NORTH AND SOUTH
The Ordinance of 1787 established that slavery should never exist in any
part of that vast northwestern territory which had then lately been
ceded by sundry States to the Confederation. This Ordinance could not be
construed otherwise than as an integral part of the transaction of
cession, and was forever unalterable, because it represented in a
certain way a part of the consideration in a contract, and was also in
the nature of a declaration of trust undertaken by the Congress of the
Confederation with the granting States. The article "was agreed to
without opposition;" but almost contemporaneously, in the sessions of
that convention which framed the Constitution, debate waxed hot upon the
topic which was then seen to present grave obstacles to union. It was
true that many of the wisest Southerners of that generation regarded the
institution as a menacing misfortune; they however could not ignore the
fact that it was a "misfortune" of that peculiar kind which was endured
with much complacency by those afflicted by it; and it was equally
certain that the great body of slave-owners would resent any effort to
relieve them of their burden. Hence there were placed in the
Constitution provisions in behalf of slavery which involved an admission
that the institution needed protection, and should receive it. The idea
of protection implied the existence of hostility either of men or of
circumstances, or of both. Thus by the Ordinance and the Constitution,
taken together, there was already indirectly recognized an antagonism
between the institutions, interests, and opinions of the South and those
of the North.
Slowly this feeling of opposition grew. The first definite mark of the
growth was the struggle over the admission of Missouri, in 1820. This
was settled by the famous "Compromise," embodied in the Act of March 6,
1820, whereby the people of the Territory of Missouri were allowed to
frame a state government with no restriction against slavery; but a
clause also enacted that slavery should never be permitted in any part
of the remainder of the public territory lying north of the parallel of
36° 30'. By its efficiency during thirty-four years of constantly
increasing strain this legislation was proved to be a remarkable
political achievement; and as the people saw it perform so long and so
well a service so vital they came to regard it as only less sacred than
the Constitution itself. Even Douglas, who afterward led in repealing
it, declared that it had an "origin akin to the Constitution," and that
it was "canonized in the hearts of the American people as a sacred
thing." Yet during the long quietude which it brought, each section
kept a jealous eye upon the other; and especially was the scrutiny of
the South uneasy, for she saw ever more and more plainly the disturbing
truth that her institution needed protection. Being in derogation of
natural right, it was peculiarly dependent upon artificial sustention;
the South would not express the condition in this language, but acted
upon the idea none the less. It was true that the North was not
aggressive towards slavery, but was observing it with much laxity and
indifference; that the crusading spirit was sleeping soundly, and even
the proselyting temper was feeble. But this state of Northern feeling
could not relieve the South from the harassing consciousness that
slavery needed not only toleration, but positive _protection_ at the
hands of a population whose institutions were naturally antagonistic to
the slave idea. This being the case, she must be alarmed at seeing that
population steadily outstripping her own in numbers and wealth.[61]
Since she could not possibly even hold this disproportion stationary,
her best resource seemed to be to endeavor to keep it practically
harmless by maintaining a balance of power in the government. Thus it
became unwritten law that slave States and free States must be equal in
number, so that the South could not be outvoted in the Senate. This
system was practicable for a while, yet not a very long while; for the
North was filling up that great northwestern region, which was eternally
dedicated to freedom, and full-grown communities could not forever be
kept outside the pale of statehood. On the other hand, apart from any
question of numbers, the South could make no counter-expansion, because
she lay against a foreign country. After a time, however, Texas
opportunely rebelled against Mexico, and then the opportunity for
removing this obstruction was too obvious and too tempting to be lost. A
brief period of so-called independence on the part of Texas was followed
by the annexation of her territory to the United States,[62] with the
proviso that from her great area might in the future be cut off still
four other States. Slavery had been abolished in all Mexican territory,
and Texas had been properly a "free" country; but in becoming a part of
the United States she became also a slave State.
