Like those earlier encounters, whose details have passed into the haze of tradition, this lacks a trustworthy chronicler. It would seem, however, as though the dash and daring of Douglas failed to bear down the cool, persistent opposition of his antagonist. Douglas should have known that the hazards in his course were reared by his own hand. Whatever other barriers blocked his way, Nebraska-ism was the most formidable; but this he would not concede.

A curious story has connected itself with this chance encounter of the rivals. Alarmed at the effectiveness of Lincoln's attack, so runs the legend, Douglas begged him not to enter the campaign, promising that he likewise would be silent thereafter. Aside from the palpable improbability of this "Peoria truce," it should be noted that Lincoln accepted an invitation to speak at Lacon next day, without so much as referring to this agreement, while Douglas continued his campaign with unremitting energy.[515] If Douglas exhibited fear of an adversary at this time, it is the only instance in his career.

The outcome of the elections gave the Democrats food for thought. Five out of nine congressional districts had chosen anti-Nebraska or Fusion candidates; the other four returned Democrats to Congress by reduced pluralities.[516] To be sure, the Democrats had elected their candidate for the State Treasury; but this was poor consolation, if the legislature, as seemed probable, should pass from their control. A successor to Senator Shields would be chosen by this body; and the choice of an anti-Nebraska man would be as gall and wormwood to the senior senator. In the country at large, such an outcome would surely be interpreted as a vote of no confidence. In the light of these events, Democrats were somewhat chastened in spirit, in spite of apparent demonstrations of joy. Even Douglas felt called upon to vindicate his course at the banquet given in his honor in Chicago, November 9th. He was forced to admit—and for him it was an unwonted admission—that "the heavens were partially overcast."

For the moment there was a disposition to drop Shields in favor of some Democrat who was not so closely identified with the Nebraska bill. Douglas viewed the situation with undisguised alarm. He urged his friends, however, to stick to Shields. "The election of any other man," he wrote truthfully, "would be deemed not only a defeat, but an ungrateful desertion of him, when all the others who have voted with him have been sustained."[517] It was just this fine spirit of loyalty that made men his lifelong friends and steadfast followers through thick and thin. "Our friends should stand by Shields," he continued, "and throw the responsibility on the Whigs of beating him because he was born in Ireland. The Nebraska fight is over, and Know-Nothingism has taken its place as the chief issue in the future. If therefore Shields shall be beaten it will [be] apparent to the people & to the whole country that a gallant soldier, and a faithful public servant has been stricken down because of the place of his birth." This was certainly shrewd, and, measured by the tone of American public life, not altogether reprehensible, politics. Douglas anticipated that the Whigs would nominate Lincoln and "stick to him to the bitter end," while the Free-Soilers and anti-Nebraska Democrats would hold with equal persistence to Bissell, in which case either Bissell would ultimately get the Whig vote or there would be no election. Sounding the trumpet call to battle, Douglas told his friends to nail Shields' flag to the mast and never to haul it down. "We are sure to triumph in the end on the great issue. Our policy and duty require us to stand firm by the issues in the late election, and to make no bargains, no alliances, no concessions to any of the allied isms."

When the legislature organized in January, the Democrats, to their indescribable alarm, found the Fusion forces in control of both houses. The election was postponed until February. Meantime Douglas cautioned his trusty lieutenant in no event to leave Springfield for even a day during the session.[518] On the first ballot for senator, Shields received 41 votes; Lincoln 45; Trumbull, an anti-Nebraska Democrat, 5; while three Democrats and five Fusionists scattered their votes. On the seventh ballot, Shields fell out of the running, his place being taken by Matteson. On the tenth ballot, Lincoln having withdrawn, the Whig vote concentrated on Trumbull, who, with the aid of his unyielding anti-Nebraska following, received the necessary 51 votes for an election. This result left many heart-burnings among both Whigs and Democrats, for the former felt that Lincoln had been unjustly sacrificed and the latter looked upon Trumbull as little better than a renegade.[519]

The returns from the elections in other Northern States were equally discouraging, from the Democratic point of view. Only seven out of forty-two who had voted for the Kansas-Nebraska bill were re-elected. In the next House, the Democrats would be in a minority of seventy-five.[520] The anti-Nebraska leaders were not slow in claiming a substantial victory. Indeed, their demonstrations of satisfaction were so long and loud, when Congress reassembled for the short session, that many Democrats found it difficult to accept defeat good-naturedly. Douglas, for one, would not concede defeat, despite the face of the returns. Men like Wade of Ohio, who enjoyed chaffing their discomfited opponents, took every occasion to taunt the author of the bill which had been the undoing of his party. Douglas met their gibes by asking whether there was a single, anti-Nebraska candidate from the free States who did not receive the Know-Nothing vote. For every Nebraska man who had suffered defeat, two anti-Nebraska candidates were defeated by the same causes. "The fact is, and the gentleman knows it, that in the free States there has been an alliance, I will not say whether holy or unholy, at the recent elections. In that alliance they had a crucible into which they poured Abolitionism, Maine liquor-lawism, and what there was left of Northern Whigism, and then the Protestant feeling against the Catholic, and the native feeling against the foreigner. All these elements were melted down in that crucible, and the result was what was called the Fusion party. That crucible ... was in every instance, a Know-Nothing Lodge."[521]

There was, indeed, enough of confusion in some States to give color to such assertions. Taken collectively, however, the elections indicated unmistakably a widespread revulsion against the administration of President Pierce; and it was folly to contend that the Kansas-Nebraska bill had not been the prime cause of popular resentment. Douglas was so constituted temperamentally that he both could not, and would not, confront the situation fairly and squarely. This want of sensitiveness to the force of ethical convictions stirring the masses, is the most conspicuous and regrettable aspect of his statecraft. Personally Douglas had a high sense of honor and duty; in private affairs he was scrupulously honest; and if at times he was shifty in politics, he played the game with quite as much fairness as those contemporary politicians who boasted of the integrity of their motives. He preferred to be frank; he meant to deal justly by all men. Even so, he failed to understand the impelling power of those moral ideals which border on the unattainable. For the transcendentalist in politics and philanthropy, he had only contempt. The propulsive force of an idea in his own mind depended wholly upon its appeal to his practical judgment. His was the philosophy of the attainable. Results that were approximately just and fair satisfied him. He was not disposed to sacrifice immediate advantage to future gain. His Celtic temperament made him think rapidly; and what imagination failed to supply, quick wit made good.

When, then, under the pressure of conditions for which he was not responsible, he yielded to the demand for a repeal of the Missouri Compromise, he failed to foresee that revulsion of moral sentiment that swept over the North. It was perfectly clear to his mind, that historically the prohibition of slavery by Federal law had had far less practical effect than the North believed. He was convinced that nearly all, if not all, of the great West was dedicated to freedom by a law which transcended any human enactment. Why, then, hold to a mere form, when the substance could be otherwise secured? Why should Northerner affront Southerner by imperious demands, when the same end might be attained by a compromise which would not cost either dear? Possibly he was not unwilling to let New Mexico become slave Territory, if the greater Northwest should become free by the operation of the same principle. Besides, there was the very tangible advantage of holding his party together by a sensible agreement, for the sake of which each faction yielded something.

Douglas was not blind to the palpable truth that the masses are swayed more by sentiment than logic: indeed, he knew well enough how to run through the gamut of popular emotions. What did escape him was the almost religious depth of the anti-slavery sentiment in that very stock from which he himself had sprung. It was not a sentiment that could be bargained away. There was much in it of the inexorable obstinacy of the Puritan faith. Verging close upon fanaticism at times, it swept away considerations of time and place, and overwhelmed appeals to expediency. Even where the anti-slavery spirit did not take on this extreme form, those whom it possessed were reluctant to yield one jot or tittle of the substantial gains which freedom had made.

It is probable that with the growing sectionalism, North and South would soon have been at odds over the disposition of the greater Northwest. Sooner or later, the South must have demanded the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, or have sought large concessions elsewhere. But it is safe to say that no one except Douglas could have been found in 1854, who possessed the requisite parliamentary qualities, the personal following, the influence in all sections,—and withal, the audacity, to propose and carry through the policy associated with the Kansas-Nebraska bill. The responsibility for this measure rested in a peculiar sense upon his shoulders.

