Walker wrote a private letter to Buchanan, defending his course, and adding: "Unless I am thoroughly and cordially sustained by the Administration here, I cannot control the convention, and we shall have anarchy and civil war. With that cordial support the convention (a majority of whose delegates I have already seen) will do what is right. I shall travel over the whole Territory, make speeches, rouse the people in favor of my plan, and see all the delegates. But your cordial support is indispensable, and I never would have come here, unless assured by you of the cordial cooeperation of all the Federal officers.... The extremists are trying your nerves and mine, but what can they say when the convention submits the constitution to the people and the vote is given by them? But we must have a slave-State out of the south-western Indian Territory, and then a calm will follow; Cuba be acquired with the acquiescence of the North; and your Administration, having in reality settled the slavery question, be regarded in all time to come as a re-signing and re-sealing of the constitution.... I shall be pleased soon to hear from you. Cuba! Cuba! (and Porto Rico, if possible) should be the countersign of your Administration, and it will close in a blaze of glory."[6]

The Governor had reason to be proud of the full and complete reendorsement which this appeal brought from his chief. Under date of July 12, 1857, the President wrote in reply: "On the question of submitting the constitution to the bona fide resident settlers of Kansas I am willing to stand or fall. In sustaining such a principle we cannot fall. It is the principle of the Kansas-Nebraska bill; the principle of popular sovereignty; and the principle at the foundation of all popular government. The more it is discussed the stronger it will become. Should the convention of Kansas adopt this principle, all will be settled harmoniously, and with the blessing of Providence you will return triumphantly from your arduous, important, and responsible mission. The strictures of the Georgia and Mississippi Conventions will then pass away and be speedily forgotten. In regard to Georgia, our news from that State is becoming better every day; we have not yet had time to hear much from Mississippi. Should you answer the resolution of the latter, I would advise you to make the great principle of the submission of the constitution to the bona fide residents of Kansas conspicuously prominent. On this you will be irresistible."[7]

The delegates to the constitutional convention, chosen in June, met according to law at Lecompton, September 7, and, having spent five days in organization, adjourned their session to October 19. The object of this recess was to await the issue of the general election of October 5, at which a full Territorial Legislature, a delegate to Congress, and various county officers were to be chosen.

[Sidenote] Wilder, p. 133.

By the action of the free-State men this election was now made a turning-point in Kansas politics. Held together as a compact party by their peaceful resistance to the bogus laws, emigration from the North had so strengthened their numbers that they clearly formed a majority of the people of the Territory. A self-constituted and self-regulated election held by them for sundry officials under their Topeka Constitution, revealed a numerical strength of more than seven thousand voters. Feeling that this advantage justified them in receding from their attitude of non-conformity, they met in convention towards the end of August, and while protesting against the "wicked apportionment," resolved that "whereas Governor Walker has repeatedly pledged himself that the people of Kansas should have a full and fair vote, before impartial judges, at the election to be held on the first Monday in October, ... we the people of Kansas, in mass convention assembled, agree to participate in said election."

[Sidenote] Oct. 5, 1857.

Governor Walker executed his public promises to the letter. A movement of United States troops to Utah was in progress, and about two thousand of these were detained by order until after election day. Stationed at ten or twelve different points in the Territory, they served by their mere presence to overawe disorder, and for the first time in the history of Kansas the two opposing parties measured their strength at the ballot-box. The result was an overwhelming triumph for the free-State party. For delegate in Congress, Ransom, the Democratic candidate, received 3799 votes; Parrott, the Republican candidate, 7888—a free-State majority of 4089. For the Legislature, even under the defective apportionment, the council stood 9 free-State members to 4 Democrats, and the House 24 free-State members to 15 Democrats.

[Sidenote] Stanton, Speech at Philadelphia, February 8, 1858.

[Sidenote] Walker, Proclamation, October 19, 1857. Senate Ex. Doc. No. 8, 1st Sess. 35th Cong. Vol. I., p. 103.

[Sidenote] Walker, Proclamation, Oct. 22, 1857. Ibid., pp. 104-6.

[Sidenote] Walker, Proclamation, October 19, 1857. Senate Ex. Doc. No. 8, 1st Sess. 35th Cong. Vol. I., p. 104.

That the pro-slavery cabal would permit power to slip from their grasp without some extraordinary effort was scarcely to be expected. When the official returns were brought from the various voting-places to the Governor's office, there came from Oxford, a single precinct in Johnson County, "a roll of paper, forty or fifty feet long, containing names as thickly as they could be written," and a large part of which were afterwards discovered to have been literally copied from an old Cincinnati directory. This paper purported to be a return of 1628 votes for the eleven pro-slavery candidates for the Legislature in that district, and if counted it would elect eight members of the House and three of the council by a trifling majority, and thereby change the political complexion and power of the Legislature. Inspection showed the document to be an attempt to commit a stupendous fraud; and after visiting the locality ("a village with six houses, including stores, and without a tavern") and satisfying himself of the impossibility of such a vote from such a place, Governor Walker rejected the whole return from Oxford precinct for informality, and gave certificates of election to the free-State candidates elected as appeared by the other regular returns. A similar paper from McGee County with more than 1200 names was treated in like manner. Judge Cato issued his writ of mandamus to compel the Governor to give certificates to the pro-slavery candidates, but without success. The language of Governor Walker and Secretary Stanton in a proclamation announcing their action deserves remembrance and imitation. "The consideration that our own party by this decision will lose the majority in the legislative assembly does not make our duty in the premises less solemn and imperative. The elective franchise would be utterly valueless, and free government itself would receive a deadly blow, if so great an outrage as this could be shielded under the cover of mere forms and technicalities. We cannot consent in any manner to give the sanction of our respective official positions to such a transaction. Nor can we feel justified to relieve ourselves of the proper responsibility of our offices, in a case where there is no valid return, by submitting the question to the legislative assembly, and in that very act giving the parties that might claim to be chosen by this spurious vote the power to decide upon their own election."

The decisive free-State victory, the Oxford and McGee frauds,[8] and the Governor's fearless action in exposing and rejecting them, called forth universal comment; and under the new political conditions which they revealed, created intense interest in the further proceedings of the Lecompton Constitutional Convention. That body reassembled according to adjournment on the 19th of October. Elected in the preceding June without any participation by free-State voters, the members were all of the pro-slavery party, and were presided over by John Calhoun, the same man who, as county surveyor of Sangamon County, Illinois, employed Abraham Lincoln as his deputy in 1832.

At the June election, while he and his seven colleagues from Douglas County were yet candidates for the convention, they had circulated a written pledge that they would submit the constitution to the people for ratification. This attitude was generally maintained by them till the October election. But when by that vote they saw their faction overwhelmed with defeat, they and others undertook to maintain themselves in power by an unprecedented piece of political jugglery. Calhoun, who was surveyor-general of the Territory, employed a large number of subordinates, and was one of the most able and unscrupulous leaders in the pro-slavery cabal. A large majority of the convention favored the establishment of slavery; only the question of a popular vote on ratification or rejection excited controversy.

An analysis shows that the principle of delegated authority had become attenuated to a remarkable degree. The defective registration excluded a considerable number (estimated at about one-sixth) of the legal voters. Of the 9250 registered, only about 2200 voted, all told. Of these 2200, only about 1800 votes were given for the successful candidates for delegate. Of the whole sixty delegates alleged to have been chosen, "but forty-three," says a Committee Report, "participated in the work of the convention. Sessions were held without a quorum, and the yeas and nays often show that but few above thirty were present. It is understood, and not denied, that but twenty-eight of these—less than half of a full house of sixty—decided the pro-slavery or free-State question; and upon the question of submission of their work to the will of the people, the pro-slavery party carried the point by a majority of two votes only. It is quite in keeping with the character of this body and its officers to find the journal of its proceedings for the last days missing."[9]

Their allotted task was completed in a short session of about three weeks; the convention adjourned November 7, forty-three of the fifty delegates present having been induced to sign the constitution. When the document was published the whole country was amazed to see what perversity and ingenuity had been employed to thwart the unmistakable popular will. Essentially a slave-State constitution of the most pronounced type, containing the declaration that the right of property in slaves is "before and higher than any constitutional sanction," it made the right to vote upon it depend on the one hand on a test oath to "support this constitution" in order to repel conscientious free-State voters, and on the other hand on mere inhabitancy on the day of election to attract nomadic Missourians; it postponed the right to amend or alter for a period of seven years; it kept the then existing territorial laws in force until abrogated by State legislation; it adopted the late Oxford fraud as a basis of apportionment; it gave to Calhoun, the presiding officer, power to designate the precincts, the judges of election, and to decide finally upon the returns in the vote upon it, besides many other questionable or inadmissible provisions. Finally the form of submission to popular vote to be taken on the 21st of December was prescribed to be, "constitution with slavery" or "constitution with no slavery," thus compelling the adoption of the constitution in any event.

[Sidenote] Walker, Testimony, Report Covode Committee, p. 110.

[Sidenote] Martin, Testimony, Report Covode Committee, p. 159.

[Sidenote] Ibid., pp. 170-1.