Mexico had declared that annexation of Texas would constitute a _casus
belli_, yet she was wisely laggard in beginning vindictive hostilities
against a power which could so easily whip her, and she probably never
would have done so had the United States rested content with an honest
boundary line. But this President Polk would not do, and by theft and
falsehood he at last fairly drove the Mexicans into a war, in which they
were so excessively beaten that the administration found itself able to
gather more plunder than it had expected. By the treaty of peace the
United States not only extended unjustly the southwestern boundary of
Texas, but also got New Mexico and California. To forward this result,
Polk had asked the House to place $2,000,000 at his disposal. Thereupon,
as an amendment to the bill granting this sum, Wilmot introduced his
famous proviso, prohibiting slavery in any part of the territory to be
acquired. Repeatedly and in various shapes was the substance of this
proviso voted upon, but always it was voted down. Though New Mexico had
come out from under the rule of despised Mexico as "free" country, a
contrary destiny was marked out for it in its American character. A
plausible suggestion was made to extend the sacred line of the Missouri
Compromise westward to the Pacific Ocean; and very little of the new
country lay north of that line. By all these transactions the South
seemed to be scoring many telling points in its game. They were definite
points, which all could see and estimate; yet a price, which was
considerable, though less definite, less easy to see and to estimate,
had in fact been paid for them; for the antagonism of the rich and
teeming North to the Southern institution and to the Southern policy for
protecting it had been spread and intensified to a degree which involved
a menace fully offsetting the Southern territorial gain. One of the
indications of this state of feeling was the organization of the "Free
Soil" party.
Almost simultaneously with this important advancement of the Southern
policy there occurred an event, operative upon the other side, which
certainly no statesman could have foreseen. Gold was discovered in
California, and in a few months a torrent of immigrants poured over the
land. The establishment of an efficient government became a pressing
need. In Congress they debated the matter hotly; the friends of the
Wilmot proviso met in bitter conflict the advocates of the westward
extension of the line of 36° 30'. Neither side could prevail, and amid
intense excitement the Thirtieth Congress expired. For the politicians
this was well enough, but for the Californians organization was such an
instant necessity that they now had to help themselves to it. So they
promptly elected a Constitutional Convention, which assembled on
September 1, 1849, and adjourned on October 13. Though this body held
fifteen delegates who were immigrants from slave States, yet it was
unanimous in presenting a Constitution which prohibited slavery, and
which was at once accepted by a popular vote of 12,066 yeas against 811
nays.
Great then was the consternation of the Southern leaders when
Californian delegates appeared immediately upon the assembling of the
Thirty-first Congress, and asked for admission beneath this unlooked-for
"free" charter of statehood. The shock was aggravated by the fact that
New Mexico, actually instigated thereto by the slaveholding President
Taylor himself, was likely to follow close in the Californian
foot-tracks. The admission of Texas had for a moment disturbed the
senatorial equilibrium between North and South, which, however, had
quickly been restored by the admission of Wisconsin. But the South had
nothing to offer to counterbalance California and New Mexico, which were
being suddenly filched from her confident expectation. In this emergency
those extremists in the South who offset the Abolitionists at the North
fell back upon the appalling threat of disunion, which could hardly be
regarded as an idle extravagance of the "hotspurs," since it was
substantially certain that the Senate would never admit California with
her anti-slavery Constitution; and thus a real crisis seemed at hand.
Other questions also were cast into the seething caldron. Texas, whose
boundaries were as uncertain as the ethics of politicians, set up a
claim which included nearly all New Mexico, and so would have settled
the question of slavery for that region at least. Further, the South
called for a Fugitive Slave Law sufficiently stringent to be
serviceable. Also, in encountering the Wilmot proviso, Southern
statesmen had asserted the doctrine, far-reaching and subversive of
established ideas and of enacted laws, that Congress could not
constitutionally interfere with the property-rights of citizens of the
United States in the Territories, and that slaves were property. Amid
such a confused and violent hurly-burly the perplexed body of
order-loving citizens were, with reason, seriously alarmed.
