THE REVOLT OF DOUGLAS
Had anyone prophesied at the close of the year 1856, that within a
twelvemonth Douglas would be denounced as a traitor to Democracy, he
would have been thought mad. That Douglas of all men should break with
his party under any circumstances was almost unthinkable. His whole
public career had been inseparably connected with his party. To be
sure, he had never gone so far as to say "my party right or wrong";
but that was because he had never felt obliged to make a moral choice.
He was always convinced that his party was right. Within the
circumference of party, he had always found ample freedom of movement.
He had never lacked the courage of his convictions, but hitherto his
convictions had never collided with the dominant opinion of Democracy.
He undoubtedly believed profoundly in the mission of his party, as an
organization standing above all for popular government and the
preservation of the Union. No ordinary circumstances would justify him
in weakening the influence or impairing the organization of the
Democratic party. Paradoxical as it may seem, his partisanship was
dictated by a profound patriotism. He believed the maintenance of the
Union to be dependent upon the integrity of his party. So thinking and
feeling he entered upon the most memorable controversy of his career.
When President Buchanan asked Robert J. Walker of Mississippi to
become governor of Kansas, the choice met with the hearty approval of
Douglas. Not all the President's appointments had been acceptable to
the Senator from Illinois. But here was one that he could indorse
unreservedly. He used all his influence to persuade Walker to accept
the uncoveted mission. With great reluctance Walker consented, but
only upon the most explicit understanding with the administration as
to the policy to be followed in Kansas. It was well understood on both
sides that a true construction of the Kansas-Nebraska Act required the
submission to popular vote of any constitution which the prospective
convention might adopt. This was emphatically the view of Douglas,
whom Governor Walker took pains to consult on his way through
Chicago.[621]
The call for an election of delegates to a constitutional convention
had already been issued, when Walker reached Kansas. The free-State
people were incensed because the appointment of delegates had been
made on the basis of a defective census and registration; and even the
assurance of the governor, in his inaugural, that the constitution
would be submitted to a popular vote, failed to overcome their
distrust. They therefore took no part in the election of delegates.
This course was unfortunate, for it gave the control of the convention
wholly into the hands of the pro-slavery party, with consequences that
were far-reaching for Kansas and the nation.[622] But by October the
free-State party had abandoned its policy of abstention from
territorial politics, so far as to participate in the election of a
new territorial legislature. The result was a decisive free-State
victory. The next legislature would have an ample majority of
free-State men in both chambers. It was with the discomfiting
knowledge, then, that they represented only a minority of the
community that the delegates of the constitutional convention began
their labors.[623] It was clear to the dullest intelligence that any
pro-slavery constitution would be voted down, if it were submitted
fairly to the people of Kansas. Gloom settled down upon the hopes of
the pro-slavery party.
When the document which embodied the labors of the convention was made
public, the free-State party awoke from its late complacence to find
itself tricked by a desperate game. The constitution was not to be
submitted to a full and fair vote; but only the article relating to
slavery. The people of Kansas were to vote for the "Constitution with
slavery" or for the "Constitution with no slavery." By either
alternative the constitution would be adopted. But should the
constitution with no slavery be ratified, a clause of the schedule
still guaranteed "the right of property in slaves now in this
Territory."[624] The choice offered to an opponent of slavery in
Kansas was between a constitution sanctioning and safeguarding all
forms of slave property,[625] and a constitution which guaranteed the
full possession of slaves then in the Territory, with no assurances
as to the status of the natural increase of these slaves. Viewed in
the most charitable light, this was a gambler's device for securing
the stakes by hook or crook. Still further to guard existing property
rights in slaves, it was provided that if the constitution should be
amended after 1864, no alteration should be made to affect "the rights
of property in the ownership of slaves."[626]
The news from Lecompton stirred Douglas profoundly. In a peculiar
sense he stood sponsor for justice to bleeding Kansas, not only
because he had advocated in abstract terms the perfect freedom of the
people to form their domestic institutions in their own way, but
because he had become personally responsible for the conduct of the
leader of the Lecompton party. John Calhoun, president of the
convention, had been appointed surveyor general of the Territory upon
his recommendation. Governor Walker had retained Calhoun in that
office because of Douglas's assurance that Calhoun would support the
policy of submission.[627] Moreover, Governor Walker had gone to his
post with the assurance that the leaders of the administration would
support this course.
