The powerful will and effective energy of the young Senator had achieved
a legislative revolution. Perhaps, like Geethe's apprentice, he
had called into action powers of mischief which he would not be
able to control. With the instincts of the politician he had sought
to devise a fundamental principle to meet a passing exigency. He
had cooked his breakfast over the volcano.
The whole doctrine of popular sovereignty which became thenceforth
the central article in his creed did such violence both to law and
philosophy as to discredit the acumen of any statesman who seriously
believed it. It was a short lived doctrine, speedily repudiated
with disgust by the South, in whose interest it had been invented,
and rejected as a legal heresy by a Supreme Court of learned
advocates of slavery. It is hardly possible that Douglas believed
that Congress could delegate its highest duties and responsibilities
to a handful of chance squatters on the frontier. This doctrine,
to the establishment of which he devoted a great part of the remaining
energies of his life, "meant that Congress, which represented
the political wisdom of an educated people, should abdicate its
constitutional right of deciding a question which demanded the
most sagacious statesmanship in favor of a thousand, or perhaps
ten thousand, pioneers, adventurers and fortune seekers, who should
happen to locate in the Territory."
The proposition to give the squatters actual sovereignty in all things
was an evident reducto ad absurdium. And yet it was the inevitable
result of Douglas' reasoning. The only excuse for the existence
of territorial governments was that the inhabitants were not yet
ready for the duties of self-government. Squatter sovereignty rested
on the assumption that there was no such period of immaturity, and
hence no period in which territorial governments were justified.
The clear logic of the doctrine would entitle the first band of
squatters on the public domain to organize a State. But it was
a superficially plausible proposition that appealed with peculiar
power to the uncritical popular prejudice. The equality of men
and the right of self government were the central truths of the
American polity. The sentimental devotion to these two principles
was passionate and universal. A dogma that seemed to embody them
was a rare invention, the supreme feat of the highest order of
practical political genius.
But the omens were not good. People seemed absurdly in earnest
about this harmless political maneuver. Throughout the North rose
a storm of vehement protest, not merely from Abolitionists and Whigs
but from insurgent Democrats, which resulted in the consolidation
of the incoherent anti-slavery factions into the Republican party
and its early conquest of the Democratic States of the Northwest.
It developed later that the Northern Democracy was hopelessly ruined
by this political masterpiece of the greatest Northern Democrat.
Lincoln, who had been quietly maturing in modest retirement, was
roused by this shock and began that memorable battle with Douglas,
which finally lifted the obscure lawyer to heights above the great
Senator. A resolution endorsing the Nebraska bill was pushed through
the Illinois legislature with difficulty, several of the ablest
Democrats denouncing it bitterly. Other Northern legislatures either
protested against it or remained ominously silent. Throughout the
North pulpit and press thundered against the repeal with startling
disregard of party affiliations. Three thousand New England
clergymen sent a petition protesting against it "in the name of
Almighty God." The clergy of New York denounced it. The ministers
of Chicago and the Northwest sent to Douglas a remonstrance with
a request that he present it, which he did. He was deeply hurt
by the angry protests from the moral guides of the people. He
denounced the preachers for their ignorant meddling in political
affairs, and declared with great warmth that they had desecrated
the pulpit and prostituted the sacred desk to the miserable and
corrupting influence of party politics. He afterwards said in
bitter jest, "on my return home I traveled from Boston to Chicago
in the light of fires in which my own effigies were burning."
Congress adjourned early in August, but he lingered in the East and
not until late in the month did he return to meet his constituents.
The intensity of popular indignation at the North was a disagreeable
surprise to him. In Chicago the sentiment was openly and overwhelmingly
against him. It was dangerous, now that he had fought his way up
to the head of his party and seemed assured of the coveted nomination,
to permit himself to be discredited at home.
Four years before he had conquered the hostile city by a speech,
and he resolved again to subdue its insurgent spirit. Meetings of
disgusted Democrats and indignant Whigs had been held to denounce
him. He had been burned in effigy on the streets. He had been
charged with loitering in the East afraid to meet the people whom
he had betrayed. The changes were rung on the fact that his middle
name was that of the traitor, Benedict Arnold. When he entered the
city the flags on building and vessels were hanging mournfully at
half-mast. At sunset the bells were tolled solemnly. It was truly
a funereal reception. Arrangements were made for him to address
the people on the night of September 1st in vindication of himself.