It was in the course of this post-election discussion of February 23d, that Wade insinuated that mercenary motives were the key to Douglas's conduct. "Have the people of Illinois forgotten that injunction of more than heavenly wisdom, that 'Where a man's treasure is, there will his heart be also'?" To this unwarranted charge, which was current in Abolitionist circles, Douglas made a circumstantial denial. "I am not the owner of a slave and never have been, nor have I ever received, and appropriated to my own use, one dollar earned by slave-labor." For the first time, he spoke of the will of Colonel Martin and of the property which he had bequeathed to his daughter and to her children. With very genuine emotion, which touched even his enemies, he added, "God forbid that I should be understood by anyone as being willing to cast from me any responsibility that now does, or has ever attached to any member of my family. So long as life shall last—and I shall cherish with religious veneration the memories and virtues of the sainted mother of my children—so long as my heart shall be filled with parental solicitude for the happiness of those motherless infants, I implore my enemies who so ruthlessly invade the domestic sanctuary, to do me the favor to believe, that I have no wish, no aspiration, to be considered purer or better than she, who was, or they, who are, slaveholders."[522]

When the new Congress met in the fall of 1855, the anti-Nebraska men drew closer together and gradually assumed the name "Republican." Their first victory was the election of their candidate for the Speakership. They were disciplined by astute leaders under the pressure of disorders in Kansas. Before the session closed, they developed a remarkable degree of cohesion, while the body of their supporters in the Northern States assumed alarming proportions. The party was not wholly, perhaps not mainly, the product of humanitarian sentiment. The adherence of old-line Whig politicians like Seward suggests that there was some alloy in the pure gold of Republicanism. Such leaders were willing to make political capital out of the breakdown of popular sovereignty in Kansas.[523] They were too shrewd to stake the fortune of the nascent party on a bold, constructive policy. They preferred to play a waiting game. Events in Kansas came to their aid in ways that they could not have anticipated.

While this re-alignment of parties was in progress, the presidential year drew on apace. It behooved the Democrats to gather their scattered forces. The advantage of organization was theirs; but they suffered from desertions. The morale of the party was weakened. To check further desertions and to restore confidence, was the aim of the party whips. No one had more at stake than Douglas. He was on trial with his party. Conscious of his responsibilities, he threw himself into the light skirmishing in Congress which always precedes a presidential campaign. In this partisan warfare he was clever, but not altogether admirable. One could wish that he had been less uncharitable and less denunciatory; but political victories are seldom won by unaided virtue.

From the outset his anti-Nebraska colleague was the object of his bitterest gibes, for Trumbull typified the deserter, who was causing such alarm in the ranks of the Democrats. "I understand that my colleague has told the Senate," said Douglas contemptuously, "that he comes here as a Democrat. Sir, that fact will be news to the Democracy of Illinois. I undertake to assert there is not a Democrat in Illinois who will not say that such a statement is a libel upon the Democracy of that State. When he was elected he received every Abolition vote in the Legislature of Illinois. He received every Know-Nothing vote in the Legislature of Illinois. So far as I am advised and believe, he received no vote except from persons allied to Abolitionism or Know-Nothingism. He came here as the Know-Nothing-Abolition candidate, in opposition to the united Democracy of his State, and to the Democratic candidate."[524]

When to desertion was added association with "Black Republicans," Douglas found his vocabulary inadequate to express his scorn. Like most Democrats he was sensitive on the subject of party nomenclature.[525] "Republican" was a term which had associations with the very father of Democracy, though the party had long since dropped the hyphenated title. But this new, so-called Republican party had wisely dropped the prefix "national," suggested Douglas, because "it is a purely sectional party, with a platform which cannot cross the Ohio river, and a creed which inevitably brings the North and South into hostile collision." In view of the emphasis which their platform put upon the negro, Douglas thought that consistency required the substitution of the word "Black" for "National." The Democratic party, on the other hand, had no sympathy with those who believed in making the negro the social and political equal of the white man. "Our people are a white people; our State is a white State; and we mean to preserve the race pure, without any mixture with the negro. If you," turning to his Republican opponents, "wish your blood and that of the African mingled in the same channel, we trust that you will keep at a respectful distance from us, and not try to force that on us as one of your domestic institutions."[526] In such wise, Douglas labored to befog and discredit the issues for which the new party stood. The demagogue in him overmastered the statesman.

Douglas believed himself—and with good reason—to be the probable nominee of his party in the approaching presidential election. Several State conventions had already declared for him. There was no other Democrat, save President Pierce, whose name was so intimately associated with the policy of the party as expressed in the Kansas-Nebraska bill. Yet, while both were in favor at the South, neither Pierce nor Douglas was likely to secure the full party vote at the North. This consideration led to a diversion in favor of James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania. The peculiar availability of this well-known Democrat consisted in his having been on a foreign mission when the Kansas-Nebraska bill was under fire. Still, Buchanan was reported "sound" on the essential features of this measure. Before the national convention met, a well-organized movement was under way to secure the nomination of the Pennsylvanian.[527] Equally well-organized and even more noisy and demonstrative was the following of Douglas, as the delegates began to assemble at Cincinnati during the first week in June.

The first ballot in the convention must have been a grievous disappointment to Douglas and his friends. While Buchanan received 135 votes and Pierce 122, he could muster only 33. Only the Missouri and Illinois delegations cast their full vote for him. Of the slave States, only Missouri and Kentucky gave him any support. As the balloting continued, however, both Buchanan and Douglas gained at the expense of Pierce. After the fourteenth ballot, Pierce withdrew, and the bulk of his support was turned over to Douglas. Cass, the fourth candidate before the convention, had been from the first out of the running, his highest vote being only seven. On the sixteenth ballot, Buchanan received 168 and Douglas 122. Though Buchanan now had a majority of the votes of the convention, he still lacked thirty of the two-thirds required for a nomination.[528]

It was at this juncture that Douglas telegraphed to his friend Richardson, who was chairman of the Illinois delegation and a prominent figure in the convention, instructing him to withdraw his name. The announcement was received with loud protestations. The dispatch was then read: "If the withdrawal of my name will contribute to the harmony of our party or the success of our cause, I hope you will not hesitate to take the step ... if Mr. Pierce or Mr. Buchanan, or any other statesman who is faithful to the great issues involved in the contest, shall receive a majority of the convention, I earnestly hope that all my friends will unite in insuring him two-thirds, and then making his nomination unanimous. Let no personal considerations disturb the harmony or endanger the triumph of our principles."[529] Very reluctantly the supporters of Douglas obeyed their chief, and on the seventeenth ballot, James Buchanan received the unanimous vote of the convention. For the second time Douglas lost the nomination of his party.

Douglas bore himself admirably. At a mass-meeting in Washington,[530] he made haste to pledge his support to the nominee of the convention. His generous words of commendation of Buchanan, as a man possessing "wisdom and nerve to enforce a firm and undivided execution, of the laws" of the majority of the people of Kansas, were uttered without any apparent misgivings. Prophetic they certainly were not. Douglas could approve the platform unqualifiedly, for it was a virtual indorsement of the principle which he had proclaimed from the housetops for the greater part of two years. "The American Democracy," read the main article in the newly adopted resolutions, "recognize and adopt the principles contained in the organic laws establishing the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas as embodying the only sound and safe solution of the slavery question, upon which the great national idea of the people of this whole country can repose in its determined conservation of the Union, and non-interference of Congress with slavery in the Territories or in the District of Columbia."[531] Douglas deemed it a cause for profound rejoicing that the party was at last united upon principles which could be avowed everywhere, North, South, East, and West. As the only national party in the Republic, the Democracy had a great mission to perform, for in his opinion "no less than the integrity of the Constitution, the preservation and perpetuity of the Union," depended upon the result of this election.[532]

No man could have been more magnanimous under defeat and so little resentful at a personal slight. His manly conduct received favorable comment on all sides.[533] He was still the foremost figure in the Democratic party. To be sure, James Buchanan was the titular leader, but he stood upon a platform erected by his rival. His letter of acceptance left no doubt in the minds of all readers that he indorsed the letter and the spirit of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.[534]

A fortnight later the Republican national convention met at Philadelphia, and with great enthusiasm adopted a platform declaring it to be the duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territories "those twin relics of barbarism, polygamy and slavery." Even in this new party, availability dictated the choice of a presidential candidate. The real leaders of the party were passed over in favor of John C. Fremont, whose romantic career was believed to be worth many votes. Pitted against Buchanan and Fremont, was Millard Fillmore who had been nominated months before by the American party, and who subsequently received the indorsement of what was left of the moribund Whig party.[535]

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 507: This aspect of party has been treated at greater length in an article by the writer entitled "The Nationalizing Influence of Party," Tale Review, November; 1906.]

[Footnote 508: Sheahan, Douglas, pp. 264-265.]

[Footnote 509: Ibid., p. 271.]

[Footnote 510: Ibid., p. 269.]