Was it likely that the pro-slavery party in Kansas would take this
desperate course, without assurance of some sort from Washington?
There were persistent rumors that President Buchanan approved the
Lecompton constitution,[628] but Douglas was loth to give credence to
them. The press of Illinois and of the Northwest voiced public
sentiment in condemning the work of the Lecomptonites.[629] Douglas
was soon on his way to Washington, determined to know the President's
mind; his own was made up.
The interview between President Buchanan and Douglas, as recounted by
the latter, takes on a dramatic aspect.[630] Douglas found his worst
fears realized. The President was clearly under the influence of an
aggressive group of Southern statesmen, who were bent upon making
Kansas a slave State under the Lecompton constitution. Laboring under
intense feeling, Douglas then threw down the gauntlet: he would oppose
the policy of the administration publicly to the bitter end. "Mr.
Douglas," said the President rising to his feet excitedly, "I desire
you to remember that no Democrat ever yet differed from an
administration of his own choice without being crushed. Beware of the
fate of Tallmadge and Rives." "Mr. President" rejoined Douglas also
rising, "I wish you to remember that General Jackson is dead."
The Chicago _Times_, reporting the interview, intimated that there had
been a want of agreement, but no lack of courtesy or regard on either
side. Douglas was not yet ready to issue an ultimatum. The situation
might be remedied. On the night following this memorable encounter,
Douglas was serenaded by friends and responded with a brief speech,
but he did not allude to the Kansas question.[631] It was generally
expected that he would show his hand on Monday, the opening day of
Congress. The President's message did not reach Congress, however,
until Tuesday. Immediately upon its reading, Douglas offered the usual
motion to print the message, adding, as he took his seat, that he
totally dissented from "that portion of the message which may fairly
be construed as approving of the proceedings of the Lecompton
convention." At an early date he would state the reasons for his
dissent.[632]
On the following day, December 9th, Douglas took the irrevocable step.
For three hours he held the Senate and the audience in the galleries
in rapt attention, while with more than his wonted gravity and
earnestness he denounced the Lecompton constitution.[633] He began
with a conciliatory reference to the President's message. He was happy
to find, after a more careful examination, that the President had
refrained from making any recommendation as to the course which
Congress should pursue with regard to the constitution. And so, he
added adroitly, the Kansas question is not to be treated as an
administration measure. He shared the disappointment of the President
that the constitution had not been submitted fully and freely to the
people of Kansas; but the President, he conceived, had made a
fundamental error in supposing that the Nebraska Act provided for the
disposition of the slavery question apart from other local matters.
The direct opposite was true. The main object of the Act was to remove
an odious restriction by which the people had been prevented from
deciding the slavery question for themselves, like all other local and
domestic concerns. If the President was right in thinking that by the
terms of the Nebraska bill the slavery question must be submitted to
the people, then every other clause of the constitution should be
submitted to them. To do less would be to reduce popular sovereignty
to a farce.
But Douglas could not maintain this conciliatory attitude. His sense
of justice was too deeply outraged. He recalled facts which every
well-informed person knew. "I know that men, high in authority and in
the confidence of the territorial and National Government, canvassed
every part of Kansas during the election of delegates, and each one of
them pledged himself to the people that no snap judgment was to be
taken. Up to the time of the meeting of the convention, in October
last, the pretense was kept up, the profession was openly made, and
believed by me, and I thought believed by them, that the convention
intended to submit a constitution to the people, and not to attempt to
put a government in operation without such submission."[634] How was
this pledge redeemed? All men, forsooth, must vote for the
constitution, whether they like it or not, in order to be permitted to
vote for or against slavery! This would be like an election under the
First Consul, when, so his enemies averred, Napoleon addressed his
troops with the words: "Now, my soldiers, you are to go to the
election and vote freely just as you please. If you vote for Napoleon,
all is well; vote against him, and you are to be instantly shot." That
was a fair election! "This election," said Douglas with bitter irony,
"is to be _equally fair!_ All men in favor of the constitution may
vote for it--all men against it shall not vote at all! Why not let
them vote against it? I have asked a very large number of the
gentlemen who framed the constitution ... and I have received the same
answer from every one of them.... They say if they allowed a negative
vote the constitution would have been voted down by an overwhelming
majority, and hence the fellows shall not be allowed to vote at all."