The meeting was held in the large open space in front of North
Market Hall. The crowd was enormous and ominously sullen. The
roofs, windows and balconies of all adjacent buildings were occupied.
There was not a cheer, except from a little band of friends in
front of him, as at nearly eight o'clock he rose to speak.
The memorable scene which followed illustrates how small is the
interval that separates the most advanced civilization from the
grossest barbarism. He began his speech, but was soon interrupted
by a storm of hisses and groans, growing louder and louder until it
seemed that the whole enormous throng was pouring out its execration
in a mingled hiss and groan. He waited with defiant calmness for the
storm to subside and again attempted to speak. He told them with
manifest vexation that he had returned home to address his constituents
and defend his course and that he intended to be heard. Again he
was interrupted by the overwhelming hiss, mingled with groans and
coarse insults. His friends fiercely threatened to resent the
outrage, but he prudently restrained them. He then began to shout
defiance and rebukes at the mob. His combative temper was stirred.
He shook his head and brandished his fists at the jeering crowd.
His friends importuned him to desist, but he pushed them aside and
again and again returned to the attack with stentorian tones and
vehement gestures, striving to outvoice the wild tumult and compel
an audience.
But they were as resolute as he and persistently drowned his
shouting. This continued nearly three hours. At half-past ten,
baffled, mortified and angry, he withdrew. One admiring biographer
declares that he yelled to the mob as a parting valediction,
"Abolitionists of Chicago, it is now Sunday morning. I will go to
church while you go to the devil in your own way." The irrepressible
conflict was approaching the muscular stage of its development,
when the aroused passions of the people must find some other vent
than words, when the game of politics could no longer be safely
played with the strongest emotions of a deeply moral race.
It was not possible to treat the matter lightly. Evidently a tide
of fanatical passion had set against him, not only in the old North,
but in the new Northwest, the field of his undisputed mastery.
It was necessary to bestir himself in earnest and turn back this
rising flood which threatened to engulf him just as he came in sight
of his goal. The symptoms were decidedly bad. The elections thus
far held indicated a surprising revolt against his new Democratic
gospel of popular sovereignty. As the autumn advanced the omens
grew worse. New Hampshire and Connecticut had already manifested
their disapproval. Iowa, hitherto staunchly Democratic, was
carried by the Whigs. The later New England elections showed the
most amazing Democratic defection. Pennsylvania elected to Congress
twenty-one pronounced opponents of popular sovereignty and slavery
extension. Ohio and Indiana had both cast their votes for Pierce.
But at this election Ohio rejected the revised Democratic platform
by 75,00 and Indiana by 13,000.
After his rebuff in Chicago he plunged into the Illinois campaign,
which was fought on the Kansas-Nebraska issue. In the northern
part of the State his receptions were chilly and his audiences
unfriendly, sometime indulging in boisterous demonstrations
of hostility. "Burning effigies, effigies suspended by robes,
banners with all the vulgar mottoes and inscriptions that passion
and prejudice could suggest, were displayed at various points.
Whenever he attempted to speak, the noisy demonstrations which had
proved so successful in Chicago were repeated."
But as he moved southward the people became more cordial. The great
center of political activity was Springfield, where the State Fair,
lasting through the first week of October, attracted thousands of
people, and the politicians assembled to make speeches and plan
campaigns. He spoke on October 3rd at the State House. The most
important matter pending was the choice of the legislature which
should elect a Senator to succeed his colleague Shields, who was
a candidate for reelection. The opposition was a heterogeneous
compound of Whigs, anti-Nebraska Democrats and all other political
elements opposed to the revised Democratic creed. The leading
candidates of this fusion party for Senator were Lyman Trumbull,
a Democrat opposed to the new program of slavery extension, and
Abraham Lincoln, the recognized leader of the Whig party of the
State. It was expected that Lincoln would answer Douglas on the
following day.
