Review (_continued_).--Continuance of the Struggle for Kansas.--
List of Governors.--Robert J. Walker appointed Governor by President
Buchanan.--His Failure.--The Lecompton Constitution fraudulently
adopted.--Its Character.--Is transmitted to Congress by President
Buchanan.--He recommends the Admission of Kansas under its Provisions.
--Pronounces Kansas a Slave State.--Gives Full Scope and Effect to
the Dred Scott Decision.--Senator Douglas refuses to sustain the
Lecompton Iniquity.--His Political Embarrassment.--Breaks with the
Administration.--Value of his Influence against Slavery in Kansas.
--Lecompton Bill passes the Senate.--Could not be forced through
the House.--The English Bill substituted and passed.--Kansas spurns
the Bribe.--Douglas regains his Popularity with Northern Democrats.
--Illinois Republicans bitterly hostile to him.--Abraham Lincoln
nominated to contest the Re-election of Douglas to the Senate.--
Lincoln challenges Douglas to a Public Discussion.--Character of
Each as a Debater.--They meet Seven Times in Debate.--Douglas re-
elected.--Southern Senators arraign Douglas.--His Defiant Answer.
--Danger of Sectional Division in the Democratic Party.
The Dred Scott decision, in connection with the Democratic triumph
in the national election, had a marked effect upon the struggle
for Kansas. The pro-slavery men felt fresh courage for the work,
as they found themselves assured of support from the administration,
and upheld by the dogmas of the Supreme Court. The Territory thus
far had been one continued scene of disorder and violence. For
obvious reasons, the administration of President Pierce had selected
its governors from the North, and each, in succession, failed to
placate the men who were bent on making Kansas a slave State.
Andrew H. Reeder, Wilson Shannon, John W. Geary, had, each in turn,
tried, and each in turn failed. Mr. Buchanan now selected Robert
J. Walker for the difficult task. Mr. Walker was a Southern man
in all his relations, though by birth a Pennsylvanian. He had held
high stations, and possessed great ability. It was believed that
he, if any one, could govern the Territory in the interest of the
South, and, at the same time, retain a decent degree of respect
and confidence in the North. As an effective aid to this policy,
Frederick P. Stanton, who had acquired an honorable reputation as
representative in Congress from Tennessee, was sent out as secretary
of the Territory.
THE LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION.
Governor Walker failed. He could do much, but he could not placate
an element that was implacable. Contrary to his desires, and
against his authority, a convention, called by the fraudulent
Legislature, and meeting at Lecompton, submitted a pro-slavery
constitution to the people, preparatory to asking the admission of
Kansas as a State. The people were not permitted to vote for or
against the constitution, but were narrowed to the choice of taking
the constitution with slavery or the constitution without slavery.
If the decision should be adverse to slavery, there were still some
provisions in the constitution, not submitted to popular decision,
which would postpone the operation of the free clause. The whole
contrivance was fraudulent, wicked, and in retrospect incredible.
Naturally the Free-state men refused to have any thing to do with
the scandalous device, intended to deceive and betray them. The
constitution with slavery was, therefore, adopted by an almost
unanimous vote of those who were not citizens of Kansas. Many
thousands of votes were returned which were never cast at all,
either by citizens of Kansas or marauders from Missouri. It is
not possible, without using language that would seem immoderate,
to describe the enormity of the whole transaction. The constitution
no more represented the will or the wishes of the people of Kansas
than of the people of Ohio or Vermont.
Shameful and shameless as was the entire procedure, it was approved
by Mr. Buchanan. The Lecompton Constitution was transmitted to
Congress, accompanied by a message from the President recommending
the prompt admission of the State. He treated the anti-slavery
population of Kansas as in rebellion against lawful authority,
recognized the invaders from Missouri as rightfully entitled to
form a constitution for the State, and declared that "Kansas is at
this moment (Feb. 2, 1858) as much a slave State as Georgia or
South Carolina." The Dred Scott decision occupied a prominent
place in this extraordinary message and received the most liberal
interpretation in favor of slavery. The President declared that
"it has been solemnly adjudged by the highest judicial tribunal
known to our laws that slavery exists in Kansas by virtue of the
Constitution of the United States." This was giving the fullest
scope to the extreme and revolting doctrine put forward by the
advocates of slavery, and, had it been made effective respecting
the Territories, there are many reasons for believing that a still
more offensive step might have been taken respecting the anti-
slavery action of the States.