[Footnote 511: Cutts, Constitutional and Party Questions, pp. 98-99.]

[Footnote 512: Davidson and Stuve, History of Illinois, pp. 641-643.]

[Footnote 513: See items scattered through the Illinois State Register for these exciting weeks.]

[Footnote 514: See Illinois State Register, October 6, 1854, and subsequent issues.]

[Footnote 515: Nearly every biographer of Lincoln has noted this apparent breach of agreement on the part of Douglas, but none has questioned the accuracy of the story, though the unimaginative Lamon betrays some misgivings, as he records Lincoln's course after the "Peoria truce." See Lamon, Lincoln, p. 358. The statement of Irwin (in Herndon-Weik, Lincoln, II, p. 329) does not seem credible, in the light of all the attendant circumstances.]

[Footnote 516: Whig Almanac 1855.]

[Footnote 517: MS. Letter, Douglas to Lanphier, December 18, 1854.]

[Footnote 518: MS. Letter, Douglas to Lanphier, December 18, 1854.]

[Footnote 519: Davidson and Stuve, History of Illinois, pp. 689-690; Sheahan, Douglas, pp. 275-276.]

[Footnote 520: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, p. 67.]

[Footnote 521: Globe, 33 Cong., 2 Sess., App., p. 216.]

[Footnote 522: Globe, 33 Cong., 2 Sess., App., p. 330.]

[Footnote 523: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, pp. 97-98, 130, 196.]

[Footnote 524: Globe, 34 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 655.]

[Footnote 525: Ibid., App., p. 391.]

[Footnote 526: Globe,34 Cong., 1 Sess., App. p. 392.]

[Footnote 527: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, pp. 169-171.]

[Footnote 528: Stanwood, History of the Presidency, p. 265. Douglas received 73 votes from the slave States and Buchanan 47; Buchanan received 28 votes in New England, Douglas 13; Buchanan received 41 votes from the Northwest, Douglas 19. The loss of Buchanan in the South was more than made good by his votes from the Middle Atlantic States.]

[Footnote 529: Sheahan, Douglas, pp. 448-449; Proceedings of the National Democratic Convention, 1856.]

[Footnote 530: Washington Union, June 7, 1856.]

[Footnote 531: Stanwood, History of the Presidency, p. 267.]

[Footnote 532: Washington Union, June 7, 1856.]

[Footnote 533: Correspondent to Cincinnati Enquirer, June 12, 1856.]

[Footnote 534: The letter read, "This legislation is founded upon principles as ancient as free government itself, and in accordance with them has simply declared that the people of a Territory like those of a State, shall decide for themselves whether slavery shall or shall not exist within their limits. The Kansas-Nebraska Act does no more than give the force of law to this elementary principle of self-government, declaring it to be 'the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States.' How vain and illusory would any other principle prove in practice in regard to the Territories," etc. Cincinnati Enquirer, June 22, 1856.]

[Footnote 535: Stanwood, History of the Presidency, pp. 269-274.]



CHAPTER XIII

THE TESTING OF POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY

The author of the Kansas-Nebraska bill doubtless anticipated a gradual and natural occupation of the new Territories by settlers like those home-seekers who had taken up government lands in Iowa and other States of the Northwest. In the course of time, it was to be expected, such communities would form their own social and political institutions, and so determine whether they would permit or forbid slave-labor. By that rapid, and yet on the whole strangely conservative, American process the people of the Territories would become politically self-conscious and ready for statehood. Not all at once, but gradually, a politically self-sufficient entity would come into being. Such had been the history of American colonization; it seemed the part of wise statesmanship to follow the trend of that history.

Theoretically popular sovereignty, as applied in the Kansas-Nebraska Act, was not an advance over the doctrine of Cass and Dickinson. It professed to be the same which had governed Congress in organizing Utah and New Mexico. Nevertheless, popular sovereignty had an artificial quality which squatter sovereignty lacked. The relation between Congress and the people of the Territories, in the matter of slavery, was now to be determined not so much by actual conditions as by an abstract principle. Federal policy was indoctrinated.

There was, too, this vital difference between squatter sovereignty in Utah and New Mexico and popular sovereignty in Nebraska and Kansas: the former were at least partially inhabited and enjoyed some degree of social and political order; the latter were practically uninhabited. It was one thing to grant control over all domestic concerns to a population in esse, and another and quite different thing to grant control to a people in posse. In the Kansas-Nebraska Act hypothetical communities were endowed with the capacity of self-government, and told to decide for themselves a question which would become a burning issue the very moment that the first settlers set foot in the Territories. Congress attempted thus to solve an equation without a single known quantity.

Moreover, slavery was no longer a matter of local concern. Doubtless it was once so regarded; but the time had passed when the conscience of the North would acquiesce in a laissez faire policy. By force of circumstances slavery had become a national issue. Ardent haters of the institution were not willing that its extension or restriction should be left to a fraction of the nation, artificially organized as a Territory. The Kansas-Nebraska Act prejudiced the minds of many against the doctrine, however sound in theory it may have seemed, by unsettling what the North regarded as its vested right in the free territory north of the line of the Missouri Compromise. The Act made the political atmosphere electric. The conditions for obtaining a calm, dispassionate judgment on the domestic concern of chief interest, were altogether lacking.

It was everywhere conceded that Nebraska would be a free Territory. The eyes of the nation were focused upon Kansas, which was from the first debatable ground. A rush of settlers from the Northwest joined by pioneers from Kentucky and Missouri followed the opening up of the new lands. As Douglas had foretold, the tide of immigration held back by Indian treaties now poured in. The characteristic features of American colonization seemed about to repeat themselves. So far the movement of population was for the most part spontaneous. Land-hunger, not the political destiny of the West, drove men to locate their claims on the Kansas and the Missouri. By midsummer colonists of a somewhat different stripe appeared. Sent out under the auspices of the Emigrant Aid Company, they were to win Kansas for freedom at the same time that they subdued the wilderness. It was a species of assisted emigration which was new in the history of American colonization, outside the annals of missionary effort. The chief promoter of this enterprise was a thrifty, Massachusetts Yankee, who saw no reason why crusading and business should not go hand in hand. Kansas might be wrested from the slave-power at the same time that returns on invested funds were secured.

The effect of these developments upon the aggressive pro-slavery people of Missouri is not easy to describe. Hitherto they had assumed that Kansas would become a slave Territory in the natural order of events. This was the prevailing Southern opinion. At once the people of western Missouri were put upon the defensive. Blue lodges were formed for the purpose of carrying slavery into Kansas. Appeals were circulated in the slave-holding States for colonists and funds. Passions were inflamed by rumors which grew as they stalked abroad. The peaceful occupation of Kansas was at an end. Popular sovereignty was to be tested under abnormal conditions.

When the election of territorial delegates to Congress occurred, in the late fall, a fatal defect in the organic law was disclosed, to which many of the untoward incidents of succeeding months may be ascribed. The territorial act conferred the right of voting at the first elections upon all free, white, male inhabitants, twenty-one years of age and actually resident in the Territory.[536] Here was an unfortunate ambiguity. What was actual residence? Every other act organizing a territorial government was definite on this point, permitting only those to vote who were living in the proposed Territory, at the time of the passage of the act. The omission in the case of Kansas and Nebraska is easily accounted for. Neither had legal residents when the act was passed. Indeed, this defect bears witness to the fact that Congress was legislating, not for actual, but for hypothetical communities. The consequences were far-reaching, for at the very first election, it was charged that frauds were practiced by bands of Missourians, who had crossed the border only to aid the pro-slavery cause. Not much was made of these charges, as no particular interest attached to the election.

