
attention had been directed was not in regard to the great variety of
small domestic matters, but it was directed to negro slavery; and he
asserts, that, if the people had had a fair chance to vote on that
question, there was no reasonable ground of objection in regard to minor
questions. Now, while I think that the people had not had given them, or
offered them, a fair chance upon that slavery question, still, if
there had been a fair submission to a vote upon that main question, the
President's proposition would have been true to the uttermost. Hence,
when hereafter I speak of popular sovereignty, I wish to be understood
as applying what I say to the question of slavery only, not to other
minor domestic matters of a Territory or a State.
"Does Judge Douglas, when he says that several of the past years of his
life have been devoted to the question of popular sovereignty, and that
all the remainder of his life shall be devoted to it,--does he mean to
say, that he has been devoting his life to securing to the people of
the Territories the right to exclude slavery from the Territories? If
he means so to say, he means to deceive; because he and every one knows
that the decision of the Supreme Court, which he approves, and makes an
especial ground of attack upon me for disapproving, forbids the people
of a Territory to exclude slavery. This covers the whole ground, from
the settlement of a Territory till it reaches the degree of maturity
entitling it to form a State constitution. So far as all that ground
is concerned, the judge is not sustaining popular sovereignty, but
absolutely opposing it. He sustains the decision which declares that the
popular will of the Territories has no constitutional power to exclude
slavery during their territorial existence. This being so, the period of
time from the first settlement of a territory till it reaches the point
of forming a State constitution is not the thing that the Judge has
fought for, or is fighting for; but, on the contrary, he has fought for,
and is fighting for, the thing that annihilates and crushes out that
same popular sovereignty."
It is probable, that, in the numerous private conferences held by Mr.
Douglas with Republican leaders in the winter of 1857-8, he managed
to convince them that it was, after all, not popular sovereignty,
but squatter sovereignty, that he meant to advance as his final and
inevitable deduction from "the great principles" of the Nebraska Bill.
This he knew, and they were sure, would give antislavery an unbroken
round of solid victories in all the Territories. The South feared it
much more than they did the Republican theory: it was, in the language
of their first orator, "a shortcut to all the ends of Sewardism."
But Mr. Douglas's great difficulty was to produce any belief in his
sincerity. At home, in Illinois, the Republicans distrusted him almost
to a man; and at Washington, among his peers in the Senate and the
House, it seemed necessary for him to repeat his plans and promises
very often, and to mingle with them bitter and passionate declamations
against the South. At last, however, he succeeded,--partially, at least.
Senator Wilson believed him devoutly; Mr. Burlingame said his record
was "laid up in light;" Mr. Colfax, Mr. Blair, and Mr. Covode were
convinced; and gentlemen of the press began industriously to prepare
the way for his entrance into the Republican party. Mr. Greeley was
thoroughly possessed by the new idea, and went about propagating
and enforcing it with all his might. Among all the grave counsellors
employed in furthering Mr. Douglas's defection, it is singular that only
one man of note steadily resisted his admission to a place of leadership
in the Republican ranks: Judge Trumbull could not be persuaded; he had
no faith in the man who proposed to desert, and had some admonitions to
deliver, based upon the history of recent events. He was willing enough
to take him "on probation," but wholly opposed to giving him any power.
Covode was employed to mollify Judge Trumbull; but he met with no
success, and went away without so much as delivering the message with
which Mr. Douglas had charged him. The message was a simple proposition
of alliance with the home Republicans, to the effect, that, if they
agreed to return him to the Senate in 1858, he would fight their
Presidential battle in 1860. Judge Trumbull did not even hear it, but he
was well assured that Mr. Douglas was "an applicant for admission into
the Republican party." "It was reported to me at that time," said
he, "that such was the fact; and such appeared to be the universal
understanding, among the Republicans at Washington. I will state another
fact,--I almost quarrelled with some of my best Republican friends in
'regard to this matter. I was willing to receive Judge Douglas into
the Republican party on probation; but I was not, as these Republican
friends were, willing to receive him, and place him at the head of our
ranks."
Toward the latter part of April, 1858, a Democratic State Convention
met in Illinois, and, besides nominating a ticket for State officers,
indorsed Mr. Douglas. This placed him in the field for re-election as
an Anti-Lecompton Democrat; but it by no means shook the faith of his
recently acquired Republican friends: they thought it very natural,
under the circumstances, that his ways should be a little devious, and
his policy somewhat dark. He had always said he could do more for them
by seeming to remain within the Democratic party; and they looked
upon this latest proceeding--his practical nomination by a Democratic
convention--as the foundation for an act of stupendous treason between
that time and the Presidential election. They continued to press the
Republicans of Illinois to make no nomination against him,--to vote for
him, to trust him, to follow him, as a sincere and manifestly a powerful
antislavery leader. These representations had the effect of seducing
away, for a brief time, Mr. Wash-burne and a few others among the
lesser politicians of the State; but, when they found the party at large
irrevocably opposed to the scheme, they reluctantly acquiesced in what
they could not prevent,--Mr. Lincoln's nomination. But the plot made a
profound impression on Mr. Lincoln's mind: it proved the existence
of personal qualities in Mr. Douglas, which, to a simpler man, were
unimaginable and inexplicable. A gentleman once inquired of Mr. Lincoln
what he thought of Douglas's chances at Charleston. "Well," he replied,
"were it not for certain matters that I know transpired, which I
regarded at one time among the impossibilities, I would say he stood no
possible chance. I refer to the fact, that, in the Illinois contest with
myself, he had the sympathy and support of Greeley, of Burlingame, and
of Wilson of Massachusetts, and other leading Republicans; that, at
the same time, he received the support of Wise, and the influence of
Breckinridge, and other Southern men; that he took direct issue with
the administration, and secured, against all its power, one hundred and
twenty-five thousand out of one hundred and thirty thousand Democratic
votes cast in the State. A man that can bring such influence to bear
with his own exertions may play the devil at Charleston."
From about the 7th to the 16th of June, 1858, Mr. Lincoln was busily
engaged writing a speech: he wrote it in scraps,--a sentence now, and
another again. It was originally scattered over numberless little pieces
of paper, and was only reduced to consecutive sheets and connected form
as the hour for its delivery drew near. It was to be spoken on or
about the 16th, when the Republican State Convention would assemble at
Springfield, and, as Mr. Lincoln anticipated, would nominate him for
senator in Congress.