There is a personal and political mystery underlying this transaction which history will probably never solve. Only a few points of information have come to light, and they serve to embarrass rather than aid the solution. The first is that Calhoun, although the friend and protege of Douglas, and also himself personally pledged to submission, came to the Governor and urged him to join in the new programme as to slavery,—alleging that the Administration had changed its policy, and now favored this plan,—and tempted Walker with a prospect of the Presidency if he would concur. Walker declared such a change impossible, and indignantly spurned the proposal. The second is that one Martin, a department clerk, was, after confidential instructions from Secretary Thompson and Secretary Cobb, of Buchanan's Cabinet, sent to Kansas in October, ostensibly on department business; that he spent his time in the lobby and the secret caucuses of the convention. Martin testifies that these Cabinet members favored submission, but that Thompson wished it understood that he was unwilling to oppose the admission of Kansas "if a pro-slavery constitution should be made and sent directly to Congress by the convention." A wink was as good as a nod with that body, or rather with the cabal which controlled it; and after a virtuous dumb-show of opposition, it made a pretense of yielding to the inevitable, and acted on the official suggestion. This theory is the more plausible because Martin testifies further that he himself drafted the slavery provision which was finally adopted. The third point is that the President inexcusably abandoned his pledges to the Governor and adopted this Cobb-Thompson-Calhoun contrivance, instead of keeping his word and dismissing Calhoun, as honor dictated. This course becomes especially remarkable in view of the fact that the change did not occur until after Walker's rejection of the fraudulent Oxford returns, which action placed the legislative power of the Territory in the hands of the newly elected free-State Legislature, as already related. On the same day (October 22, 1857) on which Walker and Stanton issued their proclamation rejecting the fraudulent returns, President Buchanan wrote another highly commendatory letter to Governor Walker. As it has never before been published, its full text will have special historical interest.

WASHINGTON CITY, 22d October, 1857.

MY DEAR SIR: I have received your favor of the tenth instant by Captain Pleasonton and am rejoiced to learn from you, what I had previously learned from other less authentic sources, that the convention of Kansas will submit the constitution to the people. It is highly gratifying that the late election passed off so peacefully; and I think we may now fairly anticipate a happy conclusion to all the difficulties in that Territory. Your application for a month's leave of absence has been granted to commence after the adjournment of the convention. During its session your presence will be too important to be dispensed with. I shall be glad to see you before you publish anything. The whole affair is now gliding along smoothly. Indeed, the revulsion in the business of the country seems to have driven all thoughts of "bleeding Kansas" from the public mind. When and in what manner anything shall be published to revive the feeling, is a question of serious importance. I am persuaded that with every passing day the public are more and more disposed to do you justice. You certainly do injustice to Harris, the editor of the "Union." In the beginning I paid some attention to the course of the paper in regard to yourself, and I think it was unexceptionable: I know he stood firm amidst a shower of abuse from the extremists. I never saw nor did I ever hear of the communication published in the "Union" to which you refer, and Harris has no recollection of it. I requested him to find me the number and send it to me; but this he has not done. He is not responsible in any degree for the non-publication of the letters to which you refer.[10] I knew nothing of them until after the receipt of yours; and upon inquiry I found their publication had been prevented by Mr. Cobb under a firm conviction that they would injure both yourself and the Administration.

Whether he judged wisely or not I cannot say, for I never saw them. That he acted in fairness and friendship I have not a doubt. He was anxious that General Whitfield should publish a letter and prepared one for him, expecting he would sign it before he left. He sent this letter after him for his approval and signature; but it has not been returned. I know not what are its contents. General W. doubtless has the letter in his possession. Beyond all question, the motives of Mr. Cobb were proper. Mrs. Walker and Mrs. Bache have just left me after a half hour's very agreeable conversation. Mrs. Walker desires me to inform you the family are all well and sends her love.

From your friend, very respectfully,

JAMES BUCHANAN.

Hon. ROBERT J. WALKER.[11]

[Sidenote] Report Covode Committee, p. 111.

The question naturally occurs, for whom did Calhoun speak when he approached Governor Walker, offering him the bribe of the Presidency and assuring him that the Administration had changed its mind? That was before, or certainly not long after, the probable receipt of this letter in Kansas, for the Governor left the Territory (November 16) about one week after the adjournment of the Lecompton Convention. The question becomes still more pressing owing to Governor Walker's testimony that when he reached Washington, "the President himself distinctly and emphatically assured me that he had not authorized anybody to say that he had approved of that [Lecompton] programme." On whose authority, then, did Calhoun declare that the Administration had changed its mind?



[Sidenote] John Bell, Senate Speech, March 18, 1858.

This query brings us to another point in President Buchanan's letter of October 22, in which he mentions that Secretary Cobb, of his Cabinet, had without his knowledge suppressed the publication of certain letters in the "Washington Union." These were, as we learn elsewhere, the letters in which some of the Kansas pro-slavery leaders repeated their declaration of the hopelessness of any further contest to make Kansas a slave-State. Why this secret suppression by Secretary Cobb? There is but one plausible explanation of this whole chain of contradictions. The conclusion is almost forced upon us that a Cabinet intrigue, of which the President was kept in ignorance, was being carried on, under the very eyes of Mr. Buchanan, by those whom he himself significantly calls "the extremists"—a plot to supersede his own intentions and make him falsify his own declarations. As in the case of similar intrigues by the same agents a few years later, he had neither the wit to perceive nor the will to resist.

[Sidenote] Stanton, Philadelphia Speech, Feb. 8, 1858.

The protest of the people of the Territory against the extraordinary action of the Lecompton Convention almost amounted to a popular revolt. This action opened a wide door to fraud, and invited Missouri over to an invasion of final and permanent conquest. Governor Walker had quitted the Territory on his leave of absence, and Secretary Stanton was acting Governor. "The people in great masses," he says, "and the Legislature that had been elected, with almost a unanimous voice called upon me to convene the Legislature, in order that they might take such steps as they could to counteract the misfortune which they conceived was about to befall them in the adoption of this constitution," As already stated, Stanton had come to Kansas with the current Democratic prejudices against the free-State party. But his whole course had been frank, sincere, and studiously impartial, and the Oxford fraud had completely opened his eyes. "I now discovered for the first time to my entire satisfaction why it was that the great mass of the people of the Territory had been dissatisfied with their government, and were ready to rebel and throw it off."

Having, like Walker, frequently and earnestly assured the people of their ultimate right to ratify or reject the work of the convention, he was personally humiliated by the unfairness and trickery of which that body was guilty. Under the circumstances he could not hesitate in his duty. By proclamation he convened the new Legislature in extra session.

The members respected the private pledge they had given him to engage in no general legislation; but provided by law for an investigation of the Oxford and McGee frauds, and for an election to be held on January 4, 1858 (the day fixed by the Lecompton Constitution for the election of State officers and a State legislature), at which the people might vote for the Lecompton Constitution or against it. Thus in the course of events two separate votes were taken on this notorious document. The first, provided for in the instrument itself, took place on the 21st of December, 1857. Detachments of troops were stationed at several points; the free-State men abstained from voting; the election was peaceable; and in due time Calhoun proclaimed that 6143 ballots had been cast "for the constitution with slavery," and 589 "for the constitution with no slavery." But the subsequent legislative investigation disclosed a gross repetition of the Oxford fraud, and proved the actual majority, in a onesided vote, to have been only 3423. The second election occurred on January 4, 1858, under authority of the legislative act. At this election the pro-slavery party voted for the State officers, but in its turn abstained from voting on the constitution, the result being—against the Lecompton Constitution, 10,226; for the Lecompton Constitution with slavery, 138; for the Lecompton Constitution without slavery, 24.[12]

This emphatic rejection of the Lecompton Constitution by a direct vote of the people of Kansas sealed its fate. We shall see further on what persistent but abortive efforts were made in Congress once more to galvanize it into life. The free-State party were jubilant; but the pro-slavery cabal, foiled and checked, was not yet dismayed or conquered. For now there was developed, for the first time in its full proportions, the giant pro-slavery intrigue which proved that the local conspiracy of the Atchison-Missouri cabal was but the image and fraction of a national combination, finding its headquarters in the Administration, first of President Pierce, and now of President Buchanan; working patiently and insidiously through successive efforts to bring about a practical subversion of the whole theory and policy of the American Government. It linked the action of Border Ruffians, presidential aspirants, senates, courts, and cabinets into efficient cooeperation; leading up, step by step, from the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, through the Nebraska bill, border conquest, the Dred Scott decision, the suppression of the submission clause in the Toombs bill, and the extraordinary manipulation and machinery of the Lecompton Constitution, towards the final overthrow of the doctrine that "all men are created equal," and the substitution of the dogma of property in man; towards the judicial construction that property rights in human beings are before and above constitutional sanction, and that slavery must find protection and perpetuity in States as well as in Territories.

[Sidenote] Cass to Stanton, December 2, 1857. Senate Ex. Doc. No. 8, 1st Sess. 35th Cong. Vol. I., pp. 112-13.

[Sidenote] Cass to Stanton, December 8, 1857. Ibid., p. 113.

[Sidenote] Cass to Denver, December 11th, 1857. Senate Ex. Doc. No. 8, 1st Sess. 35th Cong. Vol. I., p. 120.