"Will you force it on them against their will," he demanded, "simply
because they would have voted it down if you had consulted them? If
you will, are you going to force it upon them under the plea of
leaving them perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic
institutions in their own way? Is that the mode in which I am called
upon to carry out the principle of self-government and popular
sovereignty in the Territories?" It is no answer, he argued, that the
constitution is unobjectionable. "You have no right to force an
unexceptionable constitution on a people." The pro-slavery clause was
not the offense in the constitution, to his mind. "If Kansas wants a
slave-State constitution she has a right to it, if she wants a
free-State constitution she has a right to it. It is none of my
business which way the slavery clause is decided. I care not whether
it is voted up or down." The whole affair looked to him "like a system
of trickery and jugglery to defeat the fair expression of the will of
the people."[635]
The vehemence of his utterance had now carried Douglas perhaps farther
than he had meant to go.[636] He paused to plead for a fair policy
which would redeem party pledges:
"Ignore Lecompton, ignore Topeka; treat both those party
movements as irregular and void; pass a fair bill--the one
that we framed ourselves when we were acting as a unit; have
a fair election--and you will have peace in the Democratic
party, and peace throughout the country, in ninety days. The
people want a fair vote. They never will be satisfied
without it. They never should be satisfied without a fair
vote on their Constitution....
"Frame any other bill that secures a fair, honest vote, to
men of all parties, and carries out the pledge that the
people shall be left free to decide on their domestic
institutions for themselves, and I will go with you with
pleasure, and with all the energy I may possess. But if this
Constitution is to be forced down our throats, in violation
of the fundamental principle of free government, under a
mode of submission that is a mockery and insult, I will
resist it to the last. I have no fear of any party
associations being severed. I should regret any social or
political estrangement, even temporarily; but if it must be,
if I can not act with you and preserve my faith and my
honor, I will stand on the great principle of popular
sovereignty, which declares the right of all people to be
left perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic
institutions in their own way. I will follow that principle
wherever its logical consequences may take me, and I will
endeavor to defend it against assault from any and all
quarters. No mortal man shall be responsible for my action
but myself. By my action I will compromit no man."[637]
The speech made a profound impression. No one could mistake its
import. The correspondent of the New York _Tribune_ was right in
thinking that it "marked an important era in our political
history."[638] Douglas had broken with the dominant pro-slavery
faction of his party. How far he would carry his party with him,
remained to be seen. But that a battle royal was imminent, was
believed on all sides. "The struggle of Douglas with the slave-power
will be a magnificent spectacle to witness," wrote one who had
hitherto evinced little admiration for the author of the
Kansas-Nebraska Act.[639]
Douglas kept himself well in hand throughout his speech. His manner
was at times defiant, but his language was restrained. At no time did
he disclose the pain which his rupture with the administration cost
him, except in his closing words. What he had to expect from the
friends of the administration was immediately manifest. Senator Bigler
of Pennsylvania sprang to the defense of the President. In an
irritating tone he intimated that Douglas himself had changed his
position on the question of submission, alluding to certain private
conferences at Douglas's house; but as though bound by a pledge of
secrecy, Bigler refrained from making the charge in so many words.
Douglas, thoroughly aroused, at once absolved, him from any pledges,
and demanded to know when they had agreed not to submit the
constitution to the people. The reply of Bigler was still allusive and
evasive. "Does he mean to say," insisted Douglas excitedly, "that I
ever was, privately or publicly, in my own house or any other, in
favor of a constitution without its being submitted to the people?" "I
have made no such allegation," was the reply. "You have allowed it to
be inferred," exclaimed Douglas in exasperated tones.[640] And then
Green reminded him, that in his famous report of January 4, 1854, he
had proposed to leave the slavery question to the decision of the
people "by their appropriate representatives chosen by them for that
purpose," with no suggestion of a second, popular vote. Truly, his
most insidious foes were now those of his own political household.