About the 13th of June, Mr. Dubois, the State auditor, entered the
office of Lincoln & Herndon, and found Mr. Lincoln deeply intent upon
the speech. "Hello, Lincoln! what _are_ you writing?" said the auditor.
"Come, tell me."--"I sha'n't tell you," said Lincoln. "_It is none of
your business_, Mr. Auditor. Come, sit down, and let's be jolly."
On the 16th, the convention, numbering, with delegates and alternates,
about a thousand men, met, and passed unanimously the following
resolution:--
"That Hon. Abraham Lincoln is our first and only choice for United
States senator to fill the vacancy about to be created by the expiration
of Mr. Douglas's term of office."
That evening Mr. Lincoln came early to his office, along with Mr.
Herndon. Having carefully locked the door, and put the key in his own
pocket, he pulled from his bosom the manuscript of his speech, and
proceeded to read it slowly and distinctly. When he had finished the
first paragraph, he came to a dead pause, and turned to his astounded
auditor with the inquiry, "How do you like that? What do you think of
it?"--"I think," returned Mr. Herndon, "it is true; but is it entirely
_politic_ to read or speak it as it is written?"
--"That makes no difference," Mr. Lincoln said. "That expression is a
truth of all human experience,--'a house divided against itself cannot
stand;' and 'he that runs may read.' The proposition is indisputably
true, and has been true for more than six thousand years; and--I will
deliver it as written. I want to use some universally known figure,
expressed in simple language as universally known, that may strike home
to the minds of men, in order to rouse them to the peril of the times.
I would rather be _defeated with this expression in_ the speech, and it
held up and discussed before the people, than _to be victorious without
it._"
It may be questioned whether Mr. Lincoln had a clear right to indulge in
such a venture, as a representative party man in a close contest. He
had other interests than his own in charge: he was bound to respect the
opinions, and, if possible, secure the success, of the party which had
made him its leader. He knew that the strange doctrine, so strikingly
enunciated, would alienate many well-affected voters. Was it his duty
to cast these away, or to keep them? He was not asked to sacrifice any
principle of the party, or any opinion of his own previously expressed,
but merely to forego the trial of an experiment, to withhold the
announcement of a startling theory, and to leave the creed of the
party as it came from the hands of its makers, without this individual
supplement, of which they had never dreamed. It is evident that he
had not always been insensible to the force of this reasoning. At the
Bloomington Convention he had uttered the same ideas in almost the same
words; and their novelty, their tendency, their recognition of a
state of incipient civil war in a country for the most part profoundly
peaceful,--these, and the bloody work which might come of their
acceptance by a great party, had filled the minds of some of his hearers
with the most painful apprehensions. The theory was equally shocking to
them, whether as partisans or as patriots. Among them was Hon. T. Lyle
Dickey, who sought Mr. Lincoln, and begged him to suppress them in
future. He vindicated his speech as he has just vindicated it in the
interview with Mr. Herndon; but, after much persuasion, he promised at
length not to repeat it.
It was now Mr. Herndon's turn to be surprised: the pupil had outstripped
the teacher. He was intensely anxious for Mr. Lincoln's election:
he feared the effect of this speech; and yet it was so exactly in
accordance with his own faith, that he could not advise him to suppress
it. It might be heresy to many others, but it was orthodoxy to him;
and he was in the habit of telling the whole truth, without regard
to consequences. If it cost a single defeat now, he was sure that its
potency would one day be felt, and the wisdom of its present utterance
acknowledged. He therefore urged Mr. Lincoln to speak it as he had
written it, and to treat with the scorn of a prophet those who, having
ears, would not hear, and, having eyes, would not see. The advice was
not unacceptable, but Mr. Lincoln thought he owed it to other friends to
counsel with them also.
About a dozen gentlemen were called to meet in the Library Room in
the State House. "After seating them at the round table," says John
Armstrong, one of the number, "he read that clause or section of his
speech which reads, 'a house divided against itself cannot stand,' &c.
He read it slowly and cautiously, so as to let each man fully understand
it. After he had finished the reading, he asked the opinions of his
friends as to the wisdom or policy of it. Every man among them condemned
the speech in substance and spirit, and especially that section quoted
above. They unanimously declared that the whole speech was too far in
advance of the times; and they all condemned that section or part of his
speech already quoted, as unwise and impolitic, if not false. William
H. Herndon sat still while they were giving their respective opinions
of its unwisdom and impolicy: then he sprang to his feet and said,
'Lincoln, deliver it just as it reads. If it is in advance of the times,
let us--you and I, if no one else--lift the people to the level of this
speech now, higher hereafter. The speech is true, wise, and politic, and
will succeed now or in the future. Nay, it will aid you, if it will not
make you President of the United States.'
"Mr. Lincoln sat still a short moment, rose from his chair, walked
backwards and forwards in the hall, stopped and said, 'Friends, I have
thought about this matter a great deal, have weighed the question well
from all corners, and am thoroughly convinced the time has come when it
should be uttered; and if it must be that I must go down because of this
speech, then let me go down linked to truth,--die in the advocacy of
what is right and just. This nation cannot live on injustice,--"a house
divided against itself cannot stand," I say again and again.' This was
spoken with some degree of emotion,--the effects of his love of truth,
and sorrow from the disagreement of his friends with himself."
On the evening of the 17th this celebrated speech--known since as
"The House-divided-against-itself Speech"--was delivered to an immense
audience in the hall of the House of Representatives. Mr. Lincoln never
penned words which had a more prodigious influence upon the public mind,
or which more directly and powerfully affected his own career. It was as
follows:--
Gentlemen of the Convention,--If we could first know where we are, and
whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and
how to do it. We are now far on into the fifth year since a policy was
initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end
to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation
had not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion,
it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. "A
house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this Government
cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect
the Union to be dissolved,--I do not expect the house to fall; but I do
expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or
all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the farther
spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the
belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates
will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the
States,--old as well as new, North as well as South.
Have we no tendency to the latter condition? Let any one who doubts
carefully contemplate that now almost complete legal combination,--piece
of machinery, so to speak,--compounded of the Nebraska doctrine and the
Dred-Scott Decision. Let him consider, not only what work the machinery
is adapted to do, and how well adapted, but also let him study the
history of its construction, and trace, if he can, or rather fail, if he
can, to trace, the evidences of design and concert of action among its
chief master-workers from the beginning.