The attempt to admit Kansas, under the Lecompton Constitution,
proved disastrous to the Democratic party. The first decided break
was that of Senator Douglas. He refused to sustain the iniquity.
He had gone far with the pro-slavery men, but he refused to take
this step. He had borne great burdens in their interest, but this
was the additional pound that broke the back of his endurance.
When the Dred Scott decision was delivered, Mr. Douglas had applauded
it, and, as Mr. Lincoln charged, had assented to it before it was
pronounced. With his talent for political device, he had doubtless
contrived some argument or fallacy by which he could reconcile that
judicial edict with his doctrine of "popular sovereignty," and thus
maintain his standing with the Northern Democracy without losing
his hold on the South. But events traveled too rapidly for him.
The pro-slavery men were so eager for the possession of Kansas that
they could not adjust their measures to the needs of Mr. Douglas's
political situation. They looked at the question from one point,
Mr. Douglas from another. They saw that if Kansas could be forced
into the Union with the Lecompton Constitution they would gain a
slave State. Mr. Douglas saw that if he should aid in that political
crime he would lose Illinois. It was more important to the South
to secure Kansas as a slave State than to carry Illinois for Mr.
Douglas. It was more important for Mr. Douglas to hold Illinois
for himself than to give the control of Kansas to the South.
Indeed, his Northern friends had been for some time persuaded that
his only escape from the dangerous embarrassments surrounding him
was in the admission of Kansas as a free State. If the Missouri
Compromise had not been repealed, a free State was assured. If
Kansas should become a slave State in consequence of that repeal,
it would, in the excited condition of the popular mind, crush
Douglas in the North, and bring his political career to a discreditable
end.
Mr. Douglas had come, therefore, to the parting of the ways. He
realized that he was rushing on political destruction, and that,
if he supported the vulgar swindle perpetrated at Lecompton, he
would be repudiated by the great State which had exalted him and
almost idolized him as a political leader. He determined, therefore,
to take a bold stand against the administration on this issue. It
was an important event, not only to himself, but to his party; not
only to his party, but to the country. Rarely, in our history,
has the action of a single person been attended by a public interest
as universal; by applause so hearty in the North, by denunciation
so bitter in the South. In the debate which followed, Douglas
exhibited great power. He had a tortuous record to defend, but he
defended it with extraordinary ability and adroitness. From time
to time, during the progress of the contest, he was on the point
of yielding to some compromise which would have destroyed the
heroism and value of his position. But he was sustained by the
strong will of others when he himself wavered--appalled, as he
often was, by the sacrifice he was making of the Southern support,
for which he had labored so long, and endured so much.
SENATOR BRODERICK'S DEATH.
Senator Broderick of California imparted largely of his own courage
and enthusiasm to Douglas at the critical juncture, and perhaps
saved him from a surrender of his proud position. Throughout the
entire contest Broderick showed remarkable vigor and determination.
Considering the defects of his intellectual training in early life,
he displayed unusual power as a political leader and public speaker.
He was a native of Washington, born of Irish parents, and was
brought up to the trade of a stone-mason. He went to California
among the pioneers of 1849, and soon after took part in the fierce
political contests of the Pacific coast. Though a Democrat, he
instinctively took the Northern side against the arrogant domination
of the Southern wing of the party, led by William H. Gwin. Broderick
was elected to the United States Senate as Gwin's colleague in
1856, and at once joined Douglas in opposition to the Lecompton
policy of the administration. His position aroused fierce hostility
on the part of the Democratic leaders of California. The contest
grew so bitter in the autumn of 1859, when Broderick was canvassing
his State, as to lead to a duel with Judge Terry, a prominent
Democrat of Southern birth. Broderick was killed at the first
fire. The excitement was greater in the country than ever attended
a duel, except when Hamilton fell at the hands of Burr in 1804.