The first weather-sign came from Washington. On the day after Acting Governor Stanton convened the October Legislature in special session, and before news of the event reached him, Secretary Cass transmitted to him advance copies of the President's annual message, in which the Lecompton Constitution was indorsed in unqualified terms. A week later he was admonished to conform to the views of the President in his official conduct. At this point the State Department became informed of what had taken place, and the acting Governor had short shrift. On December 11 Cass wrote to J.W. Denver, Esq.: "You have already been informed that Mr. Stanton has been removed from the office of Secretary of the Territory of Kansas and that you have been appointed in his place." Cass further explained that the President "was surprised to learn that the secretary and acting Governor had, on the 1st of December, issued his proclamation for a special session of the Territorial Legislature on the 7th instant, only a few weeks in advance of its regular time of meeting, and only fourteen days before the decision was to be made on the question submitted by the convention. This course of Mr. Stanton, the President seriously believes, has thrown a new element of discord among the excited people of Kansas, and is directly at war, therefore, with the peaceful policy of the Administration. For this reason he has felt it his duty to remove him."

Walker, already in Washington on leave of absence, could no longer remain silent. He was as pointedly abandoned and disgraced by the Administration as was his subordinate. In a dignified letter justifying his own course, which, he reminded them, had never been criticized or disavowed, he resigned the governorship. "From the events occurring in Kansas as well as here," he wrote, "it is evident that the question is passing from theories into practice; and that as governor of Kansas I should be compelled to carry out new instructions, differing on a vital question from those received at the date of my appointment. Such instructions I could not execute consistently with my views of the Federal Constitution, of the Kansas and Nebraska bill, or with my pledges to the people of Kansas." "The idea entertained by some that I should see the Federal Constitution and the Kansas-Nebraska bill overthrown and disregarded, and that, playing the part of a mute in a pantomime of ruin, I should acquiesce by my silence in such a result, especially where such acquiescence involved, as an immediate consequence, a disastrous and sanguinary civil war, seems to me most preposterous."[13]

The conduct and the language of Walker and Stanton bear a remarkable significance when we remember that they had been citizens of slave States and zealous Democratic partisans, and that only hard practical experience and the testimony of their own eyes had forced them to join their predecessors in the political "graveyard." "The ghosts on the banks of the Styx," said Seward, "constitute a cloud scarcely more dense than the spirits of the departed Governors of Kansas, wandering in exile and sorrow for having certified the truth against falsehood in regard to the elections between Freedom and Slavery in Kansas."

————— [1] January 12, 1857, Wilder, p. 113. Bell, Speech in Senate, March 18, 1858. Appendix "Globe," p. 137.

[2] Geary to Marcy, Feb. 21, 1857, Senate Ex. Doc. No. 17, 1st Sess. 35th Cong. Vol. VI., p. 178.

[3] Bigler, Senate Speech, Dec. 9, 1857. "Globe," p. 21. See also Bigler, Dec. 21, 1857. "Globe," p. 113.

[4] Walker, Testimony before the Covode Committee. Reports of Committees H.R. 1st Sess. 36th Cong. Vol. V., pp. 105-6.

[5] "These fifteen counties in which there was no registry gave a much larger vote at the October election, even with the six months' qualification, than the whole vote given to the delegates who signed the Lecompton Constitution on the 7th November last."—[Walker to Cass, December 15, 1857. Senate Ex. Doc. No. 8, 1st Sess. 35th Cong. Vol. I, p. 128.]

[6] Walker to Buchanan, June 28, 1857. Report Covode Committee, pp. 117-19.

[7] Buchanan to Walker, July 12, 1857. Report Covode Committee, p. 112.

[8] The ingenuity which evolved 1600 Kansas votes from an old Cincinnati directory and 1200 more from an uninhabited county, was not exhausted by that prodigious labor. The same influences, and perhaps the same manipulators, produced a companion piece known by the name of the "candle-box fraud." At the election of January 4, 1858, for officers under the Lecompton Constitution, the returns from Delaware Agency underwent such suspicious handling that an investigating commission of the Legislature, by aid of a search-warrant, found them secreted in a candle-box buried under a woodpile near Calhoun's "surveyor-general's office" at Lecompton. A forged list of 379 votes had been substituted for the original memorandum of only forty-three votes which had been cut from the certificate of the judges; the votes on the forged list being intended for the pro-slavery candidates. During the investigation Calhoun was arrested, but liberated by Judge Cato on habeas corpus, after which he immediately went to Missouri, and from there to Washington. The details and testimony are found in House Com. Reports, 1st Sess. 35th Cong. Vol. III, Report No. 377.

[9] Minority Report, Select Com. of Fifteen. Report No. 377, page 109, Vol. III., H.R. Reports, 1st Sess. 35th Cong.

This "missing link," no less than the remaining portion of the journal printed in the proceedings of the investigating committee, is itself strong circumstantial proof of the imposture underlying the whole transaction. Many sections of the completed constitution are not even mentioned in the journal; it does not contain the submission clause of the schedule, and the authenticity of the document rests upon the signature and the certificate of John Calhoun without other verification.

[10] "Dr. Tebbs and General Whitfield a month since left very strong letters for publication with the editor of the 'Union' which he promised to publish. His breach of this promise is a gross outrage. If not published immediately our success in convention materially depends on my getting an immediate copy at Lecompton. My friends here all regard now the 'Union' as an enemy and encouraging by its neutrality the fire-eaters not to submit the constitution. Very well, the facts are so clear that I can get along without the 'Union,' but he had no right to suppress Dr. Tebbs's letter. I shall in due time expose that transaction."—Extract from a letter of Robert J. Walker to James Buchanan, dated October, 1857.

[11] For this autograph letter and other interesting manuscripts, we are indebted to General Duncan S. Walker, a son of the Governor, now residing in Washington, D.C.

[12] Under an Act of Congress popularly known as the "English Bill," this same Lecompton Constitution was once more voted upon by the people of Kansas on August 2, 1858, with the following result: for the proposition, 1788; against it, 11,300.—Wilder, "Annals of Kansas," pp. 186-8.

[13] Walker to Cass, Dec. 16, 1857. Senate Ex. Doc. No. 8, 1st Sess., 35th Cong. Vol. I., pp. 131, 130.



CHAPTER VII

THE REVOLT OF DOUGLAS

The language of President Buchanan's annual message, the summary dismissal of Acting Governor Stanton, and the resignation of Governor Walker abruptly transferred the whole Lecompton question from Kansas to Washington; and even before the people of the Territory had practically decided it by the respective popular votes of December 21,1857, and January 4,1858, it had become the dominant political issue in the Thirty-fifth Congress, which convened on December 7, 1857. The attitude of Senator Douglas on the new question claimed universal attention. The Dred Scott decision, affirming constitutional sanction and inviolability for slave property in Territories, had rudely damaged his theory. But we have seen how in his Springfield speech he ingeniously sought to repair and rehabilitate "popular sovereignty" by the sophism that a master's abstract constitutional right to slave property in a Territory was a "barren and a worthless right unless sustained, protected, and enforced by appropriate police regulations," which could only be supplied by the local Territorial Legislatures; and that the people of Kansas thus still possessed the power of indirect prohibition.

[Sidenote] 1857.

To invent and utter this sophism for home consumption among his distant constituents on the 12th of June (a few days before the Lecompton delegates were elected), and in so unobtrusive a manner as scarcely to attract a ripple of public notice, was a light task compared with that which confronted him as Senator, at the meeting of Congress in December, in the light of John Calhoun's doings and powers, of the scandal of the Oxford fraud, and of the indignation of Northern Democrats against the betrayal of Walker and Stanton.

One of his first experiences was a personal quarrel with Buchanan. When he reached Washington, three days before the session, he went to the President to protest against his adopting the Lecompton Constitution and sending it to Congress for acceptance. Buchanan insisted that he must recommend it in his annual message. Douglas replied that he would denounce it as soon as it was read. The President, excited, told him "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."

[Sidenote] Douglas, Milwaukee Speech, October 13, 1860.

"Mr. President," retorted Douglas, "I wish you to remember that General Jackson is dead."

In the election of Mr. Buchanan as President the South had secured a most important ally for the work of pro-slavery reaction. Trained in the belief that the South had hitherto been wronged, he was ready on every occasion to appear as her champion for redress; and Southern politicians were now eager to use his leadership to make their views of public policy and constitutional duty acceptable to the North. Respectable in capacity but feeble in will, he easily submitted to control and guidance from a few Southern leaders of superior intellectual force. In his inaugural, he sought to prepare public opinion for obedience to the Dred Scott decision, and since its publication he had undertaken to interpret its scope and effect. Replying to a memorial from certain citizens of New England, he declared in a public letter, "Slavery existed at that period, and still exists in Kansas, under the Constitution of the United States. This point has at last been finally decided by the highest tribunal known to our laws. How it could ever have been seriously doubted is a mystery."[1] In the same letter he affirmed the legality of the Lecompton Convention, though he yet clearly expressed his expectation that the constitution to be framed by it would be submitted to the popular vote for "approbation or rejection."

[Sidenote] 1857.