But so far Congress only had acted; and an indorsement by the people,
real or apparent, was indispensable, to save the point already gained
and give chance for more. The New Year of 1854 found slavery excluded
from more than half the States by State constitutions, and from most
of the national territory by congressional prohibition. Four days later
commenced the struggle which ended in repealing that congressional
prohibition. This opened all the national territory to slavery, and was
the first point gained.
This necessity had not been overlooked, but had been provided for, as
well as might be, in the notable argument of "_squatter sovereignty_"
otherwise called "_sacred right of self-government;_" which latter
phrase, though expressive of the only rightful basis of any government,
was so perverted in this attempted use of it as to amount to just this:
that, if any one man choose to enslave another, no third man shall be
allowed to object. That argument was incorporated into the Nebraska Bill
itself, in the language which follows: "It being the true intent and
meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or
State, nor exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof
perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their
own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States."
Then opened the roar of loose declamation in favor of "squatter
sovereignty" and "sacred right of self-government."
"But," said opposition members, "let us be more specific,--let us amend
the bill so as to expressly declare that the people of the Territory may
exclude slavery."--"Not we," said the friends of the measure; and down
they voted the amendment.
While the Nebraska Bill was passing through Congress, a law-case
involving the question of a negro's freedom, by reason of his owner
having voluntarily taken him first into a Free State, and then a
Territory covered by the congressional prohibition, and held him as a
slave,--for a long time in each,--was passing through the United-States
Circuit Court for the District of Missouri; and both the Nebraska Bill
and lawsuit were brought to a decision in the same month of May, 1854.
The negro's name was Dred Scott, which name now designates the decision
finally made in the case.
Before the then next Presidential election, the law-case came to, and
was argued in, the Supreme Court of the United States; but the decision
of it was deferred until after the election. Still, before the election,
Senator Trumbull, on the floor of the Senate, requests the leading
advocate of the Nebraska Bill to state his opinion whether a people of
a Territory can constitutionally exclude slavery from their limits; and
the latter answers, "That is a question for the Supreme Court."
The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the indorsement, such
as it was, secured. That was the second point gained. The indorsement,
however, fell short of a clear popular majority by nearly four hundred
thousand votes; and so, perhaps, was not overwhelmingly reliable and
satisfactory. The outgoing President, in his last annual Message, as
impressively as possible echoed back upon the people the weight and
authority of the indorsement.
The Supreme Court met again; did not announce their decision, but
ordered a re-argument. The Presidential inauguration came, and still
no decision of the court; but the incoming President, in his inaugural
address, fervently exhorted the people to abide by the forthcoming
decision, whatever it might he. Then, in a few days, came the decision.
This was the third point gained.
The reputed author of the Nebraska Bill finds an early occasion to
make a speech at this Capitol indorsing the Dred-Scott Decision, and
vehemently denouncing all opposition to it. The new President, too,
seizes the early occasion of the Silliman letter to indorse and strongly
construe that decision, and to express his astonishment that any
different view had ever been entertained. At length a squabble springs
up between the President and the author of the Nebraska Bill, on the
mere question of fact whether the Lecompton Constitution was, or was
not, in any just sense, made by the people of Kansas; and, in that
squabble, the latter declares that all he wants is a fair vote for the
people, and that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up.
I do not understand his declaration, that he cares not whether slavery
be voted down or voted up, to be intended by him other than as an apt
definition of the policy he would impress upon the public mind,--the
principle for which he declares he has suffered much, and is ready to
suffer to the end.
And well may he cling to that principle! If he has any parental feeling,
well may he cling to it! That principle is the only shred left of his
original Nebraska doctrine. Under the Dred-Scott Decision, squatter
sovereignty squatted out of existence,--tumbled down like temporary
scaffolding; like the mould at the foundery, served through one blast,
and fell back into loose sand; helped to carry an election, and then
was kicked to the winds. His late joint struggle with the Republicans
against the Lecompton Constitution involves nothing of the original
Nebraska doctrine. That struggle was made on a point--the right of a
people to make their own constitution--upon which he and the Republicans
have never differed.
The several points of the Dred-Scott Decision, in connection with
Senator Douglas's "care-not" policy, constitute the piece of machinery
in its present state of advancement. The working-points of that
machinery are,--
First, That no negro slave, imported as such from Africa, and no
descendant of such, can ever be a citizen of any State, in the sense of
that term as used in the Constitution of the United States.
This point is made in order to deprive the negro, in every possible
event, of the benefit of this provision of the United States
Constitution, which declares that "The citizens of each State shall be
entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several
States.
Secondly, That, "subject to the Constitution of the United States,"
neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature can exclude slavery from
any United States Territory.
This point is made in order that individual men may fill up the
Territories with slaves, without danger of losing them as property, and
thus to enhance the chances of permanency to the institution through all
the future.
Thirdly, That whether the holding a negro in actual slavery in a Free
State makes him free, as against the holder, the United States courts
will not decide, but will leave it to be decided by the courts of any
Slave State the negro may be forced into by the master.
This point is made, not to be pressed immediately; but if acquiesced in
for a while, and apparently indorsed by the people at an election, then
to sustain the logical conclusion, that, what Dred Scott's master might
lawfully do with Dred Scott in the free State of Illinois, every other
master may lawfully do with any other one or one thousand slaves in
Illinois, or in any other Free State.
Auxiliary to all this, and working hand in hand with it, the Nebraska
doctrine, or what is left of it, is to educate and mould public opinion,
at least Northern public opinion, not to care whether slavery is voted
down or voted up.
This shows exactly where we now are, and partially, also, whither we are
tending.
It will throw additional light on the latter to go back and run the mind
over the string of historical facts already stated. Several things
will now appear less dark and mysterious than they did when they were
transpiring.
The people were to be left "perfectly free," "subject only to the
Constitution." What the Constitution had to do with it, outsiders could
not then see. Plainly enough now, it was an exactly fitted niche for
the Dred-Scott Decision afterward to come in, and declare that perfect
freedom of the people to be just no freedom at all.
Why was the amendment expressly declaring the right of the people to
exclude slavery voted down? Plainly enough now: the adoption of it would
have spoiled the niche for the Dred-Scott Decision.
Why was the court decision held up? Why even a senator's individual
opinion withheld till after the Presidential election? Plainly enough
now: the speaking out then would have damaged the "perfectly free"
argument upon which the election was to be carried.
Why the outgoing President's felicitation on the indorsement? Why the
delay of a re-argument? Why the incoming President's advance exhortation
in favor of the decision? These things look like the cautious patting
and petting of a spirited horse preparatory to mounting him, when it
is dreaded that he may give the rider a fall. And why the hasty
after-indorsements of the decision by the President and others?