To the great relief of these people and to the equal disgust of the
extremist politicians, Henry Clay, the "great compromiser," was now
announced to appear once more in the rôle which all felt that he alone
could play. He came with much dramatic effect; an aged and broken man,
he emerged from the retirement in which he seemed to have sought a brief
rest before death should lay him low, and it was with an impressive air
of sadness and of earnestness that he devoted the last remnants of his
failing strength to save a country which he had served so long. His
friends feared that he might not survive even a few months to reach the
end of his patriotic task. On January 29, 1850, he laid before the
Senate his "comprehensive scheme of adjustment." But it came not as oil
upon the angry waters; every one was offended by one or another part of
it, and at once there opened a war of debate which is among the most
noteworthy and momentous in American history. Great men who belonged to
the past and great men who were to belong to the future shared in the
exciting controversies, which were prolonged over a period of more than
half a year. Clay was constantly on his feet, doing battle with a voice
which gained rather than lost force from its pathetic feebleness. "I am
here," he solemnly said, "expecting soon to go hence, and owing no
responsibility but to my own conscience and to God." Jefferson Davis
spoke for the extension westward of the Missouri Compromise line to the
Pacific Ocean, with a proviso positively establishing slavery south of
that line. Calhoun, from the edge of the grave, into which only a few
weeks later he was to fall, once more faced his old adversaries. On
March 4 he sat beside Mason of Virginia, while that gentleman read for
him to a hushed audience the speech which he himself was too weak to
deliver. Three days later Webster uttered that speech which made the
seventh day of March almost as famous in the history of the United
States as the Ides of the same month had been in that of Rome. In the
eyes of the anti-slavery men of New England the fall of Webster was
hardly less momentous than the fall of Caesar had appeared in the
Eternal City. Seward also spoke a noteworthy speech, bringing upon
himself infinite abuse by his bold phrase, _a higher law than the
Constitution_. Salmon P. Chase followed upon the same side, in an
exalted and prophetic strain. In that momentous session every man gave
out what he felt to be his best, while anxious and excited millions
devoured every word which the newspapers reported to them.
Clay had imprudently gathered the several matters of his Compromise into
one bill, which was soon sneeringly nicknamed "the Omnibus Bill." It was
sorely harassed by amendments, and when at last, on July 31, the Omnibus
reached the end of its journey, it contained only one passenger, viz., a
territorial government for Utah. Its trip had apparently ended in utter
failure. But a careful study of individual proclivities showed that not
improbably those measures might be passed one by one which could not be
passed in combination. In this hope, five several bills, being all the
ejected contents of the Omnibus, were brought forward, and each in turn
had the success which had been denied to them together. First: Texas
received $10,000,000, and for this price magnanimously relinquished her
unfounded claim upon New Mexico. Second: California was admitted as a
free State. Third: New Mexico was organized as a Territory, with the
proviso that when she should form a state constitution the slavery
question should be determined by the people, and that during her
territorial existence the question of property in a slave should be left
undisturbed by congressional action, to be determined by the Supreme
Court of the United States. Fourth: A more efficient Fugitive Slave Law
was passed. Fifth: Slave trading in the District of Columbia was
abolished. Such were the terms of an arrangement in which every man saw
so much which he himself disliked that he felt sure that others must be
satisfied. Each plumed himself on his liberality in his concessions
nobly made in behalf of public harmony. "The broad basis," says von
Holst, "on which the compromise of 1850 rested, was the conviction of
the great majority of the people, both North and South, that it was
fair, reasonable, and patriotic to come to a friendly understanding."
Thus in the midsummer of 1850 did the nation, with intense relief, see
the imminent disaster of civil discord averted,--or was it only
postponed? It was ominous that no men who were deeply in earnest in
public affairs were sincerely satisfied. The South saw no gain which
offset the destruction of the balance of power by the admission of
California. Thinking men at the North were alarmed at the recognition of
the principle of non-intervention by Congress concerning slavery in the
Territories, a principle which soon, under the seductive title of
"popular sovereignty" in the Territories, threatened even that partial
restriction heretofore given by the Missouri Compromise. Neither party
felt sufficiently secure of the strength of its legal position to be
altogether pleased at seeing the doctrine of treating the slave in the
Territories as "property" cast into the lottery of the Supreme Court.
Lincoln recognized the futility of this whole arrangement, and said
truly that the slavery question could "never be successfully
compromised." Yet he accepted the situation, with the purpose of making
of it the best that was possible. The mass of the people, less
far-sighted, were highly gratified at the passing of the great danger;
refused to recognize that a more temporary compromise was never patched
up to serve a turn; and applauded it so zealously that in preparing for
the presidential campaign of 1852 each party felt compelled to declare
emphatically--what all wise politicians knew to be false--the "finality"
of the great Compromise of 1850. Never, never more was there to be a
revival of the slavery agitation! Yet, at the same time, it was
instinctively felt that the concord would cease at once if the nation
should not give to the South a Democratic President! In this campaign
Lincoln made a few speeches in Illinois in favor of Scott; but Herndon
says that they were not very satisfactory efforts. Franklin Pierce was
chosen, and slavery could have had no better man.