Anti-slavery men welcomed this revolt of Douglas without crediting him
with any but self-seeking motives. They could not bring themselves to
believe other than ill of the man who had advocated the repeal of the
Missouri Compromise. Republicans accepted his aid in their struggle
against the Lecompton fraud, but for the most part continued to regard
him with distrust. Indeed, Douglas made no effort to placate them. He
professed to care nothing for the cause of the slave which was nearest
their hearts. Hostile critics, then, were quick to point out the
probable motives from which he acted. His senatorial term was drawing
to a close. He was of course desirous of a re-election. But his
nominee for governor had been defeated at the last election, and the
State had been only with difficulty carried for the national
candidates of the party. The lesson was plain: the people of Illinois
did not approve the Kansas policy of Senator Douglas. Hence the
weathercock obeyed the wind.
In all this there was a modicum of truth. Douglas would not have been
the power that he was, had he not kept in touch with his constituency.
But a sense of honor, a desire for consistency, and an abiding faith
in the justice of his great principle, impelled him in the same
direction. These were thoroughly honorable motives, even if he
professed an indifference as to the fate of the negro. He had pledged
his word of honor to his constituents that the people of Kansas should
have a fair chance to pronounce upon their constitution. Nothing short
of this would have been consistent with popular sovereignty as he had
expounded it again and again. And Douglas was personally a man of
honor. Yet when all has been said, one cannot but regret that the
sense of fair play, which was strong in him, did not assert itself in
the early stages of the Kansas conflict and smother that lawyer's
instinct to defend, a client by the technicalities of the law. Could
he only have sought absolute justice for the people of Kansas in the
winter of 1856, the purity of his motives would not have been
questioned in the winter of 1858.
Even those colleagues of Douglas who doubted his motives, could not
but admire his courage. It did, indeed, require something more than
audacity to head a revolt against the administration. No man knew
better the thorny road that he must now travel. No man loved his party
more. No man knew better the hazard to the Union that must follow a
rupture in the Democratic party. But if Douglas nursed the hope that
Democratic senators would follow his lead, he was sadly disappointed.
Three only came to his support--Broderick of California, Pugh of Ohio,
and Stuart of Michigan,--while the lists of the administration were
full. Green, Bigler, Fitch, in turn were set upon him.
Douglas bitterly resented any attempt to read him out of the party by
making the Lecompton constitution the touchstone of genuine Democracy;
yet each day made it clearer that the administration had just that end
in view. Douglas complained of a tyranny not consistent with free
Democratic action. One might differ with the President on every
subject but Kansas, without incurring suspicion. Every pensioned
letter writer, he complained, had been intimating for the last two
weeks that he had deserted the Democratic party and gone over to the
Black Republicans. He demanded to know who authorized these
tales.[641] Senator Fitch warned him solemnly that the Democratic
party was the only political link in the chain which now bound the
States together. "None ... will hold that man guiltless, who abandons
it upon a question having in it so little of practical importance ...
and by seeking its destruction, thereby admits his not unwillingness
that a similar fate should be visited on the Union, perhaps, to
subserve his selfish purpose."[642] These attacks roused Douglas to
vehement defiance. More emphatically than ever, he declared the
Lecompton constitution "a trick, a fraud upon the rights of the
people."
If Douglas misjudged the temper of his colleagues, he at least gauged
correctly the drift of public sentiment in Illinois and the Northwest.
Of fifty-six Democratic newspapers in Illinois, but one ventured to
condone the Lecompton fraud.[643] Mass meetings in various cities of
the Northwest expressed confidence in the course of Senator Douglas.
He now occupied a unique position at the capital. Visitors were quite
as eager to see the man who had headed the revolt as to greet the
chief executive.[644] His residence, where Mrs. Douglas dispensed a
gracious hospitality, was fairly besieged with callers.[645]
Washington society was never gayer than during this memorable
winter.[646] None entertained more lavishly than Senator and Mrs.
Douglas. Whatever unpopularity he incurred at the Capitol, she more
than offset by her charming and gracious personality. Acknowledged as
the reigning queen of the circle in which she moved, Mrs. Douglas
displayed a social initiative that seconded admirably the independent,
self-reliant attitude of her husband. When Adèle Cutts Douglas chose
to close the shutters of her house at noon, and hold a reception by
artificial light every Saturday afternoon, society followed her lead.