We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adaptations are the
result of preconcert. But when we see a lot of framed timbers, different
portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and
places, and by different workmen,--Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James,
for instance,--and when we see these timbers joined together, and see
they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and
mortises, exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the
different pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and not
a piece too many or too few,--not omitting even scaffolding--or, if
a single piece be lacking, we can see the place in the frame exactly
fitted and prepared to yet bring such piece in,--in such a case, we find
it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and
James all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon
a common plan or draft drawn up before the first blow was struck.
It should not be overlooked, that, by the Nebraska Bill, the people of
a State as well as Territory were to be left "perfectly free" "subject
only to the Constitution." Why mention a State? They were legislating
for Territories, and not for or about States. Certainly the people of
a State are and ought to be subject to the Constitution of the United
States; but why is mention of this lugged into this merely territorial
law? Why are the people of a Territory and the people of a State therein
lumped together, and their relation to the Constitution therein treated
as being precisely the same?
While the opinion of the court by Chief-Justice Taney, in the Dred-Scott
case, and the separate opinions of all the concurring judges, expressly
declare that the Constitution of the United States neither permits
Congress nor a Territorial Legislature to exclude slavery from any
United States
Territory, they all omit to declare whether or not the same Constitution
permits a State, or the people of a State, to exclude it. Possibly, this
was a mere omission; but who can be quite sure, if McLean or Curtis had
sought to get into the opinion a declaration of unlimited power in the
people of a State to exclude slavery from their limits, just as Chase
and Mace sought to get such declaration, in behalf of the people of a
Territory, into the Nebraska Bill,--I ask, who can be quite sure that
it would not have been voted down in the one case as it had been in the
other?
The nearest approach to the point of declaring the power of a State over
slavery is made by Judge Nelson. He approaches it more than once, using
the precise idea, and almost the language too, of the Nebraska Act. On
one occasion his exact language is, "Except in cases where the power
is restrained by the Constitution of the United States, the law of the
State is supreme over the subject of slavery within its jurisdiction."
In what cases the power of the State is so restrained by the United
States Constitution is left an open question, precisely as the same
question, as to the restraint on the power of the Territories, was
left open in the Nebraska Act. Put that and that together, and we have
another nice little niche, which we may ere long see filled with another
Supreme Court decision, declaring that the Constitution of the United
States does not permit a State to exclude slavery from its limits. And
this may especially be expected if the doctrine of "care not whether
slavery be voted down or voted up" shall gain upon the public mind
sufficiently to give promise that such a decision can be maintained when
made.
Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being alike lawful in
all the States. Welcome or unwelcome, such decision is probably coming,
and will soon be upon us, unless the power of the present political
dynasty shall be met and overthrown. We shall lie down pleasantly
dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their
State free; and we shall awake to the reality, instead, that the Supreme
Court has made Illinois a Slave State.
To meet and overthrow the power of that dynasty is the work now before
all those who would prevent that consummation. That is what we have to
do. But how can we best do it?
There are those who denounce us openly to their own friends, and yet
whisper softly, that Senator Douglas is the aptest instrument there is
with which to effect that object. They do not tell us, nor has he told
us, that he wishes any such object to be effected. They wish us to infer
all, from the facts that he now has a little quarrel with the present
head of the dynasty; and that he has regularly voted with us, on a
single point, upon which he and we have never differed.
They remind us that he is a very great man, and that the largest of us
are very small ones. Let this be granted. But "a _living dog_ is better
than a _dead lion_." Judge Douglas, if not a dead lion for this work,
is at least a caged and toothless one. How can he oppose the advances
of slavery? He don't care any thing about it. His avowed mission is
impressing the "public heart" to care nothing about it.
A leading Douglas Democrat newspaper thinks Douglas's superior talent
will be needed to resist the revival of the African slave-trade. Does
Douglas believe an effort to revive that trade is approaching? He has
not said so. Does he really think so? But, if it is, how can he resist
it? For years he has labored to prove it a sacred right of white men to
take negro slaves into the new Territories. Can he possibly show that
it is less a sacred right to buy them where they can be bought cheapest?
And unquestionably they can be bought cheaper in Africa than in
Virginia.
He has done all in his power to reduce the whole question of slavery
to one of a mere right of property; and as such, how can he oppose the
foreign slave-trade,--how can he refuse that trade in that "property"
shall be "perfectly free,"--unless he does it as a protection to the
home production? And, as the home producers will probably not ask the
protection, he will be wholly without a ground of opposition.
Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may rightfully be wiser
to-day than he was yesterday; that he may rightfully change when he
finds himself wrong. But can we for that reason run ahead, and infer
that he will make any particular change, of which he himself has
given no intimation? Can we safely base our action upon any such vague
inferences?
Now, as ever, I wish not to misrepresent Judge Douglas's position,
question his motives, or do aught that can be personally offensive to
him. Whenever, if ever, he and we can come together on principle, so
that our great cause may have assistance from his great ability, I hope
to have interposed no adventitious obstacle.
But clearly he, is not now with us; he does not pretend to be; he does
not promise ever to be. Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and
conducted by, its own undoubted friends,--those whose hands are free,
whose hearts are in the work, who do care for the result.
Two years ago the Republicans of the nation mustered over thirteen
hundred thousand strong. We did this under the single impulse of
resistance to a common danger, with every external circumstance against
us. Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, we gathered from
the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the
constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we
brave all then to falter now?--now, when that same enemy is wavering,
dissevered, and belligerent?
The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail,--if we stand firm, we
shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate or mistakes delay it; but,
sooner or later, the victory is sure to come.
The speech produced a profound impression upon men of all parties:
the Democrats rejoiced in it, and reprobated it; the conservative
Republicans received it coldly, and saw in it the sign of certain
defeat. In the eyes of the latter it was a disheartening mistake at
the outset of a momentous campaign,--a fatal error, which no policy or
exertion could retrieve. Alone of all those directly affected by it, the
Abolitionists, the compatriots of Mr. Herndon, heard in it the voice of
a fearless leader, who had the wisdom to comprehend an unwelcome fact,
and the courage to proclaim it at the moment when the delusion of
fancied security and peace was most generally and fondly entertained.