But when that convention adjourned, and made known its cunningly devised work, the whole South instantly became clamorous to secure the sectional advantages which lay in its technical regularity, its strong affirmance of the "property" theory, and the extraordinary power it gave to John Calhoun to control the election and decide the returns. This powerful reactionary movement was not lost upon Mr. Buchanan. He reflected it as unerringly as the vane moves to the change of the wind. Long before the meeting of Congress, the Administration organ, the "Washington Union," heralded and strongly supported the new departure. When, on the 8th of December, the President's annual message was transmitted and read, the Lecompton Constitution, as framed and submitted, was therein warmly indorsed and its acceptance indicated as the future Administration policy.

[Sidenote] Buchanan, Annual Message, December 8, 1857.

The language of this message discloses with what subtle ingenuity words, phrases, definitions, ideas, and theories were being invented and plied to broaden and secure every conquest of the pro-slavery reaction. An elaborate argument was made to defend the enormities of the Lecompton Constitution. The doctrine of the Silliman letter, that "slavery exists in Kansas under the Constitution of the United States," was assumed as a conceded theory. "In emerging from the condition of territorial dependence into that of a sovereign State," the people might vote "whether this important domestic institution should or should not continue to exist." "Domestic institutions" was defined to mean slavery. "Free to form and regulate their domestic institutions"—the phrase employed in the Kansas-Nebraska act—was construed to mean a vote to continue or discontinue slavery. And "if any portion of the inhabitants shall refuse to vote, a fair opportunity to do so having been presented, ... they alone will be responsible for the consequences." "Should the constitution without slavery be adopted by the votes of the majority, the rights of property in slaves now in the Territory are reserved.... These slaves were brought into the Territory under the Constitution of the United States and are now the property of their masters. This point has at length been finally decided by the highest judicial tribunal of the country."

However blind Buchanan might be to the fact that this extreme interpretation shocked and alarmed the sentiment of the North; that if made before the late Presidential campaign it would have defeated his own election; and that if rudely persisted in, it might destroy the Democratic ascendency in the future, the danger was obvious and immediately vital to Douglas. His senatorial term was about to expire. To secure a reelection he must carry the State of Illinois in 1858, which had on an issue less pronounced than this defeated his colleague Shields in 1854, and his lieutenant Richardson in 1856. But more than this, his own personal honor was as much involved in his pledges to the voters of Illinois as had been that of Governor Walker to the voters of Kansas. His double-dealing caucus bargain had thus placed him between two fires—party disgrace at Washington and popular disgrace in Illinois. In such a dilemma his choice could not be doubtful. At all risk he must endeavor to sustain himself at home.

[Sidenote] Douglas, Senate Speech, December 9, 1857. "Globe," p. 18.

He met the encounter with his usual adroitness and boldness. Assuming that the President had made no express recommendation, he devoted his speech mainly to a strong argument of party expediency, repelling without reserve and denouncing without stint the work of the Lecompton Convention. "Stand by the doctrine," said he, "that leaves the people perfectly free to form and regulate their institutions for themselves, in their own way, and your party will be united and irresistible in power. Abandon that great principle and the party is not worth saving, and cannot be saved after it shall be violated. I trust we are not to be rushed upon this question. Why shall it be done? Who is to be benefited? Is the South to be the gainer? Is the North to be the gainer? Neither the North nor the South has the right to gain a sectional advantage by trickery or fraud.... But I am told on all sides, 'Oh! just wait; the pro-slavery clause will be voted down.' That does not obviate any of my objections; it does not diminish any of them. You have no more right to force a free-State constitution on Kansas than a slave-State constitution. 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 down or voted up. Do you suppose, after the pledges of my honor that I would go for that principle and leave the people to vote as they choose, that I would now degrade myself by voting one way if the slavery clause be voted down, and another way if it be voted up? I care not how that vote may stand.... 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 will never be satisfied without it.... 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."

President Buchanan and the strong pro-slavery faction which was directing his course paid no attention whatever to this proposal of a compromise. Shylock had come into court to demand his bond, and would heed no pleas of equity or appeals to grace. The elections of December 21 and January 4 were held in due time, and with what result we have already seen. John Calhoun counted the votes on January 13 and declared the "Lecompton Constitution with slavery" adopted, prudently reserving, however, any announcement concerning the State officers or Legislature under it. This much accomplished, he hurried away to Washington, where he was received with open arms by the President and his advisers, who at once proceeded with a united and formidable effort to legalize the transparent farce by Congressional sanction.

On the second day of February, 1858, President Buchanan transmitted to Congress the Lecompton Constitution, "received from J. Calhoun, Esq.," and "duly certified by himself." The President's accompanying special message argues that the organic law of the Territory conferred the essential rights of an enabling act; that the free-State party stood in the attitude of willful and chronic revolution; that their various refusals to vote were a sufficient bar to complaint and objection; that the several steps in the creation and work of the Lecompton Convention were regular and legal. "The people of Kansas have, then, 'in their own way,' and in strict accordance with the organic act, framed a constitution and State government, have submitted the all-important question of slavery to the people, and have elected a governor, a member to represent them in Congress, members of the State Legislature, and other State officers. They now ask admission into the Union under this constitution, which is Republican in form. It is for Congress to decide whether they will admit or reject the State which has thus been created. For my own part I am decidedly in favor of its admission and thus terminating the Kansas question."

[Sidenote] 1858.

The vote of January 4 against the constitution he declared to be illegal because it was "held after the Territory had been prepared for admission into the Union as a sovereign State, and when no authority existed in the Territorial Legislature which could possibly destroy its existence or change its character." His own inconsistency was lightly glossed over. "For my own part, when I instructed Governor Walker in general terms, in favor of submitting the constitution to the people, I had no object in view except the all-absorbing question of slavery.... I then believed, and still believe, that under the organic act, the Kansas Convention were bound to submit this all-important question of slavery to the people. It was never, however, my opinion that independently of this act they would have been bound to submit any portion of the constitution to a popular vote, in order to give it validity."

To the public at large, the central point of interest in this special message, however, was the following dogmatic announcement by the President: "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. Kansas is, therefore, at this moment as much a slave-State as Georgia or South Carolina. Without this, the equality of the sovereign States composing the Union would be violated, and the use and enjoyment of a territory acquired by the common treasure of all the States would be closed against the people and the property of nearly half the members of the Confederacy. Slavery can, therefore, never be prohibited in Kansas except by means of a constitutional provision and in no other manner can this be obtained so promptly, if a majority of the people desire it, as by admitting it into the Union under its present constitution."

In the light of subsequent history this extreme pro-slavery programme was not only wrong in morals and statesmanship, but short-sighted and foolhardy as a party policy. But to the eyes of President Buchanan this latter view was not so plain. The country was apparently in the full tide of a pro-slavery reaction. He had not only been elected President, but the Democratic party had also recovered its control of Congress. The presiding officer of each branch was a Southerner. Out of 64 members of the Senate, 39 were Democrats, 20 Republicans, and five Americans or Know-Nothings. Of the 237 members of the House, 131 were Democrats, 92 Republicans, and 14 Americans. Here was a clear majority of fourteen in the upper and twenty-five in the lower House. This was indeed no longer the formidable legislative power which repealed the Missouri Compromise, but it seemed perhaps a sufficient force to carry out the President's recommendation. His error was in forgetting that this apparent popular indorsement was secured to him and his party by means of the double construction placed upon the Nebraska bill and the Cincinnati platform, by the caucus bargain between the leaders of the South and the leaders of the North. The moment had come when this unnatural alliance needed to be exposed and in part repudiated.

The haste with which the Southern leaders advanced step by step, forced every issue, and were now pushing their allies to the wall was, to say the least, bad management, but it grew logically out of their situation. They were swimming against the stream. The leading forces of civilization, population, wealth, commerce, intelligence, were bearing them down. The balance of power was lost. Already there were sixteen free-States to fifteen slave-States. Minnesota and Oregon, inevitably destined also to become free, were applying for admission to the Union.

[Sidenote] Official Manifesto, Oct. 8, 1754.

[Sidenote] Senator Brown to Adams, June 18, 1856. Greeley, "Am. Conflict," Vol. I., p. 278.

[Sidenote] Official proceedings, Pamphlet.

Still, the case of the South was not hopeless. Kansas was apparently within their grasp. Existing law provided for the formation and admission of four additional States to be carved out of Texas, which would certainly become slave-States. Then there remained the possible division of California, and a race for the possession of New Mexico and Arizona. Behind all, or, more likely, before all except Kansas, in the order of desired events, was the darling ambition of President Buchanan, the annexation of Cuba. As United States Minister to England he had publicly declared that if Spain refused to sell us that coveted island we should be justified in wresting it from her by force; as Presidential candidate he had confidentially avowed, amid the first blushes of his new honor, "If I can be instrumental in settling the slavery question upon the terms I have mentioned, and then add Cuba to the Union, I shall, if President, be willing to give up the ghost, and let Breckinridge take the government." Thus, even excluding the more problematical chances which lay hidden in filibustering enterprises, there was a possibility, easily demonstrable to the sanguine, that a decade or two might change mere numerical preponderance from the free to the slave-States. Nor could this possibility be waved aside by any affectation of incredulity. Not alone Mr. Buchanan but the whole Democratic party was publicly pledged to annexation. "Resolved," said the Cincinnati platform, "that the Democratic party will expect of the next Administration that every proper effort be made to insure our ascendency in the Gulf of Mexico"; while another resolution declaring sympathy with efforts to "regenerate" Central America was no less significant.