There were no more brilliant affairs in Washington than these
afternoon receptions and hops at the Douglas residence in Minnesota
Block.[647] In contrast to these functions dominated by a thoroughly
charming personality, the formal precision of the receptions at the
White House was somewhat chilling and forbidding. President Buchanan,
bachelor, with his handsome but somewhat self-contained niece, was not
equal to this social rivalry.[648] Moreover, the cares of office
permitted the perplexed, wearied, and timid executive no respite day
or night.
Events in Kansas gave heart to those who were fighting Lecomptonism.
At the election appointed by the convention, the "constitution with
slavery" was adopted by a large majority, the free-State people
refusing to vote; but the legislature, now in the control of the
free-State party, had already provided for a fair vote on the whole
constitution. On this second vote the majority was overwhelmingly
against the constitution. Information from various sources
corroborated the deductions which unprejudiced observers drew from the
voting. It was as clear as day that the people of Kansas did not
regard the Lecompton constitution as a fair expression of their
will.[649]
Ignoring the light which made the path of duty plain, President
Buchanan sent the Lecompton constitution to Congress with a message
recommending the admission of Kansas.[650] To his mind, the Lecompton
convention was legally constituted and had exercised its powers
faithfully. The organic act did not bind the convention to submit to
the people more than the question of slavery. Meantime the Supreme
Court had handed down its famous decision in the Dred Scott case.
Fortified by this dictum, the President told Congress that slavery
existed in Kansas by virtue of the Constitution of the United States.
"Kansas is, at this moment, as much a slave State as Georgia or South
Carolina"! Slavery, then, could be prohibited only by constitutional
provision; and those who desired to do away with slavery would most
speedily compass their ends, if they admitted Kansas at once under
this constitution.
The President's message with the Lecompton constitution was referred
to the Committee on Territories and gave rise to three reports:
Senator Green of Missouri presented the majority report, recommending
the admission of Kansas under this constitution; Senators Collamer and
Wade united on a minority report, leaving Douglas to draft another
expressing his dissent on other grounds.[651] Taken all in all, this
must be regarded as the most satisfactory and convincing of all
Douglas's committee reports. It is strong because it is permeated by
a desire for justice, and reinforced at every point by a consummate
marshalling of evidence. Barely in his career had his conspicuous
qualities as a special pleader been put so unreservedly at the service
of simple justice. He planted himself firmly, at the outset, upon the
incontrovertible fact that there was no satisfactory evidence that the
Lecompton constitution was the act and deed of the people of
Kansas.[652]
It had been argued that, because the Lecompton convention had been
duly constituted, with full power to ordain a constitution and
establish a government, consequently the proceedings of the convention
must be presumed to embody the popular will. Douglas immediately
challenged this assumption. The convention had no more power than the
territorial legislature could confer. By no fair construction of the
Kansas-Nebraska Act could it be assumed that the people of the
Territory were authorized, "at their own will and pleasure, to resolve
themselves into a sovereign power, and to abrogate and annul the
organic act and territorial government established by Congress, and to
ordain a constitution and State government upon their ruins, without
the consent of Congress." Surely, then, a convention which the
territorial legislature called into being could not abrogate or impair
the authority of that territorial government established by Congress.
Hence, he concluded, the Lecompton constitution, formed without the
consent of Congress, must be considered as a memorial or petition,
which Congress may accept or reject. The convention was the creature
of the territorial legislature. "Such being the case, whenever the
legislature ascertained that the convention whose existence depended
upon its will, had devised a scheme to force a constitution upon the
people without their consent, and without any authority from Congress,
... it became their imperative duty to interpose and exert the
authority conferred upon them by Congress in the organic act, and
arrest and prevent the consummation of the scheme before it had gone
into operation."[653] This was an unanswerable argument.
In the prolonged debate upon the admission of Kansas, Douglas took
part only as some taunt or challenge brought him to his feet. While
the bill for the admission of Minnesota, also reported by the
Committee on Territories, was under fire, Senator Brown of Mississippi
elicited from Douglas the significant concession, that he did not deem
an enabling act absolutely essential, so long as the constitution
clearly embodied the will of the people. Neither did he think a
submission of the constitution always essential; it was, however, a
fair way of ascertaining the popular will, when that will was
disputed." Satisfy me that the constitution adopted by the people of
Minnesota is their will, and I am prepared to adopt it. Satisfy me
that the constitution adopted, or said to be adopted, by the people of
Kansas, is their will, and I am prepared to take it.... I will never
apply one rule to a free State and another to a slave-holding
State."[654] Nevertheless, even his Democratic colleagues continued to
believe that slavery had something to do with his opposition. In the
classic phraseology of Toombs, "there was a 'nigger' in it."