It was the "irrepressible conflict" which Mr. Seward had been preaching,
and to which the one party had given almost as little credit as the
other. Except a few ultraists here and there, nobody as yet had actually
prepared his armor for this imaginary conflict, to which the nation was
so persistently summoned,--and, indeed, none but those few seriously
believed in the possibility of its existence. The Republican party had
heretofore disavowed the doctrine with a unanimity nearly as great as
that exhibited by the little council of Mr. Lincoln's immediate friends.
It was therefore to be expected, that, when a slow, cautious, moderate
man like Mr. Lincoln came forward with it in this startling fashion,
it would carry dismay to his followers, and a cheering assurance to his
enemies. But Mr. Lincoln was looking farther than this campaign: he was
quietly dreaming of the Presidency, and edging himself to a place in
advance, where he thought the tide might take him up in 1860. He was
sure that sectional animosities, far from subsiding, would grow deeper
and stronger with time; and for that reason the next nominee of the
exclusively Northern party must be a man of radical views. "I think,"
says Mr. Herndon, "the speech was intended to take the wind out of
Seward's sails;" and Mr. Herndon is not alone in his opinion.
A day or two after Mr. Lincoln spoke, one Dr. Long came into his office,
and delivered to him a foretaste of the remarks he was doomed to hear
for several months. "Well, Lincoln," said he, "that foolish speech of
yours will kill you,--will defeat you in this contest, and probably for
all offices for all time to come. I am sorry, sorry,--very sorry: I wish
it was wiped out of existence. Don't you wish it, now?" Mr. Lincoln had
been writing during the doctor's lament; but at the end of it he laid
down his pen, raised his head, lifted his spectacles, and, with a look
half quizzical, half contemptuous, replied, "Well, doctor, if I had to
draw a pen across, and erase my whole life from existence, and I had
one poor gift or choice left, as to what I should save from the wreck, I
should choose that speech, and leave it to the world unerased."
Leonard Swett, than whom there was no more gifted man, nor a better
judge of political affairs, in Illinois, is convinced that "the first
ten lines of that speech defeated him." "The sentiment of the 'house
divided against itself' seemed wholly inappropriate," says Mr. Swett.
"It was a speech made at the commencement of a campaign, and apparently
made for the campaign. Viewing it in this light alone, nothing could
have been more unfortunate or inappropriate. It was saying first the
wrong thing; yet he saw that it was an abstract truth, and standing by
the speech would ultimately find him in the right place. I was inclined
at the time to believe these words were hastily and inconsiderately
uttered; but subsequent facts have convinced me they were deliberate and
had been matured.... In the summer of 1859, when he was dining with
a party of his intimate friends at Bloomington, the subject of his
Springfield speech was discussed. We all insisted that it was a great
mistake; but he justified himself, and finally said, 'Well, gentlemen,
you may think that speech was a mistake; but I never have believed it
was, and you will see the day when you will consider it was the wisest
thing I ever said.'"
John T. Stuart was a family connection of the Todds and Edwardses, and
thus also of Lincoln. Mr. C. C. Brown married Mr. Stuart's daughter,
and speaks of Mr. Lincoln as "our relative." This gentleman says, "The
Todd-Stuart-Edwards family, with preacher and priest, dogs and servants,
got mad at Mr. Lincoln because he made 'The House-divided-against-itself
Speech.' He flinched, dodged, said he would explain, and did explain, in
the Douglas debates."
But it was difficult to explain: explanations of the kind are generally
more hurtful than the original offence. Accordingly, Mr. Herndon reports
in his broad, blunt way, that "Mr. Lincoln met with many cold shoulders
for some time,--nay, during the whole canvass with Douglas." At the
great public meetings which characterized that campaign, "you could
hear, from all quarters in the crowd, Republicans saying, 'Damn that
fool speech! it will be the cause of the death of Lincoln and the
Republican party. Such folly! such nonsense! Damn it!'"
Since 1840 Lincoln and Douglas had appeared before the people, almost as
regularly as the elections came round, to discuss, the one against the
other, the merits of parties, candidates, and principles. Thus far Mr.
Lincoln had been in a certain sense the pursuer: he had lain in wait
for Mr. Douglas; he had caught him at unexpected turns and upon sharp
points; he had mercilessly improved the advantage of Mr. Douglas's long
record in Congress to pick apart and to criticise, while his own was so
much more humble and less extensive. But now at last they were
abreast, candidates for the same office, with a fair field and equal
opportunities. It was the great crisis in the lives of both. Let us see
what they thought of each other; and, in the extracts which convey the
information, we may also get a better idea of the character of each for
candor, generosity, and truthfulness.
Dr. Holland quotes from one of Mr. Lincoln's unpublished manuscripts as
follows:--
"Twenty-two years ago, Judge Douglas and I first became acquainted: we
were both young then,--he a trifle younger than I. Even then we were
both ambitious,--I, perhaps, quite as much so as he. With me the race of
ambition has been a failure,--a flat failure; with him it has been one
of splendid success. His name fills the nation, and is not unknown even
in foreign lands. I affect no contempt for the high eminence he has
reached,--so reached that the oppressed of my species might have shared
with me in the elevation, I would rather stand on that eminence than
wear the richest crown that ever pressed a monarch's brow."
Again, in the pending campaign, Mr. Lincoln said, "There is still
another disadvantage under which we labor, and to which I will invite
your attention. It arises out of the relative positions of the two
persons who stand before the State as candidates for the Senate. Senator
Douglas is of worldwide renown. All the anxious politicians of his
party, or who had been of his party for years past, have been looking
upon him as certainly, at no distant day, to be the President of the
United States. They have seen, in his round, jolly, fruitful face,
post-offices, land-offices, marshalships, and cabinet appointments,
chargéships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out in
wonderful exuberance, ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands.
And as they have been gazing upon this attractive picture so long, they
cannot, in the little distraction that has taken place in the party,
bring themselves to give up the charming hope; but, with greedier
anxiety, they rush about him, sustain him, and give him marches,
triumphal entries, and receptions, beyond what, even in the days of his
highest prosperity, they could have brought about in his favor. On the
contrary, nobody has ever expected me to be President. In my poor, lean,
lank face, nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting out.
These are disadvantages, all taken together, that the Republicans
labor under. We have to fight this battle upon principle, and principle
alone."
Now hear Mr. Douglas. In their first joint debate at Ottawa, he said,
"In the remarks I have made on this platform, and the position of Mr.
Lincoln upon it, I mean nothing personally disrespectful or unkind to
that gentleman. I have known him for nearly twenty-five years. There
were many points of sympathy between us when we first got acquainted.