This doctrine of non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the
Territories lay as the seed of mortal disease imbedded in the vitals of
the great Compromise even at the hour of its birth. All the howlings of
the political medicine-men in the halls of Congress, and in the wigwams
where the party platforms were manufactured, could not defer the
inevitable dissolution. The rapid peopling of the Pacific coast already
made it imperative to provide some sort of governmental organization for
the sparsely inhabited regions lying between these new lands and the
fringe of population near the Mississippi. Accordingly bills were
introduced to establish as a Territory the region which was afterward
divided between Kansas and Nebraska; but at two successive sessions they
failed to pass, more, as it seemed, from lack of interest than from any
open hostility. In the course of debate it was explained, and not
contradicted, that slavery was not mentioned in the bills because the
Missouri Compromise controlled that matter. Yet it was well known that
the Missouri Compromise was no longer a sure barrier; for one wing of
the pro-slavery party asserted that it was unconstitutional on the
ground that slaves, being property, could not be touched in the
Territories by congressional enactments; while another wing of the party
preferred the plausible cry of "popular sovereignty," than which no
words could ring truer in American ears; and no one doubted that, in
order to give that sovereignty full sway, they would at any convenient
moment vote to repeal even the "sacred" Compromise. It could not be
denied that this was the better course, if it were practicable; and
accordingly, January 16, 1854, Senator Dixon of Kentucky offered an
amendment to the pending Nebraska bill, which substantially embodied the
repeal. In the Senate Douglas was chairman of the Committee on
Territories, and was induced to coöperate.[63] January 23, 1854, he
introduced his famous "Kansas-Nebraska bill," establishing the two
Territories and declaring the Missouri Compromise "inoperative" therein.
A later amendment declared the Compromise to be "inconsistent with the
principle of non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the States and
Territories, as recognized by the legislation of 1850," and therefore
"inoperative and void; it being the true intent and meaning of this Act
not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to 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." After a long and hard fight the bill was passed with
this clause in it, which Benton well stigmatized as a "stump speech
injected into the belly of the bill." The insertion of the word State
was of momentous significance.
This repeal set the anti-slavery party all ablaze. Among the rest
Lincoln was fired with strenuous indignation, and roused from the
condition of apparent indifference to public affairs in which he had
rested since the close of his term in Congress. Douglas, coming home in
the autumn, was so disagreeably received by an angry audience in Chicago
that he felt it imperative to rehabilitate his stricken popularity. This
difficult task he essayed at the great gathering of the State Fair in
October. But Lincoln was put forward to answer him, and was brilliantly
successful in doing so, if the highly colored account of Mr. Herndon may
be trusted. Immediately after Lincoln's close, Owen Lovejoy, the
Abolitionist leader, announced "a meeting in the same place that evening
of all the friends of freedom." The scheme was to induce Lincoln to
address them, and thus publicly to commit him as of their faith. But the
astute Herndon, though himself an Abolitionist, felt that for Lincoln
personally this was by no means desirable. So he hastened to Lincoln and
strenuously said: "Go home at once! Take Bob with you, and drive
somewhere into the country, and stay till this thing is over;" and
Lincoln did take Bob and drove away to Tazewell Court House "on
business." Herndon congratulates himself upon having "saved Lincoln,"
since either joining, or refusing to join, the Abolitionists at that
time would have been attended with "great danger." Lincoln had upon his
own part a wise instinct and a strong purpose to keep hard by Douglas
and to close with him as often as opportunity offered. Soon afterward
the two encountered again, and on this occasion it is narrated that
Lincoln gave Douglas so much trouble that Douglas cried for a truce,
proposing that neither of them should make any more speeches that
autumn, to which Lincoln good-naturedly assented.
During this winter Lincoln was elected to the state legislature, but
contrary to his own wish. For he designed to be a candidate for the
United States Senate, and there might be a question as to his
eligibility if he remained a member of the electing body. Accordingly he
resigned his seat, which, to his surprise and chagrin, was immediately
filled by a Democrat; for there was a reaction in Sangamon County. On
February 8, 1855, the legislature began voting to elect a senator. The
"Douglas Democrats" wished to reelect Shields, the present incumbent.
