LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS.
Though Lin-coln lost his e-lec-tion as Sen-a-tor he did not seem to
care. Doug-las was the choice, and Lin-coln went back to Spring-field
and took up his law work. This, too, all turned out well for Lin-coln
and the cause he loved, for had he been e-lect-ed Sen-a-tor he might
not have tak-en just the part he did in the work of help-ing to form
the Re-pub-li-can par-ty. While Lin-coln then gave much work to the
Law, he felt the stress of the times so much, and knew the great need
of help-ing the side of the right just then, that he did not go out
of pol-i-tics. He took an ac-tive in-ter-est in ev-er-y cam-paign and
wrote much to aid the cause.
It was in the cold months of 1855 that he went to a meet-ing of
Free-soil ed-i-tors at De-ca-tur, Ill., and then and there a move
was made to help on the new par-ty which was to do its best to stop
sla-ver-y from spread-ing. He worked ear-ly and late for the good of
this par-ty try-ing to make men of un-like views a-gree. He said his
wish was “to hedge a-gainst di-vis-ions,” and keep all straight to the
point of hold-ing back the spread of sla-ver-y.
Work as hard as he might for this great cause there were thou-sands who
did not think as Lin-coln did. They said he was wrong and should they
fol-low him the land would be in ru-ins and the Un-ion at an end. But
all this could not stop this good man, for he knew that he spoke the
truth, so threats, a-buse, and sneers could not stir him from his grand
work.
Be-fore this, in Ju-ly 1854, moves be-gan in man-y parts of the
North to form a new par-ty which should be a-gainst the spread of
sla-ver-y. So in June, 1856, most of the States sent del-e-gates to
Phil-a-del-phi-a and then and there the Re-pub-li-can par-ty was
formed. They chose John C. Fre-mont as their can-di-date for the
Pres-i-den-cy. Fre-mont was known as a brave ex-plor-er in the plains
of the West, and one who took part in the con-quest of Cal-i-for-ni-a.
There was, al-so, a par-ty called “The A-mer-i-can,” or “Know-noth-ing”
and they named as their choice, ex-Pres-i-dent Mil-lard Fill-more. This
par-ty grew fast two or three years and then came to an end. Its aim
was to keep men from o’er the sea out of of-fice and make them wait
more time ere they could vote. The theme of sla-ver-y then came to have
a new form and there was no room for oth-er de-bate.
The Dem-o-crat-ic par-ty met in Cin-cin-na-ti and named James
Bu-chan-an of Penn-syl-va-ni-a as their choice. Bu-chan-an was
e-lec-ted.
Ste-phen A. Doug-las thought he was sure of a nom-i-na-tion for that
same place. He had done much work for the men who held slaves but they
did not mean to re-ward him for what he had done.
[Illustration: STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS]
“Shall Kan-sas come in free or not?” was the ques-tion that, then, was
up-on the minds of thou-sands up-on thou-sands of the peo-ple of the
U-ni-ted States.
A-bra-ham Lin-coln, then, think-ing of the mil-lions of his fel-low-men
in sla-ver-y and of that slave-mar-ket in New Or-leans, which had
nev-er gone out of his mind, spoke, both in pub-lic and pri-vate, with
the force that e-ven he had ne’er used be-fore. He felt God’s time was
near at hand when those who had been bought and sold like beasts of the
field, should be set free. He did not then see just how it would be
done, but he said to a friend;
“Some-times when I am speak-ing I feel that the time is soon com-ing
when the sun shall shine and the rain fall on no man who shall go
forth to un-re-quit-ed toil. How it will come, I can-not tell; but that
time will sure-ly come!”
It was in March 1857, when Bu-chan-an had his in-au-gu-ral ad-dress all
writ-ten out with care, and he was read-y to take his seat as Chief in
the land, that he was told that a great step was a-bout to be tak-en by
the “Su-preme Court,” the high-est court of law in the land. It seems
that the jud-ges were then to de-cide in a case which dealt with the
rights of men who held slaves un-der the Con-sti-tu-tion.
Mr. Bu-chan-an thought it would be well to put a few words more in-to
his ad-dress, and these up-on the theme then brought up to him. So he
wrote that he hoped the steps that were to be tak-en would “for-ev-er
set-tle that vex-a-tious slave ques-tion.”