The Graves and Cilley duel of 1838, with its fatal ending, affected
the whole nation, but not so profoundly as did the death of Broderick.
The oration of Senator Baker, delivered in San Francisco at the
funeral, so stirred the people that violence was feared. The bloody
tragedy influenced political parties, and contributed in no small
degree to Lincoln's triumph in California the ensuing year.
In the peculiar position in which Douglas was placed, still
maintaining his membership of the Democratic party while opposing
the administration on the Lecompton question, he naturally resorted
to arguments which were not always of a character to enlist the
approval of men conscientiously opposed to slavery. The effect of
the arguments, however, was invaluable to those who were resisting
the imposition of slavery upon Kansas against the wish of a majority
of her people, and Republicans could be content with the end without
justifying the means. Douglas frankly avowed that he did not care
whether slavery was voted up or voted down, but he demanded that
an honest, untrammeled ballot should be secured to the citizens of
the Territory. Without the aid of Douglas, the "Crime against
Kansas," so eloquently depicted by Mr. Sumner, would have been
complete. With his aid, it was prevented.
The Lecompton Bill passed the Senate by a vote of 33 to 25. Besides
Broderick, Douglas carried with him only two Democratic senators,
--Stuart of Michigan, and Pugh of Ohio. The two remaining members
of the old Whig party from the South, who had been wandering as
political orphans since the disastrous defeat of 1852,--Bell of
Tennessee, and Crittenden of Kentucky,--honored themselves and the
ancient Whig traditions by voting against the bill. In view of
the events of the preceding four years, it was a significant
spectacle in the Senate when Douglas voted steadily with Seward
and Sumner and Fessenden and Wade against the political associations
of a lifetime. It meant, to the far-seeing, more than a temporary
estrangement, and it foretold results in the political field more
important than any which had been developed since the foundation
of the Republican party.
The resistance to the Lecompton Bill in the House was unconquerable.
The Administration could not, with all its power and patronage,
enforce its passage. Anxious to avert the mortification of an
absolute and unqualified defeat, the supporters of the scheme
changed their ground, and offered a new measure, moved by Mr.
William H. English of Indiana, submitting the entire constitution
to a vote of the people. If adopted, the constitution carried with
it a generous land grant to the new State. If rejected, the
alternative was not only the withdrawal of the land grant, but
indefinite postponement of the whole question of admission. It
was simply a bribe, cunningly and unscrupulously contrived, to
induce the people of Kansas to accept a pro-slavery constitution.
It was not so outrageous as it would have been to force the
constitution upon the people without allowing them to vote upon it
at all, and it gave a shadow of excuse to certain Democrats, who
did not wish to separate from their party, for returning to the
ranks. The bill was at last forced through the House by 112 votes
to 103. Twelve Democrats, to their honor be it said, refused to
yield. Douglas held all his political associates from Illinois,
while the President failed to consolidate the Democrats from
Pennsylvania. John Hickman and Henry Chapman honorably and
tenaciously held their ground to the last against every phase of
the outrage. In New York, John B. Haskin and Horace F. Clarke
refused to yield, though great efforts were made to induce them to
support the administration. The Senate promptly concurred in the
English proposition.
LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION REJECTED.
But Kansas would not sell her birthright for a mess of pottage.
She had fought too long for freedom to be bribed to the support of
slavery. She had at last a free vote, and rejected the Lecompton
Constitution, land grant and all, by a majority of more than ten
thousand. The struggle was over. The pro-slavery men were defeated.
The North was victorious. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise
had not brought profit or honor to those who planned it. It had
only produced strife, anger, heart-burning, hatred. It had added
many drops to the cup of bitterness between North and South, and
had filled it to overflowing. It produced evil only, and that
continually. The repeal, in the judgment of the North, was a great
conspiracy against human freedom. In the Southern States it was
viewed as an honest effort to recover rights of which they had been
unjustly deprived. Each section held with firmness to its own
belief, and the four years of agitation had separated them so widely
that a return to fraternal feeling seemed impossible. Confidence,
the plant of slowest growth, had been destroyed. Who could restore
it to life and strength?
