To nine-tenths of his devoted followers, he was still "Judge" Douglas. It was odd that the title, so quickly earned and so briefly worn, should have stuck so persistently to him. In legal attainments he fell far short of many of his colleagues in the Senate. Had he but chosen to apply himself, he might have been a conspicuous leader of the American bar; but law was ever to him the servant of politics, and he never cared to make the servant greater than his lord. That he would have developed judicial qualities, may well be doubted; advocate he was and advocate he remained, to the end of his days. So it was that when a legal question arose, with far-reaching implications for American politics, the lawyer and politician, rather than the judge, laid hold upon the points of political significance.

The inauguration of James Buchanan and the Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court, two days later, marked a turning point in the career of Judge Douglas. Of this he was of course unaware. He accepted the advent of his successful rival with composure, and the opinion of the Court, with comparative indifference. In a speech before the Grand Jury of the United States District Court at Springfield, three months later, he referred publicly for the first time to the Dred Scott case. Senator, and not Judge, Douglas was much in evidence. He swallowed the opinion of the majority of the court without wincing—the obiter dictum and all. Nay, more, he praised the Court for passing, like honest and conscientious judges, from the technicalities of the case to the real merits of the questions involved. The material, controlling points of the case were: first, that a negro descended from slave parents could not be a citizen of the United States; second, that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional and void from the beginning, and thus could not extinguish a master's right to his slave in any Territory. "While the right continues in full force under ... the Constitution," he added, "and cannot be divested or alienated by an act of Congress, it necessarily remains a barren and worthless right, unless sustained, protected, and enforced by appropriate police regulations and local legislation, prescribing adequate remedies for its violation. These regulations and remedies must necessarily depend entirely upon the will and wishes of the people of the Territory, as they can only be prescribed by the local legislatures." Hence the triumphant conclusion that "the great principle of popular sovereignty and self-government is sustained and firmly established by the authority of this decision."[620]

There were acute legal minds who thought that they detected a false note in this paean. Was this a necessary implication from the Dred Scott decision? Was it the intention of the Court to leave the principle of popular sovereignty standing upright? Was not the decision rather fatal to the great doctrine—the shibboleth of the Democratic party?

On this occasion Douglas had nothing to add to his exposition of the Dred Scott case, further than to point out the happy escape of white supremacy from African equality. And here he struck the note which put him out of accord with those Northern constituents with whom he was otherwise in complete harmony. "When you confer upon the African race the privileges of citizenship, and put them on an equality with white men at the polls, in the jury box, on the bench, in the Executive chair, and in the councils of the nation, upon what principle will you deny their equality at the festive board and in the domestic circle?" In the following year, he received his answer in the homely words of Abraham Lincoln: "I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife."

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 592: Sheahan, Douglas, pp. 442-443; Iglehart, History of the Douglas Estate in Chicago.]

[Footnote 593: Letter in Chicago Times, August 30, 1857.]

[Footnote 594: Globe, 29 Cong., 1 Sess., pp. 749-750.]

[Footnote 595: Globe, 32 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 870.]

[Footnote 596: Ibid., 31 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 75.]

[Footnote 597: Globe, 31 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 266.]

[Footnote 598: Ibid., 32 Cong., 1 Sess., pp. 350-351.]

[Footnote 599: Ibid., p. 769.]

[Footnote 600: Globe, 32 Cong., 1 Sess., App., p. 951.]

[Footnote 601: Ibid., p. 952.]

[Footnote 602: Letter to Governor Matteson, January 2, 1854, in Sheahan, Douglas, pp. 358 ff.]

[Footnote 603: MS. Letter, Douglas to C.H. Lanphier, November 11, 1853.]

[Footnote 604: Globe, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 953.]

[Footnote 605: Globe, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 953.]

[Footnote 606: Ibid., p. 1050.]

[Footnote 607: Chicago Times, January 27, 1858.]

[Footnote 608: Globe, 31 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 132.]

[Footnote 609: Mrs. Pryor, Reminiscences of Peace and War, p. 68; Villard, Memoirs, I, p. 92.]

[Footnote 610: Letter of Mrs. Lippincott ("Grace Greenwood") to the writer.]

[Footnote 611: Conversation with Stephen A. Douglas, Esq., of Chicago.]

[Footnote 612: The marriage took place November 20, 1856.]

[Footnote 613: See Philadelphia Press, June 8, 1861.]

[Footnote 614: Letter of J.H. Roberts, Esq., of Chicago to the writer; also letter of Mrs. Lippincott to the writer.]

[Footnote 615: See Philadelphia Press, November 17, 1860.]

[Footnote 616: For a copy of this letter, I am indebted to J.H. Roberts, Esq., of Chicago.]

[Footnote 617: Conversation with Henry Greenbaum, Esq., of Chicago.]

[Footnote 618: Major G.M. McConnell in the Transactions of the Illinois Historical Society, 1900; see also Forney, Anecdotes of Public Men, I, p. 147.]

[Footnote 619: Schuyler Colfax in the South Bend Register, June, 1861; Forney in his Eulogy, 1861; Greeley, Recollections of a Busy Life, p. 359.]

[Footnote 620: The New York Times, June 23, 1857, published this speech of June 12th, in full.]