We were both comparatively boys, and both struggling with poverty in a
strange land. I was a schoolteacher in the town of Winchester, and he a
flourishing grocery-keeper in the town of Salem. He was more successful
in his occupation than I was in mine, and hence more fortunate in this
world's goods. Lincoln is one of those peculiar men who perform with
admirable skill every thing which they undertake. I made as good a
school-teacher as I could; and, when a cabinet-maker, I made a good
bedstead and tables, although my old boss said I succeeded better with
bureaus and secretaries than with any thing else; but I believe that
Lincoln was always more successful in business than I, for his business
enabled him to get into the Legislature. I met him there, however, and
had a sympathy with him, because of the up-hill struggle we both had in
life. He was then just as good at telling an anecdote as now. He could
beat any of the boys wrestling, or running a foot-race, in pitching
quoits, or tossing a copper; could ruin more liquor than all of the boys
of the town together; and the dignity and impartiality with which he
presided at a horse-race or fist-fight excited the admiration and won
the praise of everybody that was present and participated. I sympathized
with him because he was struggling with difficulties; and so was I. Mr.
Lincoln served with me in the Legislature in 1836, when we both retired,
and he subsided, or became submerged; and he was lost sight of as
a public man for some years. In 1846, when Wilmot introduced his
celebrated proviso, and the abolition tornado swept over the country,
Lincoln again turned up as a member of Congress from the Sangamon
district. I was then in the Senate of the United States, and was glad
to welcome my old friend and companion. Whilst in Congress, he
distinguished himself by his opposition to the Mexican War, taking the
side of the common enemy against his own country; and, when he
returned home, he found that the indignation of the people followed
him everywhere, and he was again submerged, or obliged to retire into
private life, forgotten by his former friends. He came up again in 1854,
just in time to make this abolition or Black Republican platform,
in company with Giddings, Lovejoy, Chase, and Fred. Douglas, for the
Republican party to stand upon. Trumbull, too, was one of our own
contemporaries."
Previous pages of this book present fully enough for our present purpose
the issues upon which this canvass was made to turn. The principal
speeches, the joint debates, with five separate and independent speeches
by Mr. Lincoln, and three by Mr. Douglas, have been collected and
published under Mr. Lincoln's supervision in a neat and accessible
volume. It is, therefore, unnecessary, and would be unjust, to reprint
them here. They obtained at the time a more extensive circulation than
such productions usually have, and exerted an influence which is very
surprising to the calm reader of the present day.
Mr. Douglas endeavored to prove, from Mr. Lincoln's Springfield speech,
that he (Mr. Lincoln) was a self-declared Disunionist, in favor of
reducing the institutions of all the States "to a dead uniformity," in
favor of abolishing slavery everywhere,--an old-time abolitionist, a
negropolist, an amalgamationist. This, with much vaunting of himself
for his opposition to Lecompton, and a loud proclamation of "popular
sovereignty," made the bulk of Mr. Douglas's speeches.
Mr. Lincoln denied these accusations; he had no "thought of bringing
about civil war," nor yet uniformity of institutions: he would not
interfere with slavery where it had a lawful existence, and was not in
favor of negro equality or miscegenation. He did, however, believe that
Congress had the right to exclude slavery from the Territories,
and ought to exercise it. As to Mr. Douglas's doctrine of popular
sovereignty, there could be no issue concerning it; for everybody
agreed that the people of a Territory might, when they formed a State
constitution, adopt or exclude slavery as they pleased. But that a
Territorial Legislature possessed exclusive power, or any power at all,
over the subject, even Mr Douglas could not assert, inasmuch as the
Dred-Scott Decision was plain and explicit the other way; and Mr.
Douglas boasted that decision as the rule of his political conduct,
and sought to impose it upon all parties as a perfect definition of the
rights and duties of government, local and general.
At Ottawa, Mr. Douglas put to Mr. Lincoln a series of questions,
which, upon their next meeting (at Freeport), Mr. Lincoln answered as
follows:--
I have supposed myself, since the organization of the Republican party
at Bloomington, in May, 1856, bound as a party man by the platforms
of the party, then and since. If, in any interrogatories which I shall
answer, I go beyond the scope of what is within these platforms, it will
be perceived that no one is responsible but myself.
Having said thus much, I will take up the judge's interrogatories as I
find them printed in "The Chicago Times," and answer them _seriatim_.
In order that there may be no mistake about it, I have copied the
interrogatories in writing, and also my answers to them. The first one
of these interrogatories is in these words:--
Question 1.--"I desire to know whether Lincoln to-day stands, as he
did in 1854, in favor of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive-Slave
Law."
Answer.--I do not now, nor ever did, stand in favor of the unconditional
repeal of the Fugitive-Slave Law.
Q. 2.--"I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to-day, as he
did in 1854, against the admission of any more Slave States into the
Union, even if the people want them."
A.--I do not now, nor ever did, stand pledged against the admission of
any more Slave States into the Union.
Q. 3.--"I want to know whether he stands pledged against the admission
of a new State into the Union with such a constitution as the people of
that State may see fit to make."
A.--I do not stand pledged against the admission of a new State into the
Union, with such a constitution as the people of that State may see fit
to make.
Q. 4.--"I want to know whether he stands to-day pledged to the abolition
of slavery in the District of Columbia."
A.--I do not stand to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in the
District of Columbia.
Q. 5.--"I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to the
prohibition of the slave-trade between the different States."
A.--I do not stand pledged to the prohibition of the slave-trade between
the different States.
Q. 6.--"I desire to know whether he stands pledged to prohibit slavery
in all the Territories of the United States, north as well as south of
the Missouri Compromise line."
A.--I am impliedly, if not expressly, pledged to a belief in the right
and duty of Congress to prohibit slavery in all the United States
Territories. [Great applause.]
Q 7.--"I desire him to answer whether he is opposed to the acquisition
of any new territory unless slavery is first prohibited therein."
A.--I am not generally opposed to honest acquisition of territory;
and, in any given case, I would or would not oppose such acquisition,
accordingly as I might think such acquisition would or would not agitate
the slavery question among ourselves.
Now, my friends, it will be perceived, upon an examination of these
questions and answers, that so far I have only answered that I was
not pledged to this, that, or the other. The judge has not framed his
interrogatories to ask me any thing more than this, and I have answered
in strict accordance with the interrogatories, and have answered truly
that I am not pledged at all upon any of the points to which I have
answered. But I am not disposed to hang upon the exact form of his
interrogatory. I am rather disposed to take up at least some of these
questions, and state what I really think upon them.