But to accomplish such marvels, they must not sit with folded hands. The price of slavery was fearless aggression. They must build on a deeper foundation than Presidential elections, party majorities, or even than votes in the Senate. The theory of the government must be reversed, the philosophy of the republic interpreted anew. In this subtler effort they had made notable progress. By the Kansas-Nebraska act they had paralyzed the legislation of half a century. By the Dred Scott decision they had changed the Constitution and blighted the Declaration of Independence. By the Lecompton trick they would show that in conflict with their dogmas the public will was vicious, and in conflict with their intrigues the majority powerless. They had the President, the Cabinet, the Senate, the House, the Supreme Court, and, by no means least in the immediate problem, John Calhoun with his technical investiture of far-reaching authority. The country had recovered from the shock of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and rewarded them with Buchanan. Would it not equally recover from the shock of the Lecompton Constitution?

It was precisely at this point that the bent bow broke. The great bulk of the Democratic party followed the President and his Southern advisers, even in this extreme step; but to a minority sufficient to turn the scale the Lecompton scandal had become too offensive for further tolerance.

In the Senate, with its heavy Democratic majority, the Administration easily secured the passage of a bill to admit Kansas with the Lecompton Constitution. Out of eleven Democratic Senators from free States, only three—Douglas of Illinois, Broderick of California, and Stuart of Michigan—took courage to speak and vote against the measure. In the House of Representatives, however, with a narrower margin of political power, the scheme, after an exciting discussion running through about two months, met a decisive defeat. A formidable popular opposition to it had developed itself in the North, in which speeches and letters from Governor Walker and Secretary Stanton in denunciation of it were a leading feature and a powerful influence. The lower House of Congress always responds quickly to currents of public sentiment; but in this case it caught direction all the more promptly because its members were to be chosen anew in the ensuing autumn. However much they might have party subordination and success at heart, some of them felt that they could not defend before their anti-slavery constituencies the Oxford frauds, the Calhoun dictatorship, the theory that slave property is above constitutional sanction, and the dogma that "Kansas is therefore at this moment as much a slave-State as Georgia or South Carolina." When the test vote was taken on April 1, out of the 53 Democratic representatives from the free-States 31 voted for Lecompton; but the remaining 22,[2] joining their strength to the opposition, passed a substitute, originating with Mr. Crittenden of the Senate, which in substance directed a resubmission of the Lecompton Constitution to the people of Kansas;—if adopted, the President to admit the new State by a simple proclamation; if rejected, the people to call a convention and frame a new instrument.

As the October vote had been the turning-point in the local popular struggle in the Territory, this adoption of the Crittenden-Montgomery substitute, by a total vote of 120 to 112 in the House of Representatives, was the culmination of the National intrigue to secure Kansas for the South. It was a narrow victory for freedom; a change of 5 votes would have passed the Lecompton bill and admitted the State with slavery, and a constitutional prohibition against any change for seven years to come. With his authority to control election returns, there is every reason to suppose that Calhoun would have set up a pro-slavery State Legislature, to choose two pro-slavery senators, whom in its turn the strong Lecompton majority in the United States Senate would have admitted to seats; and thus the whole chain of fraud and usurpation back to the first Border-Ruffian invasion of Kansas would have become complete, legal, and irrevocable, on plea of mere formal and technical regularity.

Foiled in its main object, the Administration made another effort which served to break somewhat the force and humiliation of its first and signal defeat. The two Houses of Congress having disagreed as stated, and each having once more voted to adhere to its own action, the President managed to make enough converts among the anti-Lecompton Democrats of the House to secure the appointment of a committee of conference. This committee devised what became popularly known as the "English bill," a measure which tendered a land grant to the new State, and provided that on the following August 3d the people of Kansas might vote "proposition accepted" or "proposition rejected." Acceptance should work the admission of the State with the Lecompton Constitution, while rejection should postpone any admission until her population reached the ratio of representation required for a member of the House. "Hence it will be argued," exclaimed Douglas, "in one portion of the Union that this is a submission of the constitution, and in another portion that it is not." The English bill became a law; but the people of Kansas once more voted to reject the "proposition" by nearly ten thousand majority.

[Sidenote] Douglas, Senate Speech, March 22, 1858. App. "Globe," pp. 199, 200.

Douglas opposed the English bill as he had done the Lecompton bill, thus maintaining his attitude as the chief leader of the anti-Lecompton opposition. In proportion as he received encouragement and commendation from Republican and American newspapers, he fell under the ban of the Administration journals. The "Washington Union" especially pursued him with denunciation. "It has read me out of the Democratic party every other day, at least, for two or three months," said he, "and keeps reading me out; and, as if it had not succeeded, still continues to read me out, using such terms as 'traitor,' 'renegade,' 'deserter,' and other kind and polite epithets of that nature." He explained that this arose from his having voted in the Senate against its editor for the office of public printer; but he also pointed out that he did so because that journal had become pro-slavery to the point of declaring "that the emancipation acts of New York, of New England, of Pennsylvania, and of New Jersey were unconstitutional, were outrages upon the right of property, were violations of the Constitution of the United States." "The proposition is advanced," continued he, "that a Southern man has a right to move from South Carolina with his negroes into Illinois, to settle there and hold them there as slaves, anything in the constitution and laws of Illinois to the contrary notwithstanding." Douglas further intimated broadly that the President and Cabinet were inspiring these editorials of the Administration organ, as part and parcel of the same system and object with which they were pushing the Lecompton Constitution with its odious "property" doctrine; and declared, "if my protest against this interpolation into the policy of this country or the creed of the Democratic party is to bring me under the ban, I am ready to meet the issue."

He had not long to wait for the issue. The party rupture was radical, not superficial. It was, as he had himself pointed out, part of the contest for national supremacy between slavery and freedom. From time to time he still held out the olive-branch and pointed wistfully to the path of reconciliation. But the reactionary faction which ruled Mr. Buchanan never forgave Douglas for his part in defeating Lecompton, and more especially for what they alleged to be his treachery to his caucus bargain, in refusing to accept and defend all the logical consequences of the Dred Scott decision.

————— [1] Buchanan to Silliman and others, Aug. 15, 1857. Senate Ex. Doc. No. 8, 1st Sess. 35th Cong. Vol. I., p. 74.

[2] From California, 1; Illinois, 5; Indiana, 3; New Jersey, 1; New York, 2; Ohio, 6; Pennsylvania, 4. For Lecompton: California, 1; Connecticut, 2; Indiana, 3; New Jersey, 2; New York, 10; Ohio, 2; Pennsylvania, 11.



CHAPTER VIII

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES

The anti-Lecompton recusancy of Douglas baffled the plotting extremists of the South, and created additional dissension in the Democratic ranks; and this growing Democratic weakness and the increasing Republican ardor and strength presaged a possible Republican success in the coming Presidential election. While this condition of things gave national politics an unusual interest, the State of Illinois now became the field of a local contest which for the moment held the attention of the entire country in such a degree as to involve and even eclipse national issues.

In this local contest in Illinois, the choice of candidates on both sides was determined long beforehand by a popular feeling, stronger and more unerring than ordinary individual or caucus intrigues. Douglas, as author of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, as a formidable Presidential aspirant, and now again as leader of the anti-Lecompton Democrats, could, of course, have no rival in his party for his own Senatorial seat. Lincoln, who had in 1854 gracefully yielded his justly won Senatorial honors to Trumbull, and who alone bearded Douglas in his own State throughout the whole anti-Nebraska struggle, with anything like a show of equal political courage and intellectual strength, was as inevitably the leader and choice of the Republicans. Their State convention met in Springfield on the 16th of June, 1858, and, after its ordinary routine work, passed with acclamation a separate resolution, which declared "that Abraham Lincoln is the first and only choice of the Republicans of Illinois for the United States Senate as the successor of Stephen A. Douglas." The proceedings of the convention had consumed the afternoon, and an adjournment was taken. At 8 o'clock that same evening, the convention having reassembled in the State-house, Lincoln appeared before it, and made what was perhaps the most carefully prepared speech of his whole life. Every word of it was written, every sentence had been tested; but the speaker delivered it without manuscript or notes. It was not an ordinary oration, but, in the main, an argument, as sententious and axiomatic as if made to a bench of jurists. Its opening sentences contained a political prophecy which not only became the ground-work of the campaign, but heralded one of the world's great historical events. He said:

[Sidenote] Lincoln-Douglas Debates, p. 1.

"If we could first know where we are and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated, with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this Government cannot endure permanently, half slave and 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 further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in 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."

Then followed his demonstration, through the incidents of the Nebraska legislation, the Dred Scott decision, and present political theories and issues, which would by and by find embodiment in new laws and future legal doctrines. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise, the language of the Nebraska bill, which declared slavery "subject to the Constitution," the Dred Scott decision, which declared that "subject to the Constitution" neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature could exclude slavery from a Territory—the argument presented point by point and step by step with legal precision the silent subversion of cherished principles of liberty. "Put this and that together," said he, "and we have another nice little niche, which we may ere long see filled with another Supreme Court decision, declaring that the Constitution of the United States does not permit a State to exclude slavery from its limits.... Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being alike lawful in all the States.... We shall lie down," continued the orator, "pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free; and we shall awake to the reality instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State."