Douglas had, in large degree, redeemed himself in the North from
the obloquy to which he had been subjected since the repeal of the
Missouri Compromise. The victory for free Kansas was perhaps to
an undue extent ascribed to him. The completeness of that victory
was everywhere recognized, and the lawless intruders who had worked
so hard to inflict slavery on the new Territory gradually withdrew.
In the South, Douglas was covered with maledictions. But for his
influence, Southern men felt that Kansas would have been admitted
with a pro-slavery constitution, and the senatorial equality of
the South firmly re-established. Northern Republicans, outside of
Illinois, were in a forgiving frame of mind toward Douglas; and he
had undoubtedly regained a very large share of his old popularity.
But Illinois Republicans were less amiable towards him. They would
not forget that he had broken down an anti-slavery barrier which
had been reared with toil and sanctified by time. He had not, as
they alleged, turned back from any test exacted by the South, until
he had reached the point where another step forward involved
political death to himself. They would not credit his hostility
to the Lecompton Constitution to any nobler motive than the instinct
of self-preservation. This was a harsh judgment, and yet a most
natural one. It inspired the Republicans of Illinois, and they
prepared to contest the return of Douglas to the Senate by formally
nominating Abraham Lincoln as an opposing candidate.
The contest that ensued was memorable. Douglas had an herculean
task before him. The Republican party was young, strong, united,
conscious of its power, popular, growing. The Democratic party
was rent with faction, and the Administration was irrevocably
opposed to the return of Douglas to the Senate. He entered the
field, therefore, with a powerful opponent in front, and with
defection and betrayal in the rear. He was everywhere known as a
debater of singular skill. His mind was fertile in resources. He
was master of logic. No man perceived more quickly than he the
strength or the weakness of an argument, and no one excelled him
in the use of sophistry and fallacy. Where he could not elucidate
a point to his own advantage, he would fatally becloud it for his
opponent. In that peculiar style of debate, which, in its intensity,
resembles a physical contest, he had no equal. He spoke with
extraordinary readiness. There was no halting in his phrase. He
used good English, terse, vigorous, pointed. He disregarded the
adornments of rhetoric,--rarely used a simile. He was utterly
destitute of humor, and had slight appreciation of wit. He never
cited historical precedents except from the domain of American
politics. Inside that field his knowledge was comprehensive,
minute, critical. Beyond it his learning was limited. He was not
a reader. His recreations were not in literature. In the whole
range of his voluminous speaking it would be difficult to find
either a line of poetry or a classical allusion. But he was by
nature an orator; and by long practice a debater. He could lead
a crowd almost irresistibly to his own conclusions. He could, if
he wished, incite a mob to desperate deeds. He was, in short, an
able, audacious, almost unconquerable opponent in public discussion.
LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS AS DEBATERS.
It would have been impossible to find any man of the same type able
to meet him before the people of Illinois. Whoever attempted it
would probably have been destroyed in the first encounter. But
the man who was chosen to meet him, who challenged him to the
combat, was radically different in every phase of character.
Scarcely could two men be more unlike, in mental and moral
constitutions, than Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas. Mr.
Lincoln was calm and philosophic. He loved the truth for the
truth's sake. He would not argue from a false premise, or be
deceived himself or deceive others by a false conclusion. He had
pondered deeply on the issues which aroused him to action. He had
given anxious thought to the problems of free government, and to
the destiny of the Republic. He had for himself marked out a path
of duty, and he walked in it fearlessly. His mental processes were
slower but more profound than those of Douglas. He did not seek
to say merely the thing which was best for that day's debate, but
the thing which would stand the test of time and square itself with
eternal justice. He wished nothing to appear white unless it was
white. His logic was severe and faultless. He did not resort to
fallacy, and could detect it in his opponent, and expose it with
merciless directness. He had an abounding sense of humor, and
always employed it in illustration of his argument,--never for the
mere sake of provoking merriment. In this respect he had the
wonderful aptness of Franklin. He often taught a great truth with
the felicitous brevity of an AEsop fable. His words did not flow
in an impetuous torrent as did those of Douglas, but they were
always well chosen, deliberate, and conclusive.