Far different was the election of members of the territorial legislature in the following spring. On all hands it was agreed that this legislature would determine whether Kansas should be slave or free soil. It was regrettable that Governor Reeder postponed the taking of the census until February, since by mid-winter many settlers, who had staked their claims, returned home for the cold season, intending to return with their families in the early spring. This again was a characteristic feature of frontier history.[537] In March, the governor issued his proclamation of election, giving only three weeks' notice. Of those who had returned home, only residents of Missouri and Iowa were able to participate in the election of March 30th, by hastily recrossing into Kansas. Governor Reeder did his best to guard against fraud. In his instructions to the judges of election, he warned them that a voter must be "an actual resident"; that is, "must have commenced an active inhabitancy, which he actually intends to continue permanently, and must have made the Territory his dwelling place to the exclusion of any other home."[538] Still, it was not to be expected that bona fide residents could be easily ascertained in communities which had sprung up like mushrooms. A hastily constructed shack served all the purposes of the would-be voter; and, in last analysis, judges of elections had to rest content with declarations of intentions. Those who crossed into Kansas after the governor's proclamation and endeavored to continue actual inhabitancy, were with difficulty distinguished from those who now crossed for the first time, under a similar pretext. As Douglas subsequently contended with much force, the number of votes cast in excess of the census returns did not in itself prove wholesale fraud.[539]

Under such liability to deception and misjudgment, the territorial authorities held the election which was likely to determine the status of Kansas with respect to slavery. Both parties were playing for great stakes; passion and violence were the almost inevitable outcome. Both parties contained desperadoes, who invariably come to the surface in the general mixing which occurs on the frontier. Both parties committed frauds at the polls. But the most serious gravamina have been laid at the door of those Blue Lodges of Missouri which deliberately sought to secure the election of pro-slavery candidates by fair means or foul. The people of western Missouri had come to believe that the fate of slavery in their own Commonwealth hinged upon the future of Kansas. It was commonly believed that after Kansas, Missouri would be abolitionized. It was, therefore, with the fierce, unreasoning energy of defenders of their own institutions, that Blue Lodges organized their crusade for Kansas.[540] On election day armed bands of Missourians crossed into Kansas and polled a heavy vote for the pro-slavery candidates, in the teeth of indignant remonstrances.[541]

The further history of popular sovereignty in Kansas must be lightly touched upon, for it is the reflex action in the halls of Congress that interests the student of Douglas's career. Twenty-eight of the thirty-nine members of the first territorial legislature were men of pronounced pro-slavery views; eleven were anti-slavery candidates. In seven districts, where protests had been filed, the governor ordered new elections. Three of those first elected were returned, six were new men of anti-slavery proclivities. But when the legislature met, these new elections were set aside and I the first elections were declared valid.[542]

In complete control of the legislature, the pro-slavery party proceeded to write slavery into the law of the Territory. In their eagerness to establish slavery permanently, these legislative Hotspurs quite overshot the mark, creating offenses and affixing penalties of doubtful constitutionality.[543] Meanwhile the census of February reported but one hundred ninety-two slaves in a total population of eight thousand six hundred.[544] Those who had migrated from the South, were not as a rule of the slave-holding class. Those who possessed slaves shrank from risking their property in Kansas, until its future were settled.[545] Eventually, the climate was to prove an even greater obstacle to the transplantation of the slave-labor system into Kansas.

Foiled in their hope of winning the territorial legislature, the free-State settlers in Kansas resolved upon a hazardous course. Believing the legislature an illegal body, they called a convention to draft a constitution with which they proposed to apply for admission to the Union as a free State. Robinson, the leader of the free-State party, was wise in such matters by reason of his experience in California. Reeder, who had been displaced as governor and had gone over to the opposition, lent his aid to the project; and ex-Congressman Lane, formerly of Indiana, gave liberally of his vehement energy to the cause. After successive conventions in which the various free-State elements were worked into a fairly consistent mixture, the Topeka convention launched a constitution and a free-State government. Unofficially the supporters of the new government took measures for its defense. In the following spring, Governor Robinson sent his first message to the State legislature in session at Topeka; and Reeder and Lane were chosen senators for the inchoate Commonwealth.[546]

Meantime Governor Shannon had succeeded Reeder as executive of the territorial government at Shawnee Mission. The aspect of affairs was ominous. Popular sovereignty had ended in a dangerous dualism. Two governments confronted each other in bitter hostility. There were untamed individuals in either camp, who were not averse to a decision by wager of battle.[547]

Such was the situation in Kansas, when Douglas reached Washington in February, after a protracted illness.[548] The President had already discussed the Kansas imbroglio in a special message; but the Democratic majority in the Senate showed some reluctance to follow the lead of the administration. From the Democrats in the House not much could be expected, because of the strength of the Republicans. The party awaited its leader. Upon his appearance, all matters relating to Kansas were referred to the Committee on Territories. The situation called for unusual qualities of leadership. How would the author of the Kansas-Nebraska Act face the palpable breakdown of his policy?

With his customary dispatch, Douglas reported on the 12th of March.[549] The majority report consumed two hours in the reading; Senator Collamer stated the position of the minority in half the time.[550] Evidently the chairman was aware where the burden of proof lay. Douglas took substantially the same ground as that taken by the President in his special message, but he discussed the issues boldly in his own vigorous way. No one doubted that he had reached his conclusions independently.

The report began with a constitutional argument in defense of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. As a contribution to the development of the doctrine of popular sovereignty, the opening paragraphs deserve more than passing notice. The distinct advance in Douglas's thought consisted in this: that he explicitly refused to derive the power to organize Territories from that provision of the Constitution which gave Congress "power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States." The word "territory" here was used in its geographical sense to designate the public domain, not to indicate a political community. Rather was the power to be derived from the authority of Congress to adopt necessary and proper means to admit new States into the Union. But beyond the necessary and proper organization of a territorial government with reference to ultimate statehood, Congress might not go. Clearly, then, Congress might not impose conditions and restrictions upon a Territory which would prevent its entering the Union on an equality with the other States. From the formation of the Union, each State had been left free to decide the question of slavery for itself. Congress, therefore, might not decide the question for prospective States. Recognizing this, the framers of the Kansas-Nebraska Act had relegated the discussion of the slavery question to the people, who were to form a territorial government under cover of the organic act.[551]

This was an ingenious argument. It was in accord with the utterances of some of the weightiest intellects in our constitutional history. But it was not in accord with precedent. There was hardly a territorial act that had emerged from Douglas's committee room, which had not imposed restrictions not binding on the older Commonwealths.

Having given thus a constitutional sanction to the principle of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the report unhesitatingly denounced that "vast moneyed corporation," created for the purpose of controlling the domestic institutions of a distinct political community fifteen hundred miles away.[552] This was as flagrant an act of intervention as though France or England had interfered for a similar purpose in Cuba, for "in respect to everything which affects its domestic policy and internal concerns, each State stands in the relation of a foreign power to every other State." The obvious retort to this extraordinary assertion was, that Kansas was only a Territory, and not a State. Douglas then made this "mammoth moneyed corporation" the scapegoat for all that had happened in Kansas. The Missouri Blue Lodges were defensive organizations, called into existence by the fear that the "abolitionizing" of Kansas was the prelude to a warfare upon slavery in Missouri. The violence and bloodshed in Kansas were "the natural and inevitable consequences of such extraordinary systems of emigration."[553]

Such ex post facto assertions did not mend matters in Kansas, however much they may have relieved the author of the report. It remained to deal with the existing situation. The report took the ground that the legislature of Kansas was a legal body and had been so recognized by Governor Reeder. Neither the alleged irregularity of the elections, nor other objections, could diminish its legislative authority. Pro-tests against the election returns had been filed in only seven out of eighteen districts. Ten out of thirteen councilmen, and seventeen out of twenty-six representatives, held their seats by virtue of the governor's certificate. Even if it were assumed that the second elections in the seven districts were wrongly invalidated by the legislature, its action was still the action of a lawful legislature, possessing in either house a quorum of duly certificated members. This was a lawyer's plea. Technically it was unanswerable.

Having taken this position, Douglas very properly refused to pass judgment on the laws of the legislature. By the very terms of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Congress had confided the power to enact local laws to the people of the Territories. If the validity of these laws should be doubted, it was for the courts of justice and not for Congress to decide the question.[554]

Throughout the report, the question was not once raised, whether the legislature really reflected the sentiment of a majority of the settlers of Kansas. Douglas assumed that it was truly representative. This attitude is not surprising, when one recalls his predilections and the conflict of evidence on essential points in the controversy. Nevertheless, this attitude was unfortunate, for it made him unfair toward the free-State settlers, with whom by temper and training he had far more in common than with the Missouri emigrants. Could he have cut himself loose from his bias, he would have recognized the free-State men as the really trustworthy builders of a Commonwealth. But having taken his stand on the legality of the territorial legislature, he persisted in regarding the free-State movement as a seditious combination to subvert the territorial government established by Congress. To the free-State men he would not accord any inherent, sovereign right to annul the laws and resist the authority of the territorial government.[555] The right of self-government was derived only from the Constitution through the organic act passed by Congress. And then he used that expression which was used with telling effect against the theory of popular sovereignty: "The sovereignty of a Territory remains in abeyance, suspended in the United States, in trust for the people, until they shall be admitted into the Union as a State."[556] If this was true, then popular sovereignty after all meant nothing more than local self-government, the measure of which was to be determined by Congress. If Congress left slavery to local determination, it was only for expediency's sake, and not by reason of any constitutional obligation.