The first ballot stood, Lincoln, 45, Shields, 41, Lyman Trumbull, 5,
scattering, 5 (or, according to other authority, 8). After several
ballots Shields was thrown over in favor of a more "practicable"
candidate, Governor Matteson, a "quasi-independent," who, upon the ninth
ballot, showed a strength of 47, while Trumbull had 35, Lincoln had run
down to 15, and "scattering" caught 1. Lincoln's weakness lay in the
fact that the Abolitionists had too loudly praised him and publicly
counted him as one of themselves. For this reason five Democrats,
disgusted with Douglas for his attack on the Missouri Compromise, but
equally bitter against Abolitionism, stubbornly refused ever to vote for
a Whig, above all a Whig smirched by Abolitionist applause. So it seemed
that Owen Lovejoy and his friends had incumbered Lincoln with a fatal
handicap. The situation was this: Lincoln could count upon his fifteen
adherents to the extremity; but the five anti-Douglas Democrats were
equally stanch against him, so that his chance was evidently gone.
Trumbull was a Democrat, but he was opposed to the policy of Douglas's
Kansas-Nebraska bill; his following was not altogether trustworthy, and
a trifling defection from it seemed likely to occur and to make out
Matteson's majority. Lincoln pondered briefly; then, subjecting all else
to the great principle of "anti-Nebraska," he urged his friends to
transfer their votes to Trumbull. With grumbling and reluctance they did
so, and by this aid, on the tenth ballot, Trumbull was elected. In a
letter to Washburne, Lincoln wrote: "I think you would have done the
same under the circumstances, though Judge Davis, who came down this
morning, declares he never would have consented to the 47 men being
controlled by the 5. I regret my defeat moderately, but am not nervous
about it." If that was true which was afterwards so frequently
reiterated by Douglas during the campaign of 1858, that a bargain had
been struck between Lincoln and Trumbull, whereby the former was to
succeed Shields and the latter was to succeed Douglas at the election
two years later, then Lincoln certainly displayed on this occasion a
"generosity" which deserves more than the very moderate praise which has
been given it, of being "above the range of the mere politician's
vision."[64]
An immediate effect of this repealing legislation of 1854 was to cast
Kansas into the arena as booty to be won in fight between anti-slavery
and pro-slavery. For this competition the North had the advantage that
its population outnumbered that of the South in the ratio of three to
two, and emigration was in accord with the habits of the people. Against
this the South offset proximity, of which the peculiar usefulness soon
became apparent. Then was quickly under way a fair fight, in a certain
sense, but most unfairly fought. Each side contended after its fashion;
Northern anti-slavery merchants subscribed money to pay the expenses of
free-state immigrants. "Border ruffians" and members of "Blue Lodges"
and of kindred fraternities came across the border from Missouri to
take a hand in every politico-belligerent crisis. The parties were
not unequally matched; by temperament the free-state men were inclined
to orderly and legitimate ways, yet they were willing and able to fight
fire with fire. On the other hand, the slave-state men had a native
preference for the bowie-knife and the shot-gun, yet showed a kind of
respect for the ballot-box by insisting that it should be stuffed with
votes on their side. Thus for a long while was waged a dubious, savage,
and peculiar warfare. Imprisonments and rescues, beatings, shootings,
plunderings, burnings, sieges, and lootings of towns were interspersed
with elections of civil officers, with legislative enactments in
ordinary form, with trials, suits at law, legal arguments, and decisions
of judges. It is impossible here to sketch in detail this strange
phantasmagory of arson, bloodshed, politics, and law.
[Illustration: Lyman Trumbull]
Meantime other occurrences demand mention. In May, 1854, the seizure in
Boston of Anthony Burns, as an escaped slave, caused a riot in which the
court-house was attacked by a mob, one of the assailants was killed, and
the militia were called out. Other like seizures elsewhere aroused the
indignation of people who, whatever were their abstract theories as to
the law, revolted at the actual spectacle of a man dragged back from
freedom into slavery. May 22, 1856, Preston S. Brooks strode suddenly
upon Charles Sumner, seated and unarmed at his desk in the
senate-chamber, and beat him savagely over the head with a cane,
inflicting very serious injuries. Had it been a fair fight, or had the
South repudiated the act, the North might have made little of it, for
Sumner was too advanced in his views to be politically popular. But,
although the onslaught was even more offensive for its cowardice than
for its brutality, nevertheless the South overwhelmed Brooks with
laudation, and by so doing made thousands upon thousands of Republican
votes at the North. The deed, the enthusiastic greeting, and the angry
resentment marked the alarming height to which the excitement had risen.