Thus fitted for the contest, these men proceeded to a discussion
which at the time was so interesting so as to enchain the attention
of the nation,--in its immediate effect so striking as to affect
the organization of parties, in its subsequent effect so powerful
as to change the fate of millions. Mr. Lincoln had opened his own
canvass by a carefully prepared speech in which, after quoting the
maxim that a house divided against itself cannot stand, he uttered
these weighty words: "I believe this government cannot endure
permanently half slave, 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 the 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."
Mr. Lincoln had been warned by intimate friends to whom he had
communicated the contents of his speech, in advance of its delivery,
that he was treading on dangerous ground, that he would be
misrepresented as a disunionist, and that he might fatally damage
the Republican party by making its existence synonymous with a
destruction of the government. But he was persistent. It was
borne into his mind that he was announcing a great truth, and that
he would be wronging his own conscience, and to the extent of his
influence injuring his country, by withholding it, or in any degree
qualifying its declaration. If there was a disposition to avoid
the true significance of the contest with the South, he would not
be a party to it. He believed he could discern the scope and read
the destiny of the impending sectional controversy. He was sure
he could see far beyond the present, and hear the voice of the
future. He would not close the book; he would not shut his eyes;
he would not stop his ears. He avowed his faith, and stood firmly
to his creed.
Mr. Douglas naturally, indeed inevitably, made his first and leading
speech against these averments of Mr. Lincoln. He had returned to
Illinois, after the adjournment of Congress, with a disturbed and
restless mind. He had one great ambition,--to re-instate himself
as a leader of the national Democracy, and, as incidental and
necessary to that end, to carry Illinois against Mr. Lincoln. The
issue embodied in Mr. Lincoln's speech afforded him the occasion
which he had coveted. His quick eye discerned an opportunity to
exclude from the canvass the disagreeable features in his own
political career by arraigning Mr. Lincoln as an enemy of the Union
and as an advocate of an internecine conflict in which the free
States and the slave States should wrestle in deadly encounter.
Douglas presented his indictment artfully and with singular force.
The two speeches were in all respects characteristic. Each had
made a strong presentation of his case, but the superior candor
and directness of Mr. Lincoln had made a deep impression on the
popular mind.
THE LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS DEBATE.
In the seven public debates which were held as the result of these
preliminary speeches, the questions at issue were elaborately and
exhaustively treated. The friends of each naturally claimed the
victory for their own champion. The speeches were listened to by
tens of thousands of eager auditors; but absorbing, indeed
unprecedented, as was the interest, the vast throngs behaved with
moderation and decorum. The discussion from beginning to end was
an amplification of the position which each had taken at the outset.
The arguments were held close to the subject, relating solely to
the slavery question, and not even incidentally referring to any
other political issue. Protection, free trade, internal improvements,
the sub-treasury, all the issues, in short, which had divided
parties for a long series of years, and on which both speakers
entertained very decided views, were omitted from the discussion.
The public mind saw but one issue; every thing else was irrelevant.
At the first meeting, Douglas addressed a series of questions to
Mr. Lincoln, skillfully prepared and well adapted to entrap him in
contradictions, or commit him to such extreme doctrine as would
ruin his canvass. Mr. Lincoln's answers at the second meeting,
held at Freeport, were both frank and adroit. Douglas had failed
to gain a point by his resort to the Socratic mode of argument.
He had indeed only given Mr. Lincoln an opportunity to exhibit both
his candor and his skill. After he had answered, he assumed the
offensive, and addressed a series of questions to Mr. Douglas which
were constructed with the design of forcing the latter to an
unmistakable declaration of his creed. Douglas had been a party
to the duplex construction of the Cincinnati platform of 1856, in
which the people of the South had been comforted with the doctrine
that slavery was protected in the Territories by the Constitution
against the authority of Congress and against the power of the
Territorial citizens, until the period should be reached, when,
under an enabling act to form a constitution for a State government,
the majority might decide the question of slavery. Of this doctrine
Mr. Breckinridge was the Southern representative, and he had for
that very reason been associated with Mr. Buchanan on the Presidential
ticket. On the other hand, the North was consoled, it would not
be unfair to say cajoled, with the doctrine of popular sovereignty
as defined by Mr. Douglas; and this gave to the people of the
Territories the absolute right to settle the question of slavery
for themselves at any time. The doctrine had, however, been utterly
destroyed by the Dred Scott decision, and, to the confusion of all
lines of division and distinction, Mr. Douglas had approved the
opinion of the Supreme Court.