Douglas found a vindication of his Kansas-Nebraska Act in the peaceful history of Nebraska, "to which the emigrant aid societies did not extend their operations, and into which the stream of emigration was permitted to flow in its usual and natural channels."[557] He fixed the ultimate responsibility for the disorders in Kansas upon those who opposed the principle of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and who, "failing to accomplish their purpose in the halls of Congress, and under the authority of the Constitution, immediately resorted in their respective States to unusual and extraordinary means to control the political destinies and shape the domestic institutions of Kansas, in defiance of the wishes and regardless of the rights of the people of that Territory as guaranteed by their organic law."[558]

A practical recommendation accompanied the report. It was proposed to authorize the territorial legislature to provide for a constitutional convention to frame a State constitution, as soon as a census should indicate that there were ninety-three thousand four hundred and twenty inhabitants.[559] This bill was in substantial accord with the President's recommendations.

The minority report was equally positive as to the cause of the trouble in Kansas and the proper remedy. "Repeal the act of 1854, organize Kansas anew as a free Territory and all will be put right." But if Congress was bent on continuing the experiment, then the Territory must be reorganized with proper safeguards against illegal voting. The only alternative was to admit the Territory as a State with its free constitution.

The issue could not have been more sharply drawn. Popular sovereignty as applied in the Kansas-Nebraska Act was put upon the defensive. Republican senators made haste to press their advantage. Sumner declared that the true issue was smothered in the majority report, but stood forth as a pillar of fire in the report of the minority. Trumbull forced the attack, while Douglas was absent, without waiting for the printing of the reports. It needed only this apparent discourtesy to bring Douglas into the arena. An unseemly wrangle between the Illinois senators followed, in the course of which Douglas challenged his colleague to resign and stand with him for re-election before the next session of the legislature.[560] Trumbull wisely declined to accept the risk.

On the 20th of March, Douglas addressed the Senate in reply to Trumbull.[561] Nothing that he said shed any new light on the controversy. He had not changed his angle of vision. He had only the old arguments with which to combat the assertion that "Kansas had been conquered and a legislature imposed by violence." But the speech differed from the report, just as living speech must differ from the printed page. Every assertion was pointed by his vigorous intonations; every argument was accentuated by his forceful personality. The report was a lawyer's brief; the speech was the flexible utterance of an accomplished debater, bent upon a personal as well as an argumentative victory.

Even hostile critics were forced to yield to a certain admiration for "the Little Giant." The author of Uncle Tom's Cabin watched him from her seat in the Senate gallery, with intense interest; and though writing for readers, who like herself hated the man for his supposed servility to the South, she said with unwonted objectivity, "This Douglas is the very ideal of vitality. Short, broad, and thick-set, every inch of him has its own alertness and motion. He has a good head and face, thick black hair, heavy black brows and a keen eye. His figure would be an unfortunate one were it not for the animation which constantly pervades it; as it is, it rather gives poignancy to his peculiar appearance; he has a small, handsome hand, moreover, and a graceful as well as forcible mode of using it.... He has two requisites of a debater—a melodious voice and a clear, sharply defined enunciation.... His forte in debating is his power of mystifying the point. With the most off-hand assured airs in the world, and a certain appearance of honest superiority, like one who has a regard for you and wishes to set you right on one or two little matters, he proceeds to set up some point which is not that in question, but only a family connection of it, and this point he attacks with the very best of logic and language; he charges upon it horse and foot, runs it down, tramples it in the dust, and then turns upon you with—'Sir, there is your argument! Did not I tell you so? You see it is all stuff;' and if you have allowed yourself to be so dazzled by his quickness as to forget that the routed point is not, after all, the one in question, you suppose all is over with it. Moreover, he contrives to mingle up so many stinging allusions to so many piquant personalities that by the time he has done his mystification a dozen others are ready and burning to spring on their feet to repel some direct or indirect attack, all equally wide of the point."[562]

Douglas paid dearly for some of these personal shots. He had never forgiven Sumner for his share in "the Appeal of the Independent Democrats." He lost no opportunity to attribute unworthy motives to this man, whose radical views on slavery he never could comprehend. More than once he insinuated that the Senator from Massachusetts and other Black Republicans were fabricating testimony relating to Kansas for political purposes. When Sumner, many weeks later, rose to address the Senate on "the Crime against Kansas," he labored under the double weight of personal wrongs and the wrongs of a people. The veteran Cass pronounced his speech "the most un-American and unpatriotic that ever grated on the ears of the members of this high body."[563] Even Sumner's friends listened to him with surprise and regret. Of Douglas he had this to say:

"As the Senator from South Carolina is the Don Quixote, the Senator from Illinois is the squire of slavery, its very Sancho Panza, ready to do all its humiliating offices. This Senator in his labored address, vindicating his labored report—piling one mass of elaborate error upon another mass—constrained himself, as you will remember, to unfamiliar decencies of speech.... I will not stop to repel the imputations which he cast upon myself.... Standing on this floor, the Senator issued his rescript, requiring submission to the Usurped Power of Kansas; and this was accompanied by a manner—all his own—such as befits the tyrannical threat.... He is bold. He shrinks from nothing. Like Danton, he may cry, 'l'audace! l'audace! tonjours l'audace!' but even his audacity cannot compass this work. The Senator copies the British officer, who, with boastful swagger, said that with the hilt of his sword he would cram the 'stamps' down the throats of the American people, and he will meet a similar failure."[564]

The retort of Douglas was not calculated to turn away wrath. He called attention to the fact that these gross insults were not uttered in the heat of indignation, but "conned over, written with cool, deliberate malignity, repeated from night to night in order to catch the appropriate grace." He ridiculed the excessive self-esteem of Sumner in words that moved the Senate to laughter; and then completed his vindictive assault by charging Sumner with perfidy. Had he not sworn to obey the Constitution, and then, forsooth, refused to support the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave law?[565]

Sumner replied in a passion, "Let the Senator remember hereafter that the bowie-knife and bludgeon are not the proper emblems of senatorial debate. Let him remember that the swagger of Bob Acres and the ferocity of the Malay cannot add dignity to this body.... No person with the upright form of a man can be allowed, without violation of all decency, to switch out from his tongue the perpetual stench of offensive personality. Sir, that is not a proper weapon of debate, at least, on this floor. The noisome, squat, and nameless animal, to which I refer, is not a proper model for an American Senator. Will the Senator from Illinois take notice?" And upon Douglas's unworthy retort that he certainly would not imitate the Senator in that capacity, Stunner said insultingly, "Mr. President, again the Senator has switched his tongue, and again he fills the Senate with its offensive odor."[566]

Two days later Brooks made his assault on Sumner in the Senate chamber. Sumner's recollection was, that on recovering consciousness, he recognized among those about him, but offering no assistance, Senators Douglas and Toombs, and between them, his assailant.[567] It was easy for ill-disposed persons to draw unfortunate inferences from this sick-bed testimony. Douglas felt that an explanation was expected from him. In a frank, explicit statement he told his colleagues that he was in the reception room of the Senate when the assault occurred. Hearing what was happening, he rose immediately to his feet to enter the chamber and put an end to the affray. But, on second thought, he realized that his motives would be misconstrued if he entered the hall. When the affair was over, he went in with the crowd. He was not near Brooks at any time, and he was not with Senator Toombs, except perhaps as he passed him on leaving the chamber. He did not know that any attack upon Mr. Sumner was purposed "then or at any other time, here or at any other place."[568] Still, it is to be regretted that Douglas did not act on his first, manly instincts and do all that lay in his power to end this brutal assault, regardless of possible misconstructions.