The opposition of Douglas began to cause no little uneasiness. Brown
paid tribute to his influence, when he declared that if the Senator
from Illinois had stood with the administration, "there would not have
been a ripple on the surface." "Sir, the Senator from Illinois gives
life, he gives vitality, he gives energy, he lends the aid of his
mighty genius and his powerful will to the Opposition on this
question."[655] But Douglas paid a fearful price for this power. Every
possible ounce of pressure was brought to bear upon him. The party
press was set upon him. His friends were turned out of office. The
whole executive patronage was wielded mercilessly against his
political following. The Washington _Union_ held him up to execration
as a traitor, renegade, and deserter.[656] "We cannot affect
indifference at the treachery of Senator Douglas," said a Richmond
paper. "He was a politician of considerable promise. Association with
Southern gentlemen had smoothed down the rugged vulgarities of his
early education, and he had come to be quite a decent and well-behaved
person."[657] To political denunciation was now to be added the sting
of mean and contemptible personalities.
Small wonder that even the vigorous health of "the Little Giant"
succumbed to these assaults. For a fortnight he was confined to his
bed, rising only by sheer force of will to make a final plea for
sanity, before his party took its suicidal plunge. He spoke on the 22d
of March under exceptional conditions. In the expectation that he
would speak in the forenoon, people thronged the galleries at an
early hour, and refused to give up their seats, even when it was
announced that the Senator from Illinois would not address the Senate
until seven o 'clock in the evening. When the hour came, crowds still
held possession of the galleries, so that not even standing room was
available. The door-keepers wrestled in vain with an impatient throng
without, until by motion of Senator Gwin, ladies were admitted to the
floor of the chamber. Even then, Douglas was obliged to pause several
times, for the confusion around the doors to subside.[658] He spoke
with manifest difficulty, but he was more defiant than ever. His
speech was at once a protest and a personal vindication. Denial of the
right of the administration to force the Lecompton constitution upon
the people of Kansas, went hand in hand with a defense of his own
Democracy. Sentences culled here and there suggest not unfairly the
stinging rebukes and defiant challenges that accentuated the none too
coherent course of his speech:
"I am told that this Lecompton constitution is a party test,
a party measure; that no man is a Democrat who does not
sanction it ... Sir, who made it a party test? Who made it a
party measure?... Who has interpolated this Lecompton
constitution into the party platform?... Oh! but we are told
it is an Administration measure. Because it is an
Administration measure, does it therefore follow that it is
a party measure?" ... "I do not recognize the right of the
President or his Cabinet ... to tell me my duty in the
Senate Chamber." "Am I to be told that I must obey the
Executive and betray my State, or else be branded as a
traitor to the party, and hunted down by all the newspapers
that share the patronage of the government, and every man
who holds a petty office in any part of my State to have the
question put to him, 'Are you Douglas's enemy? if not, your
head comes off.'" "I intend to perform my duty in
accordance with my own convictions. Neither the frowns of
power nor the influence of patronage will change my action,
or drive me from my principles. I stand firmly, immovably
upon those great principles of self-government and state
sovereignty upon which the campaign was fought and the
election won.... If, standing firmly by my principles, I
shall be driven into private life, it is a fate that has no
terrors for me. I prefer private life, preserving my own
self-respect and manhood, to abject and servile submission
to executive will. If the alternative be private life or
servile obedience to executive will, I am prepared to
retire. Official position has no charms for me when deprived
of that freedom of thought and action which becomes a
gentleman and a senator.'"[659]
On the following day, the Senate passed the bill for the admission of
Kansas under the Lecompton constitution, having rejected the amendment
of Crittenden to submit that constitution to a vote of the people of
Kansas. A similar amendment, however, was carried in the House. As
neither chamber would recede from its position, a conference committee
was appointed to break the deadlock.[660] It was from this committee,
controlled by Lecomptonites, that the famous English bill emanated.