Douglas had little trouble in making answer in an _ad captandum_
manner to all Mr. Lincoln's questions save one. The crucial test
was applied when Mr. Lincoln asked him "if the people of a Territory
can, in any lawful way, against the wishes of any citizen of the
United States, exclude slavery from their limits prior to the
formation of a State constitution?" In the first debate, when
Douglas had the opening, he had, in the popular judgment, rather
worsted Mr. Lincoln. His greater familiarity with the arts if not
the tricks of the stump had given him an advantage. But now Mr.
Lincoln had the opening, and he threw Mr. Douglas upon the defensive
by the question which reached the very marrow of the controversy.
Mr. Lincoln had measured the force of his question, and saw the
dilemma in which it would place Douglas. Before the meeting he
said, in private, that "Douglas could not answer that question in
such way as to be elected both Senator and President. He might so
answer it as to carry Illinois, but, in doing so, he would
irretrievably injure his standing with the Southern Democracy."
Douglas quickly realized his own embarrassment. He could not, in
the face of the Supreme-Court decision, declare that the people of
the Territory could exclude slavery by direct enactment. To admit,
on the other hand, that slavery was fastened upon the Territories,
--past all hope of resistance or protest on the part of a majority
of the citizens--would be to concede the victory to Mr. Lincoln
without further struggle. Between these impossible roads Douglas
sought a third. He answered that, regardless of the decision of
the Supreme Court, "the people of a Territory have the lawful means
to introduce or exclude slavery as they choose, for the reason that
slavery cannot exist unless 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,
by unfriendly legislation, effectually prevent the introduction."
This was a lame, illogical, evasive answer; but it was put forth
by Douglas with an air of sincerity and urged in a tone of defiant
confidence. It gave to his supporters a plausible answer. But
Mr. Lincoln's analysis of the position was thorough, his ridicule
of it effective. Douglas's invention for destroying a right under
the Constitution by a police regulation was admirably exposed, and
his new theory that a thing "may be lawfully driven away from a
place where it has a lawful right to go" was keenly reviewed by
Mr. Lincoln. The debate of that day was the important one of the
series. Mr. Lincoln had secured an advantage in the national
relations of the contest which he held to the end. At the same
time Douglas had escaped a danger which threatened his destruction
in the State canvass, and secured his return to the Senate. As to
the respective merits of the contestants, it would be idle to expect
an agreement among contemporary partisans. But a careful reading
of the discussion a quarter of a century after it was held will
convince the impartial that in principle, in candor, in the enduring
force of logic, Mr. Lincoln had the advantage. It is due to fairness
to add that probably not another man in the country, with the
disabilities surrounding his position, could have maintained himself
so ably, so fearlessly, so effectively, as Douglas.
BUCHANAN'S OPPOSITION TO DOUGLAS.
Douglas was aided in his canvass by the undisguised opposition of
the administration. The hostility of President Buchanan and his
Southern supporters was the best possible proof to the people of
Illinois that Douglas was representing a doctrine which was not
relished by the pro-slavery party. The courage with which he fought
the administration gave an air of heroism to his canvass and prestige
to his position. It secured to him thousands of votes that would
otherwise have gone to Mr. Lincoln. For every vote which the
administration was able to withhold from Douglas, it added five to
his supporters. The result of the contest was, that, while Douglas
was enabled to secure a majority of eight in the Legislature in
consequence of an apportionment that was favorable to his side,
Mr. Lincoln received a plurality of four thousand in the popular
vote. In a certain sense, therefore, each had won a victory, and
each had incurred defeat. But the victory of Douglas and the means
by which it was won proved to be his destruction in the wider field
of his ambition. Mr. Lincoln's victory and defeat combined in the
end to promote his political fortunes, and to open to him the
illustrious career which followed.