Disgraceful as these scenes in Congress were, they were less ominous than events which were passing in Kansas. Clashes between pro-slavery and free-State settlers had all but resulted in civil war in the preceding fall. An unusually severe winter had followed, which not only cooled the passions of all for a while, but convinced many a slave-holder of the futility of introducing African slaves into a climate, where on occasion the mercury would freeze in the thermometer. In the spring hostilities were resumed. Under cover of executing certain writs in Lawrence, Sheriff Jones and a posse of ruffians took revenge upon that stronghold of the Emigrant Aid Society, by destroying the newspaper offices, burning some public buildings, and pillaging the town. Three days after the sack of Lawrence, and just two days after the assault upon Sumner in the Senate, John Brown and his sons executed the decree of Almighty God, by slaying in cold blood five pro-slavery settlers on the Pottawatomie. Civil war had begun in Kansas.[569]

If remedial measures for Kansas were needed at the beginning of Congress, much more were they needed now. The bill reported by Douglas for the eventual admission of Kansas had commended itself neither to the leaders, nor to the rank and file, of the party. There was a general disposition to await the outcome of the national party conventions, before legislating for Kansas. Douglas made repeated efforts to expedite his bill, but his failure to secure the Democratic nomination seemed to weaken his leadership. Pressure from without finally spurred the Democratic members of Congress to action. The enthusiasm of the Republicans in convention and their confident expectation of carrying many States at the North, warned the Democrats that they must make some effort to allay the disturbances in Kansas. The initiative was taken by Senator Toombs, who drafted a bill conceding far more to Northern sentiment than any yet proposed. It provided that, after a census had been taken, delegates to a constitutional convention should be chosen on the date of the presidential election in November. Five competent persons, appointed by the President with the consent of the Senate, were to supervise the census and the subsequent registration of voters. The convention thus chosen was to assemble in December to frame a State constitution and government.[570]

The Toombs bill, with several others, and with numerous amendments, was referred to the Committee on Territories. Frequent conferences followed at Douglas's residence, in which the recognized leaders of the party participated.[571] It was decided to support the Toombs bill in a slightly amended form and to make a party measure of it.[572] Prudence warned against attempting to elect Buchanan on a policy of merely negative resistance to the Topeka movement.[573] The Republican members of Congress were to be forced to make a show of hands on a measure which promised substantial relief to the people of Kansas.

In his report of June 30th, Douglas discussed the various measures that had been proposed by Whigs and Republicans, but found the Toombs bill best adapted to "insure a fair and impartial decision of the questions at issue in Kansas, in accordance with the wishes of the bona fide inhabitants." A single paragraph from this report ought to have convinced those who subsequently doubted the sincerity of Douglas's course, that he was partner to no plots against the free expression of public opinion in the Territory. "In the opinion of your committee, whenever a constitution shall be formed in any Territory, preparatory to its admission into the Union as a State, justice, the genius of our institutions, the whole theory of our republican system imperatively demand that the voice of the people shall be fairly expressed, and their will embodied in that fundamental law, without fraud or violence, or intimidation, or any other improper or unlawful influence, and subject to no other restrictions than those imposed by the Constitution of the United States."[574]

The Toombs bill caused Republicans grave misgivings, even while they conceded its ostensible liberality. Could an administration that had condoned the frauds already practiced in Kansas be trusted to appoint disinterested commissioners? Would a census of the present population give a majority in the proposed convention to the free-State party in Kansas? Everyone knew that many free-State people had been driven away by the disorders. Douglas endeavored to reassure his opponents on these points; but his words carried no weight on the other side of the chamber. No better evidence of his good faith in the matter, however, could have been asked than he offered, by an amendment which extended the right of voting at the elections to all who had been bona fide residents and voters, but who had absented themselves from the Territory, provided they should return before October 1st.[575] If, as Republicans asserted, many more free-State settlers than pro-slavery squatters had been driven out, then here was a fair concession. But what they wanted was not merely an equal chance for freedom in Kansas, but precedence. To this end they were ready even to admit Kansas under the Topeka constitution, which, by the most favorable construction, was the work of a faction.[576]

It was afterwards alleged that Douglas had wittingly suppressed a clause in the original Toombs bill, which provided for a submission of the constitution to a popular vote. The circumstances were such as to make the charge plausible, and Douglas, in his endeavor to clear himself, made hasty and unqualified statements which were manifestly incorrect. In his own bill for the admission of Kansas, Douglas referred explicitly to "the election for the adoption of the Constitution."[577] The wording of the clause indicates that he regarded the popular ratification of the constitution to be a matter of course. The original Toombs bill had also referred explicitly to a ratification of the constitution by the people;[578] but when it was reported from Douglas's committee in an amended form, it had been stripped of this provision. Trumbull noted at the time that this amended bill made no provision for the submission of the constitution to the vote of the people and deplored the omission, though he supposed, as did most men, that such a ratification would be necessary.[579] Subsequently he accused Douglas not only of having intentionally omitted the referendum clause, but of having prevented a popular vote, by adding the clause, "and until the complete execution of this Act, no other election shall be held in said Territory."[580]

Douglas cleared himself from the latter charge, by pointing out that this clause had been struck out upon his own motion, and replaced by the clause which read, "all other elections in said Territory are hereby postponed until such time as said convention shall appoint."[581] As to the other charge, Douglas said in 1857, that he knew the Toombs bill was silent on the matter of submission, but he took the fair construction to be that powers not delegated were reserved, and that of course the constitution would be submitted to the people. "That I was a party, either by private conferences at my house or otherwise, to a plan to force a constitution on the people of Kansas without submission, is not true."[582]

Still, there was the ugly fact that the Toombs bill had gone to his committee with the clause, and had emerged shorn of it. Toombs himself threw some light on the matter by stating that the clause had been stricken out because there was no provision for a second election, and therefore no proper safeguards for such a popular vote.[583] The probability is that Douglas, and in fact most men, deemed it sufficient at that time to provide a fair opportunity for the election of a convention.[584] When Trumbull preferred his charges in detail in the campaign of 1858, Douglas at first flatly denied that there was a submission clause in the original Toombs bill. Both Trumbull and Lincoln then convicted Douglas of error, and thus put him in the light of one who had committed an offense and had sought to save himself by prevaricating.

The Toombs bill passed the Senate over the impotent Republican opposition; but in the House it encountered a hostile majority which would not so much as consider a proposition emanating from Democratic sources.[585] Douglas charged the Republicans with the deliberate wish and intent to keep the Kansas issue alive. "All these gentlemen want," he declared, "is to get up murder and bloodshed in Kansas for political effect. They do not mean that there shall be peace until after the presidential election.... Their capital for the presidential election is blood. We may as well talk plainly. An angel from Heaven could not write a bill to restore peace in Kansas that would be acceptable to the Abolition Republican party previous to the presidential election."[586]

"Bleeding Kansas" was, indeed, a most effective campaign cry. Before Congress adjourned, the Republicans had found other campaign material in the majority report of the Kansas investigating committee. The Democrats issued the minority report as a counter-blast, and also circulated three hundred thousand copies of Douglas's 12th of March report, which was held to be campaign material of the first order. Douglas himself paid for one-third of these out of his own pocket.[587] No one could accuse him of sulking in his tent. Whatever personal pique he may have felt at losing the nomination, he was thoroughly loyal to his party. He gave unsparingly of his time and strength to the cause of Democracy, speaking most effectively in the doubtful States. And when Pennsylvania became the pivotal State, as election day drew near, Douglas gave liberally to the campaign fund which his friend Forney was collecting to carry the State for Buchanan.[588]

Illinois, too, was now reckoned as a doubtful State. Douglas had forced the issues clearly to the fore by pressing the nomination of Richardson for governor.[589] Next to himself, there was no man in the State so closely identified with Kansas-Nebraska legislation. The anti-Nebraska forces accepted the gage of battle by nominating Bissell, a conspicuous figure among those Democrats who could not sanction the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Only the nomination of a Know-Nothing candidate complicated the issues which were thus drawn. Shortly before the October State elections, Douglas saw that he had committed a tactical blunder. Richardson was doomed to defeat. "Would it not be well," wrote Douglas to James W. Sheahan, who had come from Washington to edit the Chicago Times, "to prepare the minds of your readers for losing the State elections on the 14th of October? Buchanan's friends expect to lose it then, but carry the State by 20,000 in November. We may have to fight against wind and tide after the 14th. Hence our friends ought to be prepared for the worst. We must carry Illinois at all hazards and in any event."[590]

This forecast proved to be correct. Richardson, with all that he represented, went down to defeat. In November Buchanan carried the State by a narrow margin, the total Democratic vote falling far behind the combined vote for Fremont and Fillmore.[591] The political complexion of Illinois had changed. It behooved the senior senator to take notice.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 536: Section 23, United States Statutes at Large, X, p. 285.]

[Footnote 537: See remarks of Douglas, Globe, 34 Cong., 1 Sess., App., pp. 360-361.]

[Footnote 538: Howard Report, pp. 108-109.]

[Footnote 539: Globe, 34 Cong., 1 Sess., App., pp. 360-361.]

[Footnote 540: Spring, Kansas, pp. 39-41.]

[Footnote 541: Ibid., pp. 43-49; Rhodes, History of the United States, II, pp. 81-82.]

[Footnote 542: Spring, Kansas, pp. 53-56.]

[Footnote 543: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, p. 99.]

[Footnote 544: Ibid., p. 100.]

[Footnote 545: Ibid., p. 101.]

[Footnote 546: Spring, Kansas, Chapter V; Rhodes, II, pp. 102-103.]

[Footnote 547: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, p. 103.]