Stated briefly, the substance of this compromise measure--for such it
was intended to be--was as follows: Congress was to offer to Kansas a
conditional grant of public lands; if this land ordinance should be
accepted by a popular vote, Kansas was to be admitted to the Union
with the Lecompton constitution by proclamation of the President; if
it should be rejected, Kansas was not to be admitted until the
Territory had a population equal to the unit of representation
required for the House of Representatives.
Taken all in all, the bill was as great a concession as could be
expected from the administration. Not all were willing to say that the
bill provided for a vote on the constitution, but Northern adherents
could point to the vote on the land ordinance as an indirect vote upon
the constitution. It is not quite true to say that the land grant was
a bribe to the voters of Kansas. As a matter of fact, the amount of
land granted was only equal to that usually offered to the
Territories, and it was considerably less than the area specified in
the Lecompton constitution. Moreover, even if the land ordinance were
defeated in order to reject the constitution, the Territory was pretty
sure to secure as large a grant at some future time. It was rather in
the alternative held out, that the English bill was unsatisfactory to
those who loved fair play. Still, under the bill, the people of
Kansas, by an act of self-denial, could defeat the Lecompton
constitution. To that extent, the supporters of the administration
yielded to the importunities of the champion of popular sovereignty.
Under these circumstances it would not be strange if Douglas
"wavered."[661] Here was an opportunity to close the rift between
himself and the administration, to heal party dissensions, perhaps to
save the integrity of the Democratic party and the Union. And the
price which he would have to pay was small. He could assume, plausibly
enough,--as he had done many times before in his career,--that the
bill granted all that he had ever asked. He was morally sure that the
people of Kansas would reject the land grant to rid themselves of the
Lecompton fraud. Why hesitate then as to means, when the desired end
was in clear view?
Douglas found himself subjected to a new pressure, harder even to
resist than any he had yet felt. Some of his staunch supporters in the
anti-Lecompton struggle went over to the administration, covering
their retreat by just such excuses as have been suggested. Was he
wiser and more conscientious than they? A refusal to accept the
proffered olive branch now meant,--he knew it well,--the
irreconcilable enmity of the Buchanan faction. And he was not asked to
recant, but only to accept what he had always deemed the very essence
of statesmanship, a compromise. His Republican allies promptly evinced
their distrust. They fully expected him to join his former associates.
From them he could expect no sympathy in such a dilemma.[662] His
political ambitions, no doubt, added to his perplexity. They were
bound up in the fate of the party, the integrity of which was now
menaced by his revolt. On the other hand, he was fully conscious that
his Illinois constituency approved of his opposition to Lecomptonism
and would regard a retreat across this improvised political bridge as
both inglorious and treacherous. Agitated by conflicting emotions,
Douglas made a decision which probably cost him more anguish than any
he ever made; and when all has been said to the contrary, love of fair
play would seem to have been his governing motive.[663]
When Douglas rose to address the Senate on the English bill, April
29th, he betrayed some of the emotion under which he had made his
decision. He confessed an "anxious desire" to find such provisions as
would permit him to support the bill; but he was painfully forced to
declare that he could not find the principle for which he had
contended, fairly carried out. He was unable to reconcile popular
sovereignty with the proposed intervention of Congress in the English
bill. "It is intervention with inducements to control the result. It
is intervention with a bounty on the one side and a penalty on the
other."[664] He frankly admitted that he did not believe there was
enough in the bounty nor enough in the penalty to influence materially
the vote of the people of Kansas; but it involved "the principle of
freedom of election and--the great principle of self-government upon
which our institutions rest." And upon this principle he took his
stand. "With all the anxiety that I have had," said he with deep
feeling, "to be able to arrive at a conclusion in harmony with the
overwhelming majority of my political friends in Congress, I could not
bring my judgment or conscience to the conclusion that this was a
fair, impartial, and equal application of the principle."[665]
As though to make reconciliation with the administration impossible,
Douglas went on to express his distrust of the provision of the bill
for a board of supervisors of elections. Instead of a board of four,
two of whom should represent the Territory and two the Federal
government, as the Crittenden bill had provided, five were to
constitute the board, of whom three were to be United States
officials. "Does not this change," asked Douglas significantly, "give
ground for apprehension that you may have the Oxford, the Shawnee, and
the Delaware Crossing and Kickapoo frauds re-enacted at this
election?"[666] The most suspicions Republican could hardly have dealt
an unkinder thrust.