His peroration was a battle-call: "Our cause, then, must be intrusted to and conducted by its own undoubted friends, those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work, who do care for the result. Two years ago the Republicans of the nation mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong. We did this under the single impulse of resistance to a common danger, with every external circumstance against us. Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we brave all then to falter now?—now, when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered, and belligerent? The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail—if we stand firm we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate or mistakes delay it, but sooner or later the victory is sure to come."

[Sidenote] See O.J. Hollister, "Life of Colfax," pp. 119-22.

[Sidenote] J. Watson Webb to Bates, June 9, 1858. MS.

Lincoln's declaration that the cause of slavery restriction "must be intrusted to its own undoubted friends" had something more than a general meaning. We have seen that while Douglas avowed he did not care "whether slavery was voted down or voted up" in the Territories, he had opposed the Lecompton Constitution on the ground of its non-submission to popular vote, and that this opposition caused the Buchanan Democrats to treat him as an apostate. Many earnest Republicans were moved to strong sympathy for Douglas in this attitude, partly for his help in defeating the Lecompton iniquity, partly because they believed his action in this particular a prelude to further political repentance, partly out of that chivalric generosity of human nature which sides with the weak against the strong. In the hour of his trial and danger many wishes for his successful reelection came to him from Republicans of national prominence. Greeley, in the New York "Tribune" as well as in private letters, made no concealment of such a desire. Burlingame, in a fervid speech in the House of Representatives, called upon the young men of the country to stand by the Douglas men. It was known that Colfax and other influential members of the House were holding confidential interviews with Douglas, the object of which it was not difficult to guess. There were even rumors that Seward intended to interfere in his behalf. This report was bruited about so industriously that he felt it necessary to permit a personal friend to write an emphatic denial, so that it might come to Lincoln's knowledge. On the other hand, newspapers ventured the suggestion that Lincoln might retaliate by a combination against Seward's Presidential aspirations.

[Sidenote] Wentworth to Lincoln, April 19, 1858. MS.

Rival politicians in Illinois were suspicious of each other, and did not hesitate to communicate their suspicions to Lincoln. Personal friends, of course, kept him well informed about these various political under-currents, and an interesting letter of his shows that he received and treated the matter with liberal charity. "I have never said or thought more," wrote he, "as to the inclination of some of our Eastern Republican friends to favor Douglas, than I expressed in your hearing on the evening of the 21st April, at the State Library in this place. I have believed—do believe now—that Greeley, for instance, would be rather pleased to see Douglas reelected over me or any other Republican; and yet I do not believe it is so because of any secret arrangement with Douglas—it is because he thinks Douglas's superior position, reputation, experience, and ability, if you please, would more than compensate for his lack of a pure Republican position, and, therefore, his reelection do the general cause of Republicanism more good than would the election of any one of our better undistinguished pure Republicans. I do not know how you estimate Greeley, but I consider him incapable of corruption or falsehood. He denies that he directly is taking part in favor of Douglas, and I believe him.[1] Still his feeling constantly manifests itself in his paper, which, being so extensively read in Illinois, is, and will continue to be, a drag upon us. I have also thought that Governor Seward, too, feels about as Greeley does; but not being a newspaper editor, his feeling in this respect is not much manifested. I have no idea that he is, by conversation or by letter, urging Illinois Republicans to vote for Douglas."

[Sidenote] Lincoln to Wilson, June 1, 1858. MS.

"As to myself, let me pledge you my word that neither I nor my friends, so far as I know, have been setting stake against Governor Seward. No combination has been made with me, or proposed to me, in relation to the next Presidential candidate. The same thing is true in regard to the next Governor of our State. I am not directly or indirectly committed to any one; nor has any one made any advance to me upon the subject. I have had many free conversations with John Wentworth; but he never dropped a remark that led me to suspect that he wishes to be Governor. Indeed it is due to truth to say that while he has uniformly expressed himself for me, he has never hinted at any condition. The signs are that we shall have a good convention on the 16th, and I think our prospects generally are improving some every day. I believe we need nothing so much as to get rid of unjust suspicions of one another."

[Sidenote] Lincoln to Crittenden, July 7, 1858. Mrs. Coleman, "Life of Crittenden," Vol. II., p. 162.

[Sidenote] Crittenden to Lincoln, July 29, 1858. Ibid., p. 163.

[Sidenote] Crittenden to Dickey, August 1, 1858. Ibid., p. 164.

While many alleged defections were soon disproved by the ready and loyal avowals of his friends in Illinois and elsewhere, there came to him a serious disappointment from a quarter whence he little expected it. Early in the canvass Lincoln began to hear that Crittenden, of Kentucky, favored the reelection of Douglas, and had promised so to advise the Whigs of Illinois by a public letter. Deeming it well-nigh incredible that a Kentucky Whig like Crittenden could take such a part against an Illinois Whig of his own standing and service, to help a life-long opponent of Clay and his cherished plans, Lincoln addressed him a private letter making the direct inquiry. "I do not believe the story," he wrote, "but still it gives me some uneasiness. If such was your inclination, I do not believe you would so express yourself. It is not in character with you as I have always estimated you." Crittenden's reply, however, confirmed his worst fears. He said he and Douglas had acted together to oppose Lecompton. For this Douglas had been assailed, and he thought his reelection was necessary to rebuke the Buchanan Administration. In addition Crittenden also soon wrote the expected letter for publication, in which phraseology of apparent fairness covered an urgent appeal in Douglas's behalf.

[Sidenote] Lincoln-Douglas Debates, pp. 4-5.

In the evenly balanced and sensitive condition of Illinois politics this ungracious outside interference may be said to have insured Lincoln's defeat. While it gave him pain to be thus wounded in the house of his friends, he yet more deeply deplored the inexcusable blunder of leaders whose misplaced sympathy put in jeopardy the success of a vital political principle. In his convention speech he had forcibly stated the error and danger of such a step. "How can he [Douglas] oppose the advances of slavery? He don't care anything about it. His avowed mission is impressing the 'public heart' to care nothing about it.... For years he has labored to prove it a sacred right of white men to take negro slaves into the new Territories. Can he possibly show that it is less a sacred right to buy them where they can be bought cheapest? And unquestionably they can be bought cheaper in Africa than in Virginia. He has done all in his power to reduce the whole question of slavery to one of a mere right of property.... Now as ever, I wish not to misrepresent Judge Douglas's position, question his motives, or do aught that can be personally offensive to him. Whenever, if ever, he and we can come together on principle so that our great cause may have assistance from his great ability, I hope to have interposed no adventitious obstacle. But clearly he is not now with us—he does not pretend to be—he does not promise ever to be."

[Sidenote] Lincoln, Springfield Speech, July 17, 1858. Debates, p. 55.

Lincoln in nowise underrated the severity of the political contest in which he was about to engage. He knew his opponent's strong points as well as his weak ones—his energy, his adroitness, the blind devotion of his followers, his greater political fame. "Senator Douglas is of world-wide renown," he said. "All the anxious politicians of his party, or who have been of his party for years past, have been looking upon him as certainly at no distant day to be the President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face post-offices, land-offices, marshalships, and cabinet appointments, charge-ships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands. And as they have been gazing upon this attractive picture so long, they cannot, in the little distraction that has taken place in the party, bring themselves to give up the charming hope; but with greedier anxiety they rush about him, sustain him, and give him marches, triumphal entries, and receptions, beyond what even in the days of his highest prosperity they could have brought about in his favor. On the contrary, nobody has ever expected me to be President. In my poor, lean, lank face, nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting out. These are disadvantages all taken together, that the Republicans labor under. We have to fight this battle upon principle, and principle alone."

[Sidenote] 1858.

Douglas and his friends had indeed entered upon the canvass with an unusual flourish of trumpets. Music, banners, salutes, fireworks, addresses, ovation, and jubilation with enthusiasm genuine and simulated, came and went in almost uninterrupted sequence; so much of the noise and pomp of electioneering had not been seen since the famous hard-cider campaign of Harrison. The "Little Giant," as he was proudly nicknamed by his adherents, arrived in Illinois near midsummer, after elaborate preparation and heralding, and made speeches successively at Chicago, Bloomington, and Springfield on the 9th, 16th, and 17th of July. The Republicans and their candidate were equally alert to contest every inch of ground. Mr. Lincoln made speeches in reply at Chicago on the 10th and at Springfield on the evening of Douglas's day address; and in both instances with such force and success as portended a fluctuating and long-continued struggle.



For the moment the presence of Douglas not only gave spirit and fresh industry to his followers, but the novelty impressed the indifferent and the wavering. The rush of the campaign was substituting excitement for inquiry, blare of brass bands and smoke of gunpowder for intelligent criticism. The fame and prestige of the "Little Giant" was beginning to incline the vibrating scale. Lincoln and his intimate political advisers were not slow to note the signs of danger; and the remedy devised threw upon him the burden of a new responsibility. It was decided in the councils of the Republican leaders that Lincoln should challenge Douglas to joint public debate.