The presidential campaign of the following summer, 1856, showed a
striking disintegration and re-formation of political groups. Nominally
there were four parties in the field: Democrats, Whigs, Native Americans
or Know-Nothings, and Republicans. The Know-Nothings had lately won some
state elections, but were of little account as a national organization,
for they stood upon an issue hopelessly insignificant in comparison with
slavery. Already many had gone over to the Republican camp; those who
remained nominated as their candidates Millard Fillmore and Andrew J.
Donelson. The Whigs were the feeble remnant of a really dead party, held
together by affection for the old name; too few to do anything by
themselves, they took by adoption the Know-Nothing candidates. The
Republican party had been born only in 1854. Its members, differing on
other matters, united upon the one doctrine, which they accepted as a
test: opposition to the extension of slavery. They nominated John C.
Fremont and William L. Dayton, and made a platform whereby they declared
it to be "both the right and the duty of Congress to prohibit in the
Territories those twin relics of barbarism, polygamy and slavery;" by
which vehement and abusive language they excited the bitter resentment
of the Southern Democracy. In this convention 110 votes were cast for
Lincoln for the second place on the ticket. Lamon tells the little story
that when this was told to Lincoln he replied that he could not have
been the person designated, who was, doubtless, "the great Lincoln from
Massachusetts."[65] In the Democratic party there were two factions. The
favorite candidate of the South was Franklin Pierce, for reëlection,
with Stephen A. Douglas as a substitute or second choice; the North more
generally preferred James Buchanan, who was understood to be displeased
with the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The struggle was sharp, but
was won by the friends of Buchanan, with whom John C. Breckenridge was
coupled. The campaign was eager, for the Republicans soon developed a
strength beyond what had been expected and which put the Democrats to
their best exertions. The result was
| Popular vote | Electoral vote
-------------------------+--------------+---------------
Democrats. | 1,838,169 | 174
Republicans. | 1,341,264 | 114
Know-Nothings and Whigs. | 874,534 | 8
Thus James Buchanan became President of the United States, March 4,
1857,--stigmatized somewhat too severely as "a Northern man with
Southern principles;" in fact an honest man and of good abilities, who,
in ordinary times, would have left a fair reputation as a statesman of
the second rank; but a man hopelessly unfit alike in character and in
mind either to comprehend the present emergency or to rise to its
demands.[66] Yet, while the Democrats triumphed, the Republicans enjoyed
the presage of the future; they had polled a total number of votes which
surprised every one; on the other hand, the Democrats had lost ten
States[67] which they had carried in 1852 and had gained only two
others,[68] showing a net loss of eight States; and their electoral
votes had dwindled from 254 to 174.
On the day following Buchanan's inauguration that occurred which had
been foreshadowed with ill-advised plainness in his inaugural address.
In the famous case of Dred Scott,[69] the Supreme Court of the United
States established as law the doctrine lately advanced by the Southern
Democrats, that a slave was "property," and that his owner was entitled
to be protected in the possession of him, as such, in the Territories.