[Footnote 548: Sheahan, Douglas, p. 286.]

[Footnote 549: Senate Reports, 34 Cong., 1 Sess., No. 34.]

[Footnote 550: Globe, 34 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 639.]

[Footnote 551: Senate Report, No. 34, p. 4.]

[Footnote 552: Ibid., p. 7.]

[Footnote 553: Senate Report, No. 34, pp. 7-9.]

[Footnote 554: Ibid., p. 23.]

[Footnote 555: Senate Report, No. 34, p. 34.]

[Footnote 556: Ibid., p. 39.]

[Footnote 557: Senate Report, No. 34, p. 40.]

[Footnote 558: Ibid., pp. 39-40.]

[Footnote 559: Globe, 34 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 693.]

[Footnote 560: Globe, 34 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 657.]

[Footnote 561: Ibid., App., pp. 280 ff.]

[Footnote 562: New York Independent, May 1, 1856; quoted by Rhodes II, p. 128.]

[Footnote 563: Globe, 34 Cong., 1 Sess., App. p. 544.]

[Footnote 564: Globe, 34 Cong., 1 Sess., App., p. 531.]

[Footnote 565: Ibid., p. 545.]

[Footnote 566: Globe, 34 Cong., 1 Sess., App., p. 547.]

[Footnote 567: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, p. 148.]

[Footnote 568: Globe, 34 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 1305.]

[Footnote 569: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, pp. 103-106; 154-166.]

[Footnote 570: Globe, 34 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 1439.]

[Footnote 571: Ibid., 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 22.]

[Footnote 572: Ibid., p. 119.]

[Footnote 573: Ibid., p. 119.]

[Footnote 574: Senate Report, 34 Cong., 1 Sess., No. 198.]

[Footnote 575: Globe, 34 Cong., 1 Sess., App., p. 795.]

[Footnote 576: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, pp. 194-195.]

[Footnote 577: Senate Bill, No. 172, Section 3.]

[Footnote 578: Senate Bill, No. 356, Section 13.]

[Footnote 579: Globe, 34 Cong., 1 Sess., App., p. 779.]

[Footnote 580: Speech at Alton, Illinois, 1858.]

[Footnote 581: Political Debates between Lincoln and Douglas, pp. 161 ff.]

[Footnote 582: Globe, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 22.]

[Footnote 583: Ibid., App., p. 127. Toombs also stated that the submission clause had been put in his bill in the first place by accident, and that it had been stricken from the bill at his suggestion.]

[Footnote 584: The submission of State constitutions to a popular vote had not then become a general practice.]

[Footnote 585: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, p. 195.]

[Footnote 586: Globe, 34 Cong., 1 Sess., App., p. 844.]

[Footnote 587: Globe, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 21.]

[Footnote 588: Sheahan, Douglas, p. 443.]

[Footnote 589: Davidson and Stuve, History of Illinois, p. 650.]

[Footnote 590: MS. Letter, Douglas to Sheahan, October 6, 1856.]

[Footnote 591: Tribune Almanac, 1857. The vote was as follows:

Buchanan 105,348 Fremont 96,189 Fillmore 37,444 ]



BOOK III

THE IMPENDING CRISIS



CHAPTER XIV

THE PERSONAL EQUATION

Vast changes had passed over Illinois since Douglas set foot on its soil, a penniless boy with his fortune to make. The frontier had been pushed back far beyond the northern boundary of the State; the Indians had disappeared; and the great military tract had been occupied by a thrifty, enterprising people of the same stock from which Douglas sprang. In 1833, the center of political gravity lay far south of the geographical center of the State; by 1856, the northern counties had already established a political equipoise. The great city on Lake Michigan, a lusty young giant, was yearly becoming more conscious of its commercial and political possibilities. Douglas had natural affinities with Chicago. It was thoroughly American, thoroughly typical of that restless, aggressive spirit which had sent him, and many another New Englander, into the great interior basin of the continent. There was no other city which appealed so strongly to his native instincts. From the first he had been impressed by its commercial potentialities. He had staked his own fortunes upon its invincible prosperity by investing in real estate, and within a few years he had reaped the reward of his faith in unseen values. His holdings both in the city and in Cook County advanced in value by leaps and bounds, so that in the year 1856, he sold approximately one hundred acres for $90,000. With his wonted prodigality, born of superb confidence in future gains, he also deeded ten acres of his valuable "Grove Property" to the trustees of Chicago University.[592] Yet with a far keener sense of honor than many of his contemporaries exhibited, he refused to speculate in land in the new States and Territories, with whose political beginnings he would be associated as chairman of the Committee on Territories. He was resolved early in his career "to avoid public suspicion of private interest in his political conduct."[593]

The gift to Chicago University was no doubt inspired in part at least by local pride; yet it was not the first nor the only instance of the donor's interest in educational matters. No one had taken greater interest in the bequest of James Smithson to the United States. At first, no doubt, Douglas labored under a common misapprehension regarding this foundation, fancying that it would contribute directly to the advancement and diffusion of the applied sciences; but his support was not less hearty when he grasped the policy formulated by the first secretary of the institution. He was the author of that provision in the act establishing the Smithsonian Institution, which called for the presentation of one copy of every copyrighted book, map, and musical composition, to the Institution and to the Congressional Library.[594] He became a member of the board of regents and retained the office until his death.

With his New England training Douglas believed profoundly in the dignity of labor; not even his Southern associations lessened his genuine admiration for the magnificent industrial achievements of the Northern mechanic and craftsman. He shared, too, the conviction of his Northern constituents, that the inventiveness, resourcefulness, and bold initiative of the American workman was the outcome of free institutions, which permitted and encouraged free and bold thinking. The American laborer was not brought up to believe it "a crime to think in opposition to the consecrated errors of olden times."[595] It was impossible for a man so thinking to look with favor upon the slave-labor system of the South. He might tolerate the presence of slavery in the South; but in his heart of hearts he could not desire its indefinite extension.

Douglas belonged to his section, too, in his attitude toward the disposition of the public domain. He was one of the first to advocate free grants of the public lands to homesteaders. His bill to grant one hundred and sixty acres to actual settlers who should cultivate them for four years, was the first of many similar projects in the early fifties.[596] Southern statesmen thought this the best "bid" yet made for votes: it was further evidence of Northern demagogism. The South, indeed, had little direct interest in the peopling of the Western prairies by independent yeomen, native or foreign. Just here Douglas parted company with his Southern associates. He believed that the future of the great West depended upon this wise and beneficial use of the national domain. Neither could he agree with Eastern statesmen who deplored the gratuitous distribution of lands, which by sale would yield large revenues. His often-repeated reply was the quintessence of Western statesmanship. The pioneer who went into the wilderness, to wrestle with all manner of hardships, was a true wealth-producer. As he cleared his land and tilled the soil, he not only himself became a tax-payer, but he increased the value of adjoining lands and added to the sum total of the national resources.[597]

Douglas gave his ungrudging support to grants of land in aid of railroads and canals. He would not regard such grants, however, as mere donations, but rather as wise provisions for increasing the value of government lands. "The government of the United States is a great land owner; she has vast bodies of land which she has had in market for thirty or forty years; and experience proves that she cannot sell them.... The difficulty in the way of the sale does not arise from the fact that the lands are not fertile and susceptible to cultivation, but that they are distant from market, and in many cases destitute of timber."[598] Therefore he gave his voice and vote for nearly all land grant bills, designed to aid the construction of railroads and canals that would bring these public lands into the market; but he insisted that everything should be done by individual enterprise if possible. He shared the hostility of the West toward large grants of land to private corporations.[599] What could not be done by individual enterprise, should be done by the States; and only that should be undertaken by the Federal government which could be done in no other way.

As the representative of a constituency which was profoundly interested in the navigation of the great interior waterways of the continent, Douglas was a vigorous advocate of internal improvements, so far as his Democratic conscience would allow him to construe the Constitution in favor of such undertakings by the Federal government. Like his constituents, he was not always logical in his deductions from constitutional provisions. The Constitution, he believed, would not permit an appropriation of government money for the construction of the ship canal around the Falls of the St. Mary's; but as landowner, the Federal government might donate lands for that purpose.[600] He was also constrained to vote for appropriations for the improvement of river channels and of harbors on the lakes and on the ocean, because these were works of a distinctly national character; but he deplored the mode by which these appropriations were made.[601]

Just when the Nebraska issue came to the fore, he was maturing a scheme by which a fair, consistent, and continuous policy of internal improvements could be initiated, in place of the political bargaining which had hitherto determined the location of government operations. Two days before he presented his famous Nebraska report, Douglas addressed a letter to Governor Matteson of Illinois in which he developed this new policy.[602] He believed that the whole question would be thoroughly aired in the session just begun.[603] Instead of making internal improvements a matter of politics, and of wasteful jobbery, he would take advantage of the constitutional provision which permits a State to lay tonnage duties by the consent of Congress. If Congress would pass a law permitting the imposition of tonnage duties according to a uniform rule, then each town and city might be authorized to undertake the improvement of its own harbor, and to tax its own commerce for the prosecution of the work. Under such a system the dangers of misuse and improper diversion of funds would be reduced to a minimum. The system would be self-regulative. Negligence, or extravagance, with the necessary imposition of higher duties, would punish a port by driving shipping elsewhere.