There could be no manner of doubt as to the outcome of the English
bill in the Senate. Douglas, Stuart, and Broderick were the only
Democrats to oppose its passage, Pugh having joined the majority. The
bill passed the House also, nine of Douglas's associates in the
anti-Lecompton fight going over to the administration.[667] Douglas
accepted this defection with philosophic equanimity, indulging in no
vindictive feelings.[668] Had he not himself felt misgivings as to his
own course?
By midsummer the people of Kansas had recorded nearly ten thousand
votes against the land ordinance and the Lecompton constitution. The
administration had failed to make Kansas a slave State. Yet the
Supreme Court had countenanced the view that Kansas was legally a
slave Territory. What, then, became of the great fundamental principle
of popular sovereignty? This was the question which Douglas was now
called upon to answer.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 621: Report of the Covode Committee, pp. 105-106; Cutts,
Constitutional and Party Questions, p. 111; Speech of Douglas at
Milwaukee, Wis., October 14, 1860, Chicago _Times and Herald_, October
17, 1860.]
[Footnote 622: Spring, Kansas, p. 213; Rhodes, History of the United
States, II, p. 274.]
[Footnote 623: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, pp. 277-278.]
[Footnote 624: _Ibid._, pp. 278-279; Spring, Kansas, p. 223.]
[Footnote 625: See Article VII, of the Kansas constitution, Senate
Reports, No. 82, 35 Cong., 1 Sess.]
[Footnote 626: Schedule Section 14.]
[Footnote 627: Covode Report, p. 111.]
[Footnote 628: Chicago _Times_, November 19, 1857.]
[Footnote 629: Chicago _Times_, November 20 and 21, 1857.]
[Footnote 630: Speech at Milwaukee, October 14, 1860, Chicago _Times
and Herald_, October 17, 1860.]
[Footnote 631: New York _Tribune_, December 3, 1857.]
[Footnote 632: _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 5.]
[Footnote 633: Chicago _Times_, December 19, 1857.]
[Footnote 634: _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 17.]
[Footnote 635: _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., pp. 17-18.]
[Footnote 636: "I spoke rapidly, without preparation," he afterward
said. _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 47.]
[Footnote 637: _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 18.]
[Footnote 638: New York _Tribune_, December 9, 1857.]
[Footnote 639: New York _Tribune_, December 10, 1857.]
[Footnote 640: _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., pp. 21-22.]
[Footnote 641: _Globe_, 5 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 120.]
[Footnote 642: _Ibid._, p. 137.]
[Footnote 643: Chicago _Times_, December 24, 1857.]
[Footnote 644: _Ibid._, December 23, 1857.]
[Footnote 645: Correspondent to Cleveland _Plaindealer_, quoted in
Chicago _Times_, January 29, 1858.]
[Footnote 646: Mrs. Jefferson Davis to Mrs. Pierce, MS. Letter, April
4, 1858.]
[Footnote 647: Mrs. Roger Pryor, Reminiscences of Peace and War, pp.
69-70.]
[Footnote 648: _Ibid._, Chapter 4.]
[Footnote 649: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, p. 289.]
[Footnote 650: Message of February 2, 1858.]
[Footnote 651: Senate Report No. 82, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., February 18,
1858.]
[Footnote 652: Minority Report, p. 52.]
[Footnote 653: Minority Report, p. 64.]
[Footnote 654: _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 502.]
[Footnote 655: _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., pp. 572-573.]
[Footnote 656: Washington _Union_, February 26, 1858.]
[Footnote 657: Richmond _South_, quoted in Chicago _Times_, December
18, 1857.]
[Footnote 658: Sheahan, Douglas, p. 328; _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess.,
App., pp. 193-194.]
[Footnote 659: _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., App., pp. 194-201,
_passim._]
[Footnote 660: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, pp. 297-299.]
[Footnote 661: Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, II, p. 563.]
[Footnote 662: Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, II, pp.
566-567.]
[Footnote 663: This cannot, of course, be demonstrated, but it accords
with his subsequent conduct.]
[Footnote 664: _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 1869.]
[Footnote 665: _Ibid._, p. 1870.]
[Footnote 666: _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 1870.]
[Footnote 667: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, p. 300.]
[Footnote 668: Cox, Three Decades of Federal Legislation, p. 58.]