This necessarily demolished the rival theory of "popular sovereignty,"
which the Douglas Democrats had adopted, not without shrewdness, as
being far better suited to the Northern mind. For clearly the people
enjoyed no sovereignty where they had no option. Consequently in the
Territories there was no longer a slavery question. The indignation of
anti-slavery men of all shades of opinion was intense, and was
unfortunately justifiable. For wholly apart from the controversy as to
whether the law was better expounded by the chief justice or by Judge
Curtis in his dissenting opinion, there remained a main fact, undeniable
and inexcusable, to wit: that the court, having decided that the lower
court had no jurisdiction, and being therefore itself unable to remand
the cause for a new trial, had then outstepped its own proper function
and outraged legal propriety by determining the questions raised by the
rest of the record,--questions which no longer had any real standing
before this tribunal. This course was well known to have been pursued
with the purpose on the part of the majority of the judges to settle by
judicial authority, and by a _dictum_ conspicuously _obiter_, that great
slavery question with which Congress had grappled in vain. It was a
terrible blunder, for the people were only incensed by a volunteered and
unauthorized interference. Moreover, the reasoning of Chief Justice
Taney was such that the Republicans began anxiously to inquire why it
was not as applicable to States as to Territories, and why it must not
be extended to States when occasion should arrive; and in this
connection it seemed now apparent why "States" had been named in the
bill which repealed the Missouri Compromise.[70] In spite of this menace
the struggle in Kansas was not slackened. Time had been counting heavily
in favor of the North. Her multitudinous population ceaselessly fed the
stream of immigrants, and they were stubborn fellows who came to stay,
and therefore were sure to wear out the persistence of the
boot-and-saddle men from over the Missouri border. Accordingly, in 1857,
the free-state men so vastly outnumbered the slavery contingent, that
even pro-slavery men had to acknowledge it. Then the slavery party made
its last desperate effort. Toward the close of that year the Lecompton
Constitution was framed by a convention chosen at an election in which
the free-state men, perhaps unwisely, had refused to take part. When
this pro-slavery instrument was offered to the people, they were not
allowed to vote simply Yea or Nay, but only "for the Constitution with
slavery," or "for the Constitution with no slavery." Again the
free-state men refrained from voting, and on December 21, 6,143 ballots
were declared to have been cast "for the Constitution with slavery," and
589 "for the Constitution with no slavery." Much more than one third of
the 6,143 were proved to be fraudulent, but the residue far exceeded the
requisite majority. January 4, 1858, state officers were to be chosen,
and now the free-state men decided to make an irregular opportunity to
vote, in their turn, simply for or against the Lecompton Constitution.
This time the pro-slavery men, considering the matter already lawfully
settled, refused to vote, and the result was that this polling showed
10,226 against the Constitution, 138 for the Constitution with slavery,
24 for the Constitution without slavery. It is an instance of Lincoln's
political foresight that nearly two years and a half before this
condition of affairs came about he had written: "If Kansas fairly votes
herself a slave State, she must be admitted, or the Union must be
dissolved. But how if she votes herself a slave State unfairly?... Must
she still be admitted, or the Union be dissolved? That will be the phase
of the question when it first becomes a practical one."[71]
The struggle was now transferred to Washington. President Buchanan had
solemnly pledged himself to accept the result of the popular vote. Now
he was confronted by two popular votes, of which the one made somewhat
the better technical and formal showing, and the other undeniably
expressed the true will of a large majority of lawful voters. He
selected the former, and advised Congress to admit Kansas under the
Lecompton Constitution with slavery. But Douglas took the other side.
The position of Douglas in the nation and in the Democratic party
deserves brief consideration, for in a way it was the cause of Lincoln's
nomination as the Republican candidate for the presidency in 1860. From
1852 to 1860 Douglas was the most noteworthy man in public life in the
country. Webster, Clay, and Calhoun had passed away. Seward, Chase, and
Sumner, still in the earlier stages of their brilliant careers, were
organizing the great party of the future. This interval of eight years
belonged to Douglas more than to any other one man. He had been a
candidate for the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 1852 and
again in 1856; and had failed to secure it in part by reason of that
unwritten rule whereby the leading statesmen are so often passed over,
in order to confer the great prize upon insignificant and therefore
presumably submissive men. Douglas was not of this type; he had high
spirit, was ambitious, masterful, and self-confident; he was also an
aggressive, brilliant, and tireless fighter in a political campaign, an
orator combining something of the impressiveness of Webster with the
readiness and roughness of the stump speaker. He had a thorough
familiarity with all the politics, both the greater and the smaller, of
the time; he was shrewd and adroit as a politician, and he had as good a
right as any man then prominent in public life to the more dignified
title of statesman. He had the art of popularity, and upon sufficient
occasion could be supple and accommodating even in the gravest matters
of principle. He had always been a Democrat. He now regarded himself as
properly the leader of the Democratic party; and of course he still
aimed at the high office which he had twice missed.[72] With this object
in view, he had gone very far to retain his hold upon the South. He told
Southerners that by his happy theory of "popular sovereignty" he had
educated the public mind, and accomplished the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise. When the Dred Scott decision took the life out of his
"popular sovereignty," he showed his wonted readiness in adapting
himself to the situation. To the triumphant South he graciously admitted
the finality of a decision which sustained the most extreme Southern
doctrine. To the perturbed and indignant North he said cheeringly that
the decision was of no practical consequence whatsoever! For every one
knew that slavery could not exist in any community without the aid of
friendly legislation; and if any anti-slavery community should by its
anti-slavery legislature withhold this essential friendly legislation,
then slavery in that State might be lawful but would be impossible. So,
he said, there is still in fact "popular sovereignty."[73] When the
pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution came up for consideration Douglas
decided not to rest content with the form of popular approval, but to
stand out for the substance. He quarreled with Buchanan, and in an angry
interview they exchanged threats and defiance. Douglas felt himself the
greater man of the two in the party, and audaciously indicated something
like contempt for the rival who was not leader but only President.