But for the interposition of the slavery issue, which no one would have more gladly banished from Congress, Douglas would have unquestionably pushed some such reform into the foreground. His heart was bound up in the material progress of the country. He could never understand why men should allow an issue like slavery to stand in the way of prudential and provident legislation for the expansion of the Republic. He laid claim to no expert knowledge in other matters: he frankly confessed his ignorance of the mysteries of tariff schedules. "I have learned enough about the tariff," said he with a sly thrust at his colleagues, who prided themselves on their wisdom, "to know that I know scarcely anything about it at all; and a man makes considerable progress on a question of this kind when he ascertains that fact."[604] Still, he grasped an elementary principle that had escaped many a protectionist, that "a tariff involves two conflicting principles which are eternally at war with each other. Every tariff involves the principles of protection and of oppression, the principles of benefits and of burdens.... The great difficulty is, so to adjust these conflicting principles of benefits and burdens as to make one compensate for the other in the end, and give equal benefits and equal burdens to every class of the community."[605]

Douglas was wiser, too, than the children of light, when he insisted that works of art should be admitted free of duty. "I wish we could get a model of every work of art, a cast of every piece of ancient statuary, a copy of every valuable painting and rare book, so that our artists might pursue their studies and exercise their skill at home, and that our literary men might not be exiled in the pursuits which bless mankind."[606]

Still, the prime interests of this hardy son of the West were political. How could they have been otherwise in his environment? There is no evidence of literary refinement in his public utterances; no trace of the culture which comes from intimate association with the classics; no suggestion of inspiration quaffed in communion with imaginative and poetic souls. An amusing recognition of these limitations is vouched for by a friend, who erased a line of poetry from a manuscript copy of a public address by Douglas. Taken to task for his presumption, he defended himself by the indisputable assertion, that Douglas was never known to have quoted a line of poetry in his life.[607] Yet the unimaginative Douglas anticipated the era of aerial navigation now just dawning. On one occasion, he urged upon the Senate a memorial from an aeronaut, who desired the aid of the government in experiments which he was conducting with dirigible balloons. When the Senate, in a mirthful mood, proposed to refer the petition to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Douglas protested that the subject should be treated seriously.[608]

While Douglas was thus steadily growing into complete accord with the New England elements in his section—save on one vital point,—he fell captive to the beauty and grace of one whose associations were with men and women south of Mason and Dixon's line. Adele Cutts was the daughter of Mr. J. Madison Cutts of Washington, who belonged to an old Maryland family. She was the great-niece of Dolly Madison, whom she much resembled in charm of manner. When Douglas first made her acquaintance, she was the belle of Washington society,—in the days when the capital still boasted of a genuine aristocracy of gentleness, grace, and talent. There are no conflicting testimonies as to her beauty. Women spoke of her as "beautiful as a pearl;" to men she seemed "a most lovely and queenly apparition."[609] Both men and women found her sunny-tempered, generous, warm-hearted, and sincere. What could there have been in the serious-minded, dark-visaged "Little Giant" to win the hand of this mistress of many hearts? Perhaps she saw "Othello's visage in his mind"; perhaps she yielded to the imperious will which would accept no refusal; at all events, Adele Cutts chose this plain little man of middle-age in preference to men of wealth and title.[610] It proved to be in every respect a happy marriage.[611] He cherished her with all the warmth of his manly affection; she became the devoted partner of all his toils. His two boys found in her a true mother; and there was not a household in Washington where home-life was graced with tenderer mutual affection.[612]

Across this picture of domestic felicity, there fell but a single, fugitive shadow. Adele Cutts was an adherent of the Roman Church; and at a time when Native Americanism was running riot with the sense of even intelligent men, such ecclesiastical connections were made the subject of some odious comment. Although Douglas permitted his boys to be educated in the Catholic faith, and profoundly respected the religious instincts of his tender-hearted wife, he never entered into the Roman communion, nor in fact identified himself with any church.[613] Much of his relentless criticism of Native Americanism can be traced to his abhorrence of religious intolerance in any form.

This alliance meant much to Douglas. Since the death of his first wife, he had grown careless in his dress and bearing, too little regardful of conventionalities. He had sought by preference the society of men, and had lost those external marks of good-breeding which companionship with gentlewomen had given him. Insensibly he had fallen a prey to a certain harshness and bitterness of temper, which was foreign to his nature; and he had become reckless, so men said, because of defeated ambition. But now yielding to the warmth of tender domesticity, the true nature of the man asserted itself.[614] He grew, perhaps not less ambitious, but more sensible of the obligations which leadership imposed.

No one could gainsay his leadership. He was indisputably the most influential man in his party; and this leadership was not bought by obsequiousness to party opinion, nor by the shadowy arts of the machine politician alone. True, he was a spoilsman, like all of his contemporaries. He was not above using the spoils of office to reward faithful followers. Reprehensible as the system was, and is, there is perhaps a redeeming feature in this aspect of American politics. The ignorant foreigner was reconciled to government because it was made to appear to him as a personal benefactor. Due credit must be given to those leaders like Douglas, who fired the hearts of Irishmen and Germans with loyalty to the Union through the medium of party.[615]

The hold of Douglas upon his following, however, cannot be explained by sordid appeals to their self-interest. He commanded the unbought service of thousands. In the early days of his career, he had found loyal friends, who labored unremittingly for his advancement, without hope of pecuniary reward or of any return but personal gratitude; and throughout his career he drew upon this vast fund of personal loyalty. His capacity for warm friendships was unlimited. He made men, particularly young men, feel that it was an inestimable boon to be permitted to labor with him "for the cause." Far away in Asia Minor, with his mind teeming with a thousand strange sensations, he can yet think of a friend at the antipodes who nurses a grievance against him; and forthwith he sits down and writes five pages of generous, affectionate remonstrance.[616] In the thick of an important campaign, when countless demands are made upon his time, he finds a moment to lay his hand upon the shoulder of a young German ward-politician with the hearty word, "I count very much on your help in this election."[617] If this was the art of a politician, it was art reduced to artlessness.

Not least among the qualities which made Douglas a great, persuasive, popular leader, was his quite extraordinary memory for names and faces, and his unaffected interest in the personal life of those whom he called his friends. "He gave to every one of those humble and practically nameless followers the impression, the feeling, that he was the frank, personal friend of each one of them."[618] Doubtless he was well aware that there is no subtler form of flattery, than to call individuals by name who believe themselves to be forgotten pawns in a great game; and he may well have cultivated the profitable habit. Still, the fact remains, that it was an innate temperamental quality which made him frank and ingenuous in his intercourse with all sorts and conditions of men.

Those who judged the man by the senator, often failed to understand his temperament. He was known as a hard hitter in parliamentary encounters. He never failed to give a Roland for an Oliver. In the heat of debate, he was often guilty of harsh, bitter invective. His manner betrayed a lack of fineness and good-breeding. But his resentment vanished with the spoken word. He repented the barbed shaft, the moment it quitted his bow. He would invite to his table the very men with whom he had been in acrimonious controversy, and perhaps renew the controversy next day. Greeley testified to this absence of resentment. On a certain occasion, after the New York Tribune had attacked Douglas savagely, a mutual acquaintance asked Douglas if he objected to meeting the redoubtable Greeley. "Not at all," was the good-natured reply, "I always pay that class of political debts as I go along, so as to have no trouble with them in social intercourse and to leave none for my executors to settle."[619]

In the round of social functions which Senator and Mrs. Douglas enjoyed, there was little time for quiet thought and reflection. Men who met him night after night at receptions and dinners, marvelled at the punctuality with which he returned to the routine work of the Senate next morning. Yet there was not a member of the Senate who had a readier command of facts germane to the discussions of the hour. His memory was a willing slave which never failed to do the bidding of master intellect. Some of his ablest and most effective speeches were made without preparation and with only a few pencilled notes at hand. Truly Nature had been lavish in her gifts to him.