This debate was not a mere incident in American politics. It marked
an era. Its influence and effect were co-extensive with the
Republic. It introduced a new and distinct phase in the controversy
that was engrossing all minds. The position of Douglas separated
him from the Southern Democracy, and this, of itself, was a fact
of great significance. The South saw that the ablest leader of
the Northern Democracy had been compelled, in order to save himself
at home, to abjure the very doctrine on which the safety of slave
institutions depended. The propositions enunciated by Douglas in
answer to the questions of Mr. Lincoln, in the Freeport debate,
were as distasteful to the Southern mind as the position of Mr.
Lincoln himself. Lincoln advocated a positive inhibition of slavery
by the General Government. Mr. Douglas proposed to submit Southern
rights under the Constitution to the decision of the first mob or
rabble that might get possession of a Territorial legislature, and
pass a police regulation hostile to slavery. Against this construction
of the Constitution the South protested, and the protest carried
with it implacable hostility to Douglas.
The separation of the Democratic party into warring factions was,
therefore, inevitable. The line of division was the same on which
the Republican party had been founded. It was the North against
the South, the South against the North. The great mass of Northern
Democrats began to consolidate in support of Douglas as determinedly
as the mass of Northern Whigs had followed Seward. The Southern
Democrats began, at the same time, to organize their States against
Douglas. Until his break from the regular ranks in his opposition
to the Lecompton Constitution, Douglas had enjoyed boundless
popularity with his party in the South. In every slave State,
there was still a small number of his old supporters who remained
true to him. But the great host had left him. He could not be
trusted. He had failed to stand by the extreme faith; he had
refused to respond to its last requirement. Even at the risk of
permanently dissevering the Democratic party, the Southern leaders
resolved to destroy Douglas.
To this end, in the session of Congress following the debate with
Mr. Lincoln, the Democratic senators laid down, in a series of
resolutions, the true exposition of the creed of their party.
Douglas was not personally referred to, but the resolutions were
aimed so pointedly at what they regarded his heretical opinions,
that his name might as well have been incorporated. The resolutions
were adopted during the absence of Douglas from the Senate, on a
health-seeking tour, after his laborious canvass. With only the
dissenting vote of Mr. Pugh of Ohio among the Democrats, it was
declared that "neither Congress nor a territorial legislature,
whether by direct legislation, or legislation of an indirect or
unfriendly character, possesses the power to impair the right of
any citizen of the United States to take his slave property into
the common Territories, and there hold and enjoy the same while
the territorial condition exists." Not satisfied with this utter
destruction of the whole doctrine of popular sovereignty, the
Democratic senators gave one more turn to the wrench, by declaring
that if "the territorial government should fail or refuse to provide
adequate protection to the rights of the slave-holder, it will be
the duty of Congress to supply such deficiency." The doctrine thus
laid down by the Democratic senators was, in plain terms, that the
territorial legislature might protect slavery, but could not prohibit
it; and that even the Congress of the United States could only
intervene on the side of bondage, and never on the side of freedom.
DOUGLAS AND THE SOUTHERN DEMOCRACY.
Anxious as Douglas was to be re-established in full relations with
his party, he had not failed to see the obstacles in his way. He
now realized that a desperate fight was to be made against him;
that he was to be humiliated and driven from the Democratic ranks.
The creed laid down by the Southern senators was such as no man
could indorse without forfeiting his political life in free States.
Douglas did not propose to rush on self-destruction to oblige the
Democracy of the slave States; nor was he of the type of men who,
when the right cheek is smitten, will meekly turn the other for a
second blow. When his Democratic associates in the Senate proceeded
to read him out of the party, they apparently failed to see that
they were reading the Northern Democracy out with him. Jefferson
Davis and Judah P. Benjamin might construct resolutions adapted to
the latitude of the Gulf, and dragoon them through the Senate, with
aid and pressure from Buchanan's administration; but Douglas
commanded the votes of the Northern Democracy, and to the edict of
a pro-slavery caucus he defiantly opposed the solid millions who
followed his lead in the free States.