CHAPTER XV

THE REVOLT OF DOUGLAS

Had anyone prophesied at the close of the year 1856, that within a twelvemonth Douglas would be denounced as a traitor to Democracy, he would have been thought mad. That Douglas of all men should break with his party under any circumstances was almost unthinkable. His whole public career had been inseparably connected with his party. To be sure, he had never gone so far as to say "my party right or wrong"; but that was because he had never felt obliged to make a moral choice. He was always convinced that his party was right. Within the circumference of party, he had always found ample freedom of movement. He had never lacked the courage of his convictions, but hitherto his convictions had never collided with the dominant opinion of Democracy. He undoubtedly believed profoundly in the mission of his party, as an organization standing above all for popular government and the preservation of the Union. No ordinary circumstances would justify him in weakening the influence or impairing the organization of the Democratic party. Paradoxical as it may seem, his partisanship was dictated by a profound patriotism. He believed the maintenance of the Union to be dependent upon the integrity of his party. So thinking and feeling he entered upon the most memorable controversy of his career.

When President Buchanan asked Robert J. Walker of Mississippi to become governor of Kansas, the choice met with the hearty approval of Douglas. Not all the President's appointments had been acceptable to the Senator from Illinois. But here was one that he could indorse unreservedly. He used all his influence to persuade Walker to accept the uncoveted mission. With great reluctance Walker consented, but only upon the most explicit understanding with the administration as to the policy to be followed in Kansas. It was well understood on both sides that a true construction of the Kansas-Nebraska Act required the submission to popular vote of any constitution which the prospective convention might adopt. This was emphatically the view of Douglas, whom Governor Walker took pains to consult on his way through Chicago.[621]

The call for an election of delegates to a constitutional convention had already been issued, when Walker reached Kansas. The free-State people were incensed because the appointment of delegates had been made on the basis of a defective census and registration; and even the assurance of the governor, in his inaugural, that the constitution would be submitted to a popular vote, failed to overcome their distrust. They therefore took no part in the election of delegates. This course was unfortunate, for it gave the control of the convention wholly into the hands of the pro-slavery party, with consequences that were far-reaching for Kansas and the nation.[622] But by October the free-State party had abandoned its policy of abstention from territorial politics, so far as to participate in the election of a new territorial legislature. The result was a decisive free-State victory. The next legislature would have an ample majority of free-State men in both chambers. It was with the discomfiting knowledge, then, that they represented only a minority of the community that the delegates of the constitutional convention began their labors.[623] It was clear to the dullest intelligence that any pro-slavery constitution would be voted down, if it were submitted fairly to the people of Kansas. Gloom settled down upon the hopes of the pro-slavery party.

When the document which embodied the labors of the convention was made public, the free-State party awoke from its late complacence to find itself tricked by a desperate game. The constitution was not to be submitted to a full and fair vote; but only the article relating to slavery. The people of Kansas were to vote for the "Constitution with slavery" or for the "Constitution with no slavery." By either alternative the constitution would be adopted. But should the constitution with no slavery be ratified, a clause of the schedule still guaranteed "the right of property in slaves now in this Territory."[624] The choice offered to an opponent of slavery in Kansas was between a constitution sanctioning and safeguarding all forms of slave property,[625] and a constitution which guaranteed the full possession of slaves then in the Territory, with no assurances as to the status of the natural increase of these slaves. Viewed in the most charitable light, this was a gambler's device for securing the stakes by hook or crook. Still further to guard existing property rights in slaves, it was provided that if the constitution should be amended after 1864, no alteration should be made to affect "the rights of property in the ownership of slaves."[626]

The news from Lecompton stirred Douglas profoundly. In a peculiar sense he stood sponsor for justice to bleeding Kansas, not only because he had advocated in abstract terms the perfect freedom of the people to form their domestic institutions in their own way, but because he had become personally responsible for the conduct of the leader of the Lecompton party. John Calhoun, president of the convention, had been appointed surveyor general of the Territory upon his recommendation. Governor Walker had retained Calhoun in that office because of Douglas's assurance that Calhoun would support the policy of submission.[627] Moreover, Governor Walker had gone to his post with the assurance that the leaders of the administration would support this course.

Was it likely that the pro-slavery party in Kansas would take this desperate course, without assurance of some sort from Washington? There were persistent rumors that President Buchanan approved the Lecompton constitution,[628] but Douglas was loth to give credence to them. The press of Illinois and of the Northwest voiced public sentiment in condemning the work of the Lecomptonites.[629] Douglas was soon on his way to Washington, determined to know the President's mind; his own was made up.

The interview between President Buchanan and Douglas, as recounted by the latter, takes on a dramatic aspect.[630] Douglas found his worst fears realized. The President was clearly under the influence of an aggressive group of Southern statesmen, who were bent upon making Kansas a slave State under the Lecompton constitution. Laboring under intense feeling, Douglas then threw down the gauntlet: he would oppose the policy of the administration publicly to the bitter end. "Mr. Douglas," said the President rising to his feet excitedly, "I desire you to remember that no Democrat ever yet differed from an administration of his own choice without being crushed. Beware of the fate of Tallmadge and Rives." "Mr. President" rejoined Douglas also rising, "I wish you to remember that General Jackson is dead."

The Chicago Times, reporting the interview, intimated that there had been a want of agreement, but no lack of courtesy or regard on either side. Douglas was not yet ready to issue an ultimatum. The situation might be remedied. On the night following this memorable encounter, Douglas was serenaded by friends and responded with a brief speech, but he did not allude to the Kansas question.[631] It was generally expected that he would show his hand on Monday, the opening day of Congress. The President's message did not reach Congress, however, until Tuesday. Immediately upon its reading, Douglas offered the usual motion to print the message, adding, as he took his seat, that he totally dissented from "that portion of the message which may fairly be construed as approving of the proceedings of the Lecompton convention." At an early date he would state the reasons for his dissent.[632]

On the following day, December 9th, Douglas took the irrevocable