This political tourney held in the little Western Capital was
in many ways a rather notable event. The great question of human
slavery had now definitely passed from the region of mere moral
disquisition into that of active statesmanship. It had become the
decisive practical problem of the time, the attempt to solve which
was revolutionizing party politics and sweeping away the political
philosophy of the past. The opinions of men on this question
were determining their associations and directing their conduct,
regardless of minor matters, which are now forgotten. The South
was united for the support and extension of slavery. The North
was tending to unity in the resolve to prevent its further spread.
Already the new generation of Southern statesmen were plotting to
divide the Union and were bent on extending the slave holding States
across the continent, believing that when the separation occurred,
California would join the Southern Confederation and thus give
them a Republic extending from ocean to ocean and controlling the
mouth of the Mississippi.
The first step in this plan had already been taken by opening to
slavery the Territory of Kansas, which then contained a large part
of Colorado. The remaining task of pushing their western border
on to the Pacific seemed comparatively easy. Already treason was
festering in the heart of the South, but Douglas, now the most
powerful ally of these plotting traitors, was entirely devoted to
the Union. He neither felt nor thought deeply on any question. The
symptoms of coming revolution were merely disclosures of political
strategy to him. The South held out the bait of the Presidency,
and he led its battle. In his attachment to the Union and his
subordination of both morals and statecraft to its preservation as
the supreme end, he was a faithful echo of the great statesmen of
the preceding age. But a generation of statesmen had appeared in
the North with a large and growing following who were reluctantly
reaching the conclusion that the primary rights of man were even
more sacred than the Union. Political expediency was not their
ultimate test of right.
Lincoln, though yet comparatively obscure, was destined soon to become
the leader of this new school of ethical statesmen, as distinguished
from the old school of political temporizers and opportunists
to which Douglas belonged. Lincoln, as Douglas well knew, was a
man of finer intellectual gifts than any of the great senatorial
triumvirate whom he had successfully met. His moral feelings were
tuned to as high a key as Sumner's. He had a firmer grasp of the
central truths of the new politico-moral creed than Chase. He
had more tact and sagacity than Seward. He had more patience with
temporary error, more serene faith in the health and sanity of human
nature than any of the three. He was a greater master of the art
of popular oratory than any of them. Above all he had the power,
dangerous to Douglas, of seizing the most ingenious and artfully
concealed sophism and good naturedly dragging it to the light.
Endowed with the most exuberant flow of genial humor, he was yet
sternly earnest in his belief in the inviolable sanctity of moral
right. During his recent years he had read much and thought deeply.
He had mastered a style rarely equaled in clearness, simplicity
and power. Without the prejudices and entanglements of a past
political career, he entered the arena in the ripeness of his
slow-maturing powers. Not only his temperament and intellect but
his experience and training admirably fitted him for the high task
which he was destined to perform.
When Douglas opened his speech at the State House, he unconsciously
lent new importance to Lincoln by announcing that he understood
that he was to answer him, and requesting him to come forward and
arrange terms for the debate. But Lincoln was not present and he
plunged into his argument, defending the Kansas-Nebraska bill, his
own course and that of his party. Lincoln spoke the next day and
among his most eager listeners was Douglas, who occupied a seat in
front and was generously invited to reply. The speech, four hours
long, was an agreeable surprise to Lincoln's friends, a startling
revelation to Douglas and an astonishing event to the crowd, who
recognized in the awkward country lawyer a dangerous antagonist for
the great Senator, the incomparable master of the art of political
debate. He realized that this obscure adversary had clutched him
with a power never felt in his great struggles with the giants
of the Senate. He indicated his sense of the importance of the
contest by devoting two hours to a reply. The chief interest of
this meeting now is in the new prominence which it gave to Lincoln.
The long duel lasted intermittently through four years, and finally
gave Lincoln such fame that he was chose over Seward and Chase to
lead the anti-slavery forces which they had roused from lethargy
and organized into unity.
The Illinois campaign continued with great spirit and Douglas had
the mortification of seeing what he regarded as a wave of fanaticism
engulf the State. The anti-Nebraska fusion carried the legislature,
defeated Shields and, after a brief contest between Trumball, the
anti-Nebraska Democrat, and Lincoln, the anti-slavery Whig, elected
the former Senator.