Without wrangling over the resolutions in the Senate, Douglas made
answer to the whole series in a public letter of June 22, 1859, in
which he said that "if it shall become the policy of the Democratic
party to repudiate their time-honored principles, and interpolate
such new issues as the revival of the African slave-trade, or the
doctrine that the Constitution carries slavery into the Territories
beyond the power of the people to legally control it as other
property," he would not "accept a nomination for the Presidency if
tendered him." The aggressiveness of Southern opinion on the
slavery question was thus shown by Douglas in a negative or indirect
view. It is a remarkable fact, that, in still another letter,
Douglas argued quite elaborately against the revival of the African
slave-trade, which he believed to be among the designs of the most
advanced class of pro-slavery advocates. So acute a statesman as
Douglas could not fail to see, that, at every step of his controversy
with Southern Democrats, he was justifying the philosophy of Lincoln
when he maintained that the country was to become wholly free, or
wholly under the control of the slave power.
The controversy thus precipitated between Douglas and the South
threatened the disruption of the Democratic party. That was an
event of very serious significance. It would bring the conflict
of sections still nearer by sundering a tie which had for so long
a period bound together vast numbers from the North and the South
in common sympathy and fraternal co-operation. Even those who were
most opposed to the Democratic party beheld its peril with a certain
feeling of regret not unmixed with apprehension. The Whig party
had been destroyed; and its Northern and Southern members, who,
but a few years before, had worked harmoniously for Harrison, for
Clay, for Taylor, were now enrolled in rival and hostile organizations.
A similar dissolution of the Democratic party would sweep away the
only common basis of political action still existing for men of
the free States and men of the slave States. The separation of
the Methodist church into Northern and Southern organizations, a
few years before, had been regarded by Mr. Webster as a portent of
evil for the Union. The division of the Democratic party would be
still more ominous. The possibility of such an event showed how
deeply the slavery question had affected all ranks,--social,
religious, and political. It showed, too, how the spirit of Calhoun
now inspired the party in whose councils the slightest word of
Jackson had once been law. This change, beginning with the defeat
of Van Buren in 1844, was at first slow; but it had afterwards
moved so rapidly and so far, that men in the North, who wished to
remain in the ranks of the Democracy, were compelled to trample on
the principles, and surrender the prejudices, of a lifetime.
Efforts to harmonize proved futile. In Congress the breach was
continually widening.
FACTIONS OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.
The situation was cause of solicitude, and even grief, with thousands
to whom the old party was peculiarly endeared. The traditions of
Jefferson, of Madison, of Jackson, were devoutly treasured; and
the splendid achievements of the American Democracy were recounted
with the pride which attaches to an honorable family inheritance.
The fact was recalled that the Republic had grown to its imperial
dimensions under Democratic statesmanship. It was remembered that
Louisiana had been acquired from France, Florida from Spain, the
independent Republic of Texas annexed, and California, with its
vast dependencies, and its myriad millions of treasure, ceded by
Mexico, all under Democratic administrations, and in spite of the
resistance of their opponents. That a party whose history was
inwoven with the glory of the Republic should now come to its end
in a quarrel over the status of the negro, in a region where his
labor was not wanted, was, to many of its members, as incomprehensible
as it was sorrowful and exasperating. They protested, but they
could not prevent. Anger was aroused, and men refused to listen
to reason. They were borne along, they knew not whither or by what
force. Time might have restored the party to harmony, but at the
very height of the factional contest the representatives of both
sections were hurried forward to the National Convention of 1860,
with principle subordinated to passion, with judgment displaced by
a desire for revenge.
[NOTE.--The following are the questions, referred to on p. 147,
which were propounded to Mr. Douglas by Mr. Lincoln in their debate
at Freeport. The popular interest was centred in the second
question.
_First_, 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?
_Second_, 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 prior to the formation of a State
Constitution?
_Third_, If the Supreme Court of the United States shall decide
that States cannot exclude slavery from their limits, are you in
favor or acquiescing in, adopting, and following such decision as
a rule of political action?
_Fourth_, Are you in favor of acquiring additional territory, in
disregard of how such acquisition may affect the nation on the
slavery question?]