As to the first one, in regard to the Fugitive-Slave Law, I have never
hesitated to say, and I do not now hesitate to say, that I think, under
the Constitution of the United States, the people of the Southern States
are entitled to a congressional slave law. Having said that, I have had
nothing to say in regard to the existing Fugitive-Slave Law, further
than that I think it should have been framed so as to be free from some
of the objections that pertain to it, without lessening its efficiency.
And inasmuch as we are not now in an agitation in regard to an
alteration or modification of that law, I would not be the man to
introduce it as a new subject of agitation upon the general question of
slavery.
In regard to the other question, of whether I am pledged to the
admission of any more Slave States into the Union, I state to you very
frankly, that I would be exceedingly sorry ever to be put in a position
of having to pass upon that question. I should be exceedingly glad to
know that there would never be another Slave State admitted into
the Union; but I must add, that, if slavery shall be kept out of the
Territories during the Territorial existence of any one given Territory,
and then the people shall, having a fair chance and a clear field, when
they come to adopt the constitution, do such an extraordinary thing as
to adopt a slave constitution, uninfluenced by the actual presence of
the institution among them, I see no alternative, if we own the country,
but to admit them into the Union. [Applause.]
The third interrogatory is answered by the answer to the second, it
being, as I conceive, the same as the second.
The fourth one is in regard to the abolition of slavery in the District
of Columbia. In relation to that, I have my mind very distinctly
made up. I should be exceedingly glad to see slavery abolished in
the District of Columbia. I believe that Congress possesses the
constitutional power to abolish it. Yet, as a member of Congress, I
should not, with my present views, be in favor of endeavoring to abolish
slavery in the District of Columbia, unless it would be upon these
conditions: First, that the abolition should be gradual; Second, That it
should be on a vote of the majority of qualified voters in the District;
and Third, That compensation should be made to unwilling owners. With
these three conditions, I confess I would be exceedingly glad to see
Congress abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and, in the
language of Henry Clay, "sweep from our capital that foul blot upon our
nation."
In regard to the fifth interrogatory, I must say here, that as to the
question of the abolition of the slave-trade between the different
States, I can truly answer, as I have, that I am pledged to nothing
about it. It is a subject to which I have not given that mature
consideration that would make me feel authorized to state a position so
as to hold myself entirely bound by it. In other words, that question
has never been prominently enough before me to induce me to investigate
whether we really have the constitutional power to do it. I could
investigate it if I had sufficient time to bring myself to a conclusion
upon that subject; but I have not done so, and I say so frankly to you
here and to Judge Douglas. I must say, however, that, if I should be of
opinion that Congress does possess the constitutional power to abolish
slave-trading among the different States, I should still not be in favor
of the exercise of that power unless upon some conservative principle as
I conceive it, akin to what I have said in relation to the abolition of
slavery in the District of Columbia.
My answer as to whether I desire that slavery should be prohibited in
all Territories of the United States is full and explicit within itself,
and cannot be made clearer by any comments of mine. So I suppose, in
regard to the question whether I am opposed to the acquisition of any
more territory unless slavery is first prohibited therein, my answer is
such that I could add nothing by way of illustration, or making myself
better understood, than the answer which I have placed in writing.
Now, in all this the Judge has me, and he has me on the record. I
suppose he had flattered himself that I was really entertaining one set
of opinions for one place, and another set for another place,--that
I was afraid to say at one place what I uttered at another. What I am
saying here I suppose I say to a vast audience as strongly tending to
abolitionism as any audience in the State of Illinois; and I believe
I am saying that which, if it would be offensive to any persons, and
render them enemies to myself, would be offensive to persons in this
audience.
Mr. Douglas had presented his interrogatories on the 21st of August,
and Mr. Lincoln did not answer them until the 27th. They had no meetings
between those days; and Mr. Lincoln had ample time to ponder his
replies, and consult his friends. But he did more: he improved the
opportunity to prepare a series of insidious questions, which he felt
sure Mr. Douglas could not possibly answer without utterly ruining
his political prospects. Mr. Lincoln struggled for a great prize,
unsuspected by the common mind, but the thought of which was ever
present to his own. Mr. Douglas was a standing candidate for the
Presidency; but as yet Mr. Lincoln was a very quiet one, nursing hopes
which his modesty prevented him from obtruding upon others. He was wise
enough to keep the fact of their existence to himself, and in the
mean time to dig pitfalls and lay obstructions in the way of his most
formidable competitors. His present purpose was not only to defeat Mr.
Douglas for the Senate, but to "kill him,"--to get him out of the way
finally and forever. If he could make him evade the Dred-Scott Decision,
and deny the right of a Southern man to take his negroes into a
Territory, and keep them there while it was a Territory, he would
thereby sever him from the body of the Democratic party, and leave him
the leader of merely a little half-hearted antislavery faction. Under
such circumstances, Mr. Douglas could never be the candidate of the
party at large; but he might serve a very useful purpose by running on a
separate ticket, and dividing the great majority of conservative votes,
which would inevitably elect a single nominee.
Mr. Lincoln went to Chicago, and there intimated to some of his friends
what he proposed to do. They attempted to dissuade him, because, as
they insisted, if Mr. Douglas should answer that the Dred-Scott Decision
might be evaded by the people of a Territory, and slavery prohibited
in the face of it, the answer would draw to him the sympathies of the
antislavery voters, and probably, of itself, defeat Mr. Lincoln. But, so
long as Mr. Douglas held to the decision in good faith, he had no hope
of more aid from that quarter than he had already received. It was
therefore the part of wisdom to let him alone as to that point. Mr.
Lincoln, on the contrary, looked forward to 1860, and was determined
that the South should understand the antagonism between Mr. Douglas's
latest conception of "squatter sovereignty," on the one hand, and the
Dred-Scott Decision, the Nebraska Bill, and all previous platforms of
the party, on the other. Mr. Douglas taught strange doctrines and false
ones; and Mr. Lincoln thought the faithful, far and near, should know
it. If Mr. Douglas was a schismatic, there ought to be a schism, of
which the Republicans would reap the benefit; and therefore he insisted
upon his questions. "That is no business of yours," said his friends.
"Attend exclusively to your senatorial race, and let the slaveholder and
Douglas fight out that question among themselves and for themselves. If
you put the question to him, he will answer that the Dred-Scott Decision
is simply an abstract rule, having no practical application."--"If he
answers that way, he's a dead cock in the pit," responded Mr. Lincoln.