The challenge was sent by Lincoln on July 24; Douglas proposed that they should meet at the towns of Ottawa, Freeport, Jonesboro, Charleston, Galesburg, Quincy, and Alton, each speaker alternately to open and close the discussion; Douglas to speak one hour at Ottawa, Lincoln to reply for an hour and a half, and Douglas to make a half hour's rejoinder. In like manner Lincoln should open and close at Freeport, and so on alternately. Lincoln's note of July 31 accepted the proposal as made. "Although by the terms," he wrote, "as you propose, you take four openings and closes to my three, I accede and thus close the arrangement." Meanwhile each of the speakers made independent appointments for other days and places than these seven; and in the heat and dust of midsummer traveled and addressed the people for a period of about one hundred days, frequently making the necessary journeys by night, and often speaking two and sometimes even three times in a single day. Thus to the combat of intellectual skill was added a severe ordeal of physical endurance.[2]

Lincoln entered upon the task which his party friends had devised with neither bravado nor misgiving. He had not sought these public discussions; neither did he shrink from them. Throughout his whole life he appears to have been singularly correct in his estimate of difficulties to be encountered and of his own powers for overcoming them. Each of these seven meetings, comprising both the Republican and Democratic voters of the neighboring counties, formed a vast, eager, and attentive assemblage. It needed only the first day's experience to show the wisdom of the Republican leaders in forcing a joint discussion upon Douglas. Face to face with his competitor, he could no longer successfully assume airs of superiority, or wrap himself in his Senatorial dignity and prestige. They were equal spokesmen, of equal parties, on an equal platform, while applause and encouragement on one side balanced applause and encouragement on the other.

In a merely forensic sense, it was indeed a battle of giants. In the whole field of American politics no man has equaled Douglas in the expedients and strategy of debate. Lacking originality and constructive logic, he had great facility in appropriating by ingenious restatement the thoughts and formulas of others. He was tireless, ubiquitous, unseizable. It would have been as easy to hold a globule of mercury under the finger's tip as to fasten him to a point he desired to evade. He could almost invert a proposition by a plausible paraphrase. He delighted in enlarging an opponent's assertion to a forced inference ridiculous in form and monstrous in dimensions. In spirit he was alert, combative, aggressive; in manner, patronizing and arrogant by turns.

Lincoln's mental equipment was of an entirely different order. His principal weapon was direct, unswerving logic. His fairness of statement and generosity of admission had long been proverbial. For these intellectual duels with Douglas, he possessed a power of analysis that easily outran and circumvented the "Little Giant's" most extraordinary gymnastics of argument. But, disdaining mere quibbles, he pursued lines of concise reasoning to maxims of constitutional law and political morals. Douglas was always forcible in statement and bold in assertion; but Lincoln was his superior in quaint originality, aptness of phrase, and subtlety of definition; and oftentimes Lincoln's philosophic vision and poetical fervor raised him to flights of eloquence which were not possible to the fiber and temper of his opponent.

It is, of course, out of the question to abridge the various Lincoln-Douglas discussions of which the text fills a good-sized volume. Only a few points of controversy may be stated. Lincoln's convention speech, it will be remembered, declared that in his belief the Union could not endure permanently half slave and half free, but must become all one thing or all the other. Douglas in his first speech of the campaign attacked this as an invitation to a war of sections, declaring that uniformity would lead to consolidation and despotism. He charged the Republicans with intent to abolish slavery in the States; said their opposition to the Dred Scott decision was a desire for negro equality and amalgamation; and prescribed his dogma of popular sovereignty as a panacea for all the ills growing out of the slavery agitation.

[Sidenote] Lincoln-Douglas Debates, p. 75.

To this Lincoln replied that Republicans did not aim at abolition in the slave-States, but only the exclusion of slavery from free Territories; they did not oppose the Dred Scott decision in so far as it concerned the freedom of Dred Scott, but they refused to accept its dicta as rules of political action. He repelled the accusation that the Republicans desired negro equality or amalgamation, saying: "There is a physical difference between the two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality; and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence—the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects—certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment; but in the right to eat the bread without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal, and the equal of Judge Douglas and the equal of every living man."

In return he pressed upon Douglas his charge of a political conspiracy to nationalize slavery, alleging that his "don't care" policy was but the convenient stalking-horse under cover of which a new Dred Scott decision would make slavery lawful everywhere.

[Sidenote] Ibid., p. 82.

It is merely for the Supreme Court to decide that no State under the Constitution can exclude it, just as they have already decided that under the Constitution neither Congress nor the Territorial Legislature can do it. When that is decided and acquiesced in, the whole thing is done. This being true, and this being the way, as I think, that slavery is to be made national, let us consider what Judge Douglas is doing every day to that end. In the first place, let us see what influence he is exerting on public sentiment. In this and like communities public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed. Consequently, he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed.

The Democratic policy in regard to that institution will not tolerate the merest breath, the slightest hint, of the least degree of wrong about it. Try it by some of Judge Douglas's arguments. He says he "don't care whether it is voted up or voted down" in the Territories. I do not care myself, in dealing with that expression, whether it is intended to be expressive of his individual sentiments on the subject, or only of the national policy he desires to have established. It is alike valuable for my purpose. Any man can say that who does not see anything wrong in slavery, but no man can logically say it who does see a wrong in it; because no man can logically say he don't care whether a wrong is voted up or voted down. He may say he don't care whether an indifferent thing is voted up or down, but he must logically have a choice between a right thing and a wrong thing. He contends that whatever community wants slaves has a right to have them. So they have, if it is not a wrong. But if it is a wrong, he cannot say people have a right to do wrong. He says that upon the score of equality slaves should be allowed to go into a new Territory, like other property. This is strictly logical if there is no difference between it and other property. If it and other property are equal, his argument is entirely logical. But if you insist that one is wrong and the other right, there is no use to institute a comparison between right and wrong. You may turn over everything in the Democratic policy from beginning to end, whether in the shape it takes on the statute book, in the shape it takes in the Dred Scott decision, in the shape it takes in conversation, or the shape it takes in short maxim-like arguments—it everywhere carefully excludes the idea that there is anything wrong in it.

[Sidenote] Lincoln-Douglas Debates, pp. 233-4.

That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles—right and wrong—throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle, in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, "You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.

[Sidenote] Lincoln-Douglas Debates, p. 56.

As to the vaunted popular sovereignty principle, Lincoln declared it "the most arrant Quixotism that was ever enacted before a community.... Does he mean to say that he has been devoting his life to securing to the people of the Territories the right to exclude slavery from the Territories? If he means so to say, he means to deceive; because he and every one knows that the decision of the Supreme Court, which he approves and makes especial ground of attack upon me for disapproving, forbids the people of a Territory to exclude slavery. This covers the whole ground from the settlement of a Territory till it reaches the degree of maturity entitling it to form a State constitution. So far as all that ground is concerned, the Judge is not sustaining popular sovereignty, but absolutely opposing it. He sustains the decision which declares that the popular will of the Territories has no constitutional power to exclude slavery during their territorial existence."

By no means the least interesting of the many points touched in these debates is Lincoln's own estimate of the probable duration of slavery, or rather of the least possible period in which "ultimate extinction" could be effected, even under the most favorable circumstances.

[Sidenote] Lincoln-Douglas Debates, p. 157.

Now, at this day in the history of the world [said he, in the Charleston debate], we can no more foretell where the end of this slavery agitation will be than we can see the end of the world itself. The Nebraska-Kansas bill was introduced four years and a half ago, and if the agitation is ever to come to an end, we may say we are four years and a half nearer the end. So too we can say we are four years and a half nearer the end of the world; and we can just as clearly see the end of the world as we can see the end of this agitation. The Kansas settlement did not conclude it. If Kansas should sink to-day, and leave a great vacant space in the earth's surface, this vexed question would still be among us. I say then there is no way of putting an end to the slavery agitation amongst us, but to put it back upon the basis where our fathers placed it, no way but to keep it out of our new Territories—to restrict it forever to the old States where it now exists. Then the public mind will rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction. That is one way of putting an end to the slavery agitation.

The other way is for us to surrender and let Judge Douglas and his friends have their way and plant slavery over all the States; cease speaking of it as in any way a wrong; regard slavery as one of the common matters of property and speak of negroes as we do of our horses and cattle. But while it drives on in its state of progress as it is now driving, and as it has driven for the last five years, I have ventured the opinion, and I say to-day that we will have no end to the slavery agitation until it takes one turn or the other. I do not mean to say that when it takes a turn towards ultimate extinction it will be in a day, nor in a year, nor in two years. I do not suppose that in the most peaceful way ultimate extinction would occur in less than a hundred years at least; but that it will occur in the best way for both races, in God's own good time, I have no doubt.

But the one dominating characteristic of Lincoln's speeches is their constant recurrence to broad and enduring principles, their unremitting effort to lead public opinion to loftier and nobler conceptions of political duty; and nothing in his career stamps him so distinctively an American as his constant eulogy and defense of the philosophical precepts of the Declaration of Independence. The following is one of his indictments of his political opponents on this point:

[Sidenote] Lincoln-Douglas Debates, p. 225.