In a few days Rog-er B. Ta-ney of Ma-ry-land, Chief Jus-tice, gave the
peo-ple of the U-ni-ted States a great sur-prise in what he had to say
a-bout two slaves.
A sur-geon in the ar-my, Dr. Em-er-son, of St. Lou-is, owned Dred Scott
and his wife Har-ri-et. He took them to Rock Is-land, in I-o-wa, to
Fort Snell-ing, Min-ne-so-ta, and then back to St. Lou-is. As they
had been tak-en in-to a Free Ter-ri-to-ry the slaves made a claim
that they were en-ti-tled to their lib-er-ty un-der the com-mon law
of the coun-try. Five of the nine jud-ges of that court were from
the Slave States. Sev-en of the jud-ges were of the same mind that
the Con-sti-tu-tion “re-cog-nized slaves as prop-er-ty and noth-ing
more.” The jud-ges held that as the blacks were not and nev-er could be
cit-i-zens, they could not bring a suit in an-y court of the U-ni-ted
States. The claim of Dred and Har-ri-et Scott would have to be set-tled
by the Court of Mis-sou-ri. It was de-cid-ed that some laws made in
1820 and 1850 which could have helped the case of these two poor
blacks, were “un-con-sti-tu-tion-al,” not le-gal or so as to a-gree
with the law. They said all this showed, plain-ly, that a slave had
no more rights than a cow or pig, and that be-ing the case sla-ver-y
could not on-ly be in the Ter-ri-tor-ies, but just as well in the Free
States. This sort of be-lief up-set the i-de-as that Mr. Doug-las
taught, for he had told all to whom he made his great speech-es that
on-ly those who lived in a Ter-ri-to-ry had a right to say wheth-er
they would or would not have sla-ver-y.
Out of all these nine jud-ges there were but two who were brave, wise,
and just e-nough to hold to the point that it was up-on free-dom and
not up-on sla-ver-y that the na-tion had been found-ed. The names of
those two men were Mr. Cur-tis of Mas-sa-chu-setts, and Mr. Mc-Lean of
O-hi-o.
The peo-ple rose in great wrath at what the sev-en jud-ges had said.
With the blood of free-dom in their veins they plain-ly stat-ed that
those un-just jud-ges had “de-cid-ed” what they did in the in-ter-ests
of sla-ver-y.
The eyes of thou-sands of peo-ple o-pened. They saw now that there was
much hard work to be done if there were to be a “Free Kan-sas,” and
so they gave their votes and la-bor on the “free” side. Then when the
slave-hold-ers felt there were more folks who want-ed Kan-sas free,
they sent men from oth-er states in-to Kan-sas and this got in vast
num-bers of votes that had no right to be put in-to the bal-lot-box-es.
The two sets had con-ven-tions, the Free States at To-pe-ka and the
slave-hold-ers at Le-comp-ton. The pa-pers drawn up in these two
pla-ces were sent to Wash-ing-ton. In the cit-y there were men who did
their best to get Bu-chan-an to try to have Kan-sas made a state where
there could be slaves.
Then it was that Ste-phen A. Doug-las went to see Pres-i-dent
Bu-chan-an and have a talk with him. Doug-las was an-gry at what the
un-just jud-ges said. The Pres-i-dent said that he, him-self, was in
fa-vor of the Le-comp-ton pa-per, that for slaves in Kan-sas. Then
Doug-las told him that he should work a-gainst the views there held,
and Bu-chan-an told him that a Dem-o-crat could not have i-de-as that
would dif-fer from those held by the pres-i-dent and lead-ers of his
own par-ty, with-out be-ing crushed by them. So Doug-las went a-way.
He knew the slave pow-er would not for-give him for the stand he took,
but he al-so knew that if he did not work a-gainst hav-ing slaves in
Kan-sas he would lose his own re-e-lec-tion to the Se-nate.
So a new al-ly a-gainst the spir-it of sla-ver-y was gained, though
Doug-las did not work in the same har-ness as those who had formed the
new par-ty of which we have spok-en――the Re-pub-li-can.