"But that," said they, "is none of your business: you are concerned
only about the senator-ship."--"No," continued Mr. Lincoln, "not alone
_exactly_: I am killing larger game. The great battle of 1860 is worth a
thousand of this senatorial race."
He did accordingly propound the interrogatories as follows:--
1. If the people of Kansas shall, by means entirely unobjectionable in
all other respects, adopt a State constitution, and ask admission into
the Union under it, before they have the requisite number of inhabitants
according to the English Bill,--some ninety-three thousand,--will you
vote to admit them?
2. Can the people of a United States Territory, in any lawful way,
against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery
from its limits?
3. If the Supreme Court of the United States shall decide that
States cannot exclude slavery from their limits, are you in favor of
acquiescing in, adopting, and following such decision as a rule of
political action?
4. Are you in favor of acquiring additional territory, in disregard of
how such acquisition may affect the nation on the slavery question?
The first and fourth questions Mr. Douglas answered substantially in the
affirmative. To the third he replied, that no judge would ever be guilty
of the "moral treason" of making such a decision. But to the second--the
main question, to which all the others were riders and make-weights--he
answered as he was expected to answer. "It matters not," said he, "what
way the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to the abstract
question whether slavery may or may not go into a Territory under
the Constitution: the people have the lawful means to introduce it or
exclude it, as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist
a day or an hour anywhere, unless it is supported by local police
regulations. Those police regulations can only be established by the
local Legislature; and, if the people are opposed to slavery, they will
elect representatives to that body who will, by unfriendly legislation,
effectually prevent the introduction of it into their midst."
The reply was more than enough for Mr. Lincoln's purpose. It cut Mr.
Douglas off from his party, and put him in a state of perfect antagonism
to it. He firmly denied the power of Congress to restrict slavery; and
he admitted, that, under the Dred-Scott Decision, all Territories were
open to its entrance. But he held, that, the moment the slaveholder
passed the boundary of a Territory, he was at the mercy of the
squatters, a dozen or two of whom might get together in a legislature,
and rob him of the property which the Constitution, the Supreme Court,
and Mr. Douglas himself said he had an indefeasible right to take there.
Mr. Lincoln knew that the Southern people would feel infinitely safer
in the hands of Congress than in the hands of the squatters. If they
regarded the Republican mode of excluding slavery as a barefaced
usurpation, they would consider Mr. Douglas's system of confiscation by
"unfriendly legislation" mere plain stealing. The Republicans said to
them, "We will regulate the whole subject by general laws, which you
participate with us in passing;" but Mr. Douglas offered them,
as sovereign judges and legislators, the territorial settlers
themselves,--squatters they might be,--whom the aid societies rushed
into the new Territories for the very purpose of keeping slavery away.
The new doctrine was admirably calculated to alarm and incense the
South; and, following so closely Mr. Douglas's conduct in the Lecompton
affair, it was very natural that he should now be universally regarded
by his late followers as a dangerous heretic and a faithless turncoat.
The result justified Mr. Lincoln's anticipations. Mr. Douglas did not
fully develop his new theory, nor personally promulgate it as the fixed
tenet of his faction, until the next year, when he embodied it in the
famous article contributed by him to "Harper's Magazine." But it did
its work effectually; and, when parties began to marshal for the great
struggle of 1860, Mr. Douglas was found to be, not precisely what he had
promised,--a Republican, "fighting their battles,"--but an independent
candidate, upon an independent platform, dividing the opposition.
Mr. Lincoln pointed out on the spot the wide difference between Mr.
Douglas's present views and those he had previously maintained with such
dogged and dogmatic persistence. "The new state of the case" had induced
"the Judge to sheer away from his original ground." The new theory was
false in law, and could have no practical application. The history of
the country showed it to be a naked humbug, a demagogue's imposture.
Slavery was established in all this country, without "local police
regulations" to protect it. Dred Scott himself was held in a Territory,
not only without "local police regulations" to favor his bondage, but in
defiance of a general law which prohibited it. A man who believed that
the Dred-Scott Decision was the true interpretation of the Constitution
could not refuse to negro slavery whatever protection it needed in the
Territories without incurring the guilt of perjury. To say that slave
property might be constitutionally confiscated, destroyed, or driven
away from a place where it was constitutionally protected, was such an
absurdity as Mr. Douglas alone in this evil strait was equal to; the
proposition meaning, as he said on a subsequent occasion, "no less than
that a thing may lawfully be driven away from a place where it has a
lawful right to be."
"Of that answer at Freeport," as Mr. Herndon has it, Douglas "instantly
died. The red-gleaming Southern tomahawk flashed high and keen. Douglas
was removed out of Lincoln's way. The wind was taken out of Seward's
sails (by the House-divided Speech), and Lincoln stood out prominent."
The State election took place on the 2d of November, 1858. Mr. Lincoln
had more than four thousand majority of the votes cast; but this was not
enough to give him a majority in the Legislature. An old and inequitable
apportionment law was still in operation; and a majority of the members
chosen under it were, as it was intended by the law-makers they
should be, Democrats. In the Senate were fourteen Democrats to
eleven Republicans; and in the House, forty Democrats to thirty-five
Republicans. Mr. Douglas was, of course, re-elected, and Mr. Lincoln
bitterly disappointed. Some one asked Mr. Lincoln how he felt when the
returns came in. He replied, "that he felt like the boy that stumped his
toe,--'it hurt too bad to laugh, and he was too big to cry!'"
In this canvass Mr. Lincoln earned a reputation as a popular debater
second to that of no man in America,--certainly not second to that
of his famous antagonist. He kept his temper; he was not prone to
personalities; he indulged in few anecdotes, and those of a decent
character; he was fair, frank, and manly; and, if the contest had shown
nothing else, it would have shown, at least, that "Old Abe" could behave
like a well-bred gentleman under very trying circumstances. His marked
success in these discussions was probably no surprise to the people of
the Springfield District, who knew him as well as, or better than, they
did Mr. Douglas. But in the greater part of the State, and throughout
the Union the series of brilliant victories successively won by an
obscure man over an orator of such wide experience and renown was
received with exclamations of astonishment, alike by listeners and
readers. It is true that many believed, or pretended to believe, that he
was privately tutored and "crammed" by politicians of greater note
than himself; and, when the speeches were at last collected and printed
together, it was alleged that Mr. Lincoln's had been re-written or
extensively revised by Mr. Judd, Judge Logan, Judge Davis, or some one
else of great and conceded abilities.