Conscience, if one may be allowed gravely to speak of the conscience of
a professional politician, and policy were in comfortable unison in
commending this choice to Douglas. For his term as senator was to expire
in 1858, and reëlection was not only in itself desirable, but seemed
essential to securing the presidency in 1860. Heretofore Illinois had
been a Democratic State; the southern part, peopled by immigrants from
neighboring slave States, was largely pro-slavery; but the northern
part, containing the rapidly growing city of Chicago, had been filled
from the East, and was inclined to sympathize with the rest of the
North. Such being the situation, an avowal of Democratic principles,
coupled with the repudiation of the Lecompton fraud, seemed the shrewd
and safe course in view of Douglas's political surroundings, also the
consistent, or may we say honest, course in view of his antecedent
position. If, in thus retaining his hold on Illinois, he gave to the
Southern Democracy an offense which could never be forgotten or
forgiven, this misfortune was due to the impracticable situation and not
to any lack of skillful strategy on his part. In spite of him the bill
passed the Senate, but in the House twenty-two Northern Democrats went
over to the opposition, and carried a substitute measure, which
established that the Lecompton Constitution must again be submitted to
popular vote. Though this was done by the body of which Douglas was not
a member, yet every one felt that it was in fact his triumph over the
administration. A Committee of Conference then brought in the "English
bill." Under this the Kansans were to vote, August 3, 1858, either to
accept the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution, with the _douceur_ of a
land grant, or to reject it. If they accepted it, the State was to be
admitted at once; if they rejected it, they were not to be admitted
until the population should reach the number which was required for
electing a member to the House of Representatives. At present the
population was far short of this number, and therefore rejection
involved a long delay in acquiring statehood. Douglas very justly
assailed the unfairness of a proposal by which an anti-slavery vote was
thus doubly and very severely handicapped; but the bill was passed by
both Houses of Congress and was signed by the President. The Kansans,
however, by an enormous majority,[74] rejected the bribes of land and
statehood in connection with slavery. For his action concerning the
Lecompton Constitution and the "English bill" Douglas afterward took
much credit to himself.
Such was the stage of advancement of the slavery conflict in the
country, and such the position of Douglas in national and in state
politics, when there took place that great campaign in Illinois which
made him again senator in 1858, and made Lincoln President in 1860.
FOOTNOTES:
[61] For a striking comparison of the condition of the South with that
of the North in 1850, see von Holst's _Const. Hist. of U.S._ v. 567-586.
[62] December, 1845.
[63] For a description of Douglas's state of mind, see N. and H. i.
345-351, quoting original authorities.
[64] N. and H. i. 388.
[65] Thus when John Adams first landed in Europe, and was asked whether
he was "the great Mr. Adams," he said: No, the great Mr. Adams was his
cousin, Samuel Adams of Boston.
[66] For a fair and discriminating estimate of Buchanan, see Blaine,
_Twenty Years in Congress_, vol. i. ch. x., especially pp. 239-241.
[67] Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Ohio,
Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, all for Fremont; Maryland for Fillmore.
[68] Tennessee and Kentucky.
[69] Dred Scott, plff. in error, _vs._ Sandford, Sup. Ct. of U.S. Dec.
Term, 1856, 19 Howard, 393. After the conclusion of this case Scott was
given his freedom by his master.
[70] _Ante_, pp. 94, 95.
[71] August 24, 1855; Holland, 145.
[72] For a good sketch of Douglas, see Elaine, _Twenty Years of
Congress_, i. 144.
[73] This doctrine was set forth by Douglas in a speech at Springfield,
Ill., June 12, 1857. A fortnight later, June 26, at the same place,
Lincoln answered this speech. N. and H. ii. 85-89.
[74] By 11,300 against 1,788, August 2, 1858. Kansas was admitted as a
State at the close of January, 1861, after many of the Southern States
had already seceded.