At Galesburg the other day, I said, in answer to Judge Douglas, that three years ago there never had been a man, so far as I knew or believed, in the whole world, who had said that the Declaration of Independence did not include negroes in the term "all men." I re-assert it to-day. I assert that Judge Douglas and all his friends may search the whole records of the country, and it will be a matter of great astonishment to me if they shall be able to find that one human being three years ago had ever uttered the astounding sentiment that the term "all men" in the Declaration did not include the negro. Do not let me be misunderstood. I know that more than three years ago there were men who, finding this assertion constantly in the way of their schemes to bring about the ascendency and perpetuation of slavery, denied the truth of it. I know that Mr. Calhoun and all the politicians of his school denied the truth of the Declaration. I know that it ran along in the mouth of some Southern men for a period of years, ending at last in that shameful though rather forcible declaration of Pettit, of Indiana, upon the floor of the United States Senate, that the Declaration of Independence was in that respect "a self-evident lie" rather than a self-evident truth. But I say, with a perfect knowledge of all this hawking at the Declaration without directly attacking it, that three years ago there never had lived a man who had ventured to assail it in the sneaking way of pretending to believe it and then asserting it did not include the negro. I believe the first man who ever said it was Chief-Justice Taney in the Dred Scott case, and the next to him was our friend, Stephen A. Douglas. And now it has become the catchword of the entire party. I would like to call upon his friends everywhere to consider how they have come in so short a time to view this matter in a way so entirely different from their former belief; to ask whether they are not being borne along by an irresistible current, whither they know not?

In the joint debates, however, argument and oratory were both hampered by the inexorable limit of time. For the full development of his thought, the speeches Lincoln made separately at other places afforded him a freer opportunity. A quotation from his language on one of these occasions is therefore here added, as a better illustration of his style and logic, where his sublime theme carried him into one of his more impassioned moods:

The Declaration of Independence was formed by the representatives of American liberty from thirteen States of the Confederacy, twelve of which were slave-holding communities. We need not discuss the way or the reason of their becoming slave-holding communities. It is sufficient for our purpose that all of them greatly deplored the evil and that they placed a provision in the Constitution which they supposed would gradually remove the disease by cutting off its source. This was the abolition of the slave trade. So general was the conviction, the public determination, to abolish the African slave trade, that the provision which I have referred to as being placed in the Constitution declared that it should not be abolished prior to the year 1808. A constitutional provision was necessary to prevent the people, through Congress, from putting a stop to the traffic immediately at the close of the war. Now if slavery had been a good thing, would the fathers of the republic have taken a step calculated to diminish its beneficent influences among themselves, and snatch the boon wholly from their posterity? These communities, by their representatives in old Independence Hall, said to the whole world of men: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the Universe. This was their lofty, and wise, and noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to his creatures. Yes, gentlemen, to all his creatures, to the whole great family of man. In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on and degraded, and imbruted by its fellows. They grasped not only the whole race of man then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the farthest posterity. They erected a beacon to guide their children, and their children's children, and the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth in other ages. Wise statesmen as they were, they knew the tendency of prosperity to breed tyrants, and so they established these great self-evident truths, that when in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, or none but white men, or none but Anglo-Saxon white men, were entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began, so that truth and justice and mercy and all the humane and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land; so that no man would hereafter dare to limit and circumscribe the great principles on which the temple of liberty was being built.

Now, my countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines conflicting with the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence; if you have listened to suggestions which would take away from its grandeur and mutilate the fair symmetry of its proportions; if you have been inclined to believe that all men are not created equal in those inalienable rights enumerated by our chart of liberty, let me entreat you to come back. Return to the fountain whose waters spring close by the blood of the revolution. Think nothing of me—take no thought for the political fate of any man whomsoever—but come back to the truths that are in the Declaration of Independence. You may do anything with me you choose, if you will but heed these sacred principles. You may not only defeat me for the Senate, but you may take me and put me to death. While pretending no indifference to earthly honors, I do claim to be actuated in this contest by something higher than an anxiety for office. I charge you to drop every paltry and insignificant thought for any man's success. It is nothing; I am nothing; Judge Douglas is nothing. But do not destroy that immortal emblem of Humanity—the Declaration of American Independence.[3]

————— [1] It is interesting to compare with Lincoln's letter one from Greeley to a Chicago editor on the same subject:

"NEW YORK, "July 24, 1858.

"MY FRIEND: You have taken your own course—don't try to throw the blame on others. You have repelled Douglas, who might have been conciliated and attached to our own side, whatever he may now find, it necessary to say, or do, and instead of helping us in other States, you have thrown a load upon us that may probably break us down. You knew what was the almost unanimous desire of the Republicans of other States; and you spurned and insulted them. Now go ahead and fight it through. You are in for it, and it does no good to make up wry faces. What I have said in the 'Tribune' since the fight was resolved on, has been in good faith, intended to help you through. If Lincoln would fight up to the work also, you might get through—if he apologizes, and retreats, he is lost, and all others go down with him. His first Springfield speech (at the convention) was in the right key; his Chicago speech was bad; and I fear the new Springfield speech is worse. If he dare not stand on broad Republican ground, he cannot stand at all. That, however, is his business; he is nowise responsible for what I say. I shall stand on the broad anti-slavery ground, which I have occupied for years. I cannot change it to help your fight; and I should only damage you if I did. You have got your Elephant—you would have him—now shoulder him! He is not so very heavy, after all. As I seem to displease you equally when I try to keep you out of trouble, and when, having rushed in in spite of me, I try to help you in the struggle you have unwisely provoked, I must keep neutral, so far as may be hereafter. Yours,

(Signed) "HORACE GREELEY.

"J. MEDILL, Esq., Chicago, (very) Ill.

"What have I ever said in favor of 'Negro equality' with reference to your fight? I recollect nothing."

The above is from a manuscript copy of Greeley's letter, but it bears internal evidence of genuineness.

[2] "Last year in the Illinois canvass I made just 130 speeches."— [Douglas, Wooster (O.) Speech.] This was between July 9 and November 2, 1858, just 100 days, exclusive of Sundays.

[3] Lincoln's Lewiston Speech, August 17, 1858. Chicago "Press and Tribune."



CHAPTER IX

THE FREEPORT DOCTRINE

[Sidenote] Lincoln-Douglas Debates, p. 68.

What has thus far been quoted has been less to illustrate the leading lines of discussion, than to explain more fully the main historical incident of the debates. In the first joint discussion at Ottawa, in the northern or anti-slavery part of Illinois, Douglas read a series of strong anti-slavery resolutions which he erroneously alleged Lincoln had taken part in framing and passing. He said: "My object in reading these resolutions was to put the question to Abraham Lincoln this day whether he now stands and will stand by each article in that creed and carry it out.... I ask Abraham Lincoln to answer these questions in order that when I trot him down to lower Egypt[1] I may put the same questions to him."[2]

[Sidenote] Lincoln-Douglas Debates, p. 87.

In preparing a powerful appeal to local prejudice, Douglas doubtless knew he was handling a two-edged sword; but we shall see that he little appreciated the skill with which his antagonist would wield the weapon he was placing in his hands. At their second joint meeting, at Freeport, also in northern Illinois, Lincoln, who now had the opening speech, said, referring to Douglas's speech at Ottawa: "I do him no injustice in saying that he occupied at least half of his reply in dealing with me as though I had refused to answer his interrogatories. I now propose that I will answer any of the interrogatories, upon condition that he will answer questions from me not exceeding the same number. I give him an opportunity to respond. The judge remains silent. I now say that I will answer his interrogatories, whether he answers mine or not; and that after I have done so, I shall propound mine to him."

Lincoln then read his answers to the seven questions which, had been asked him, and proposed four in return, the second one of which ran as follows: "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?"[3]

To comprehend the full force of this interrogatory, the reader must recall the fact that the "popular sovereignty" of the Nebraska bill was couched in vague language, and qualified with the proviso that it was "subject to the Constitution." The caucus which framed this phraseology agreed, as a compromise between Northern and Southern Democrats, that the courts should interpret and define the constitutional limitations, by which all should abide. The Dred Scott decision declared in terms that Congress could not prohibit slavery in Territories nor authorize a Territorial Legislature to do so. The Dred Scott decision had thus annihilated "popular sovereignty," Would Douglas admit his blunder in law, and his error in statesmanship?

He had already faced and partly evaded this dilemma in his Springfield speech of 1857, but that was a local declaration and occurred before his Lecompton revolt, and the ingenious sophism then put forth had attracted little notice. Since that time things had materially changed. He had opposed Lecompton, become a party recusant, and been declared a party apostate. His Senatorial term was closing, and he had to look to an evenly balanced if not a hostile constituency for reelection. The Buchanan Administration was putting forth what feeble strength it had in Illinois to insure his defeat. His Democratic rivals were scrutinizing every word he uttered. He stood before the people to whom he had pledged his word that the voters of Kansas might regulate their own domestic concerns. They would tolerate no juggling nor evasion. There remained no resource but to answer Yes, and he could conjure up no justification of such an answer except the hollow subterfuge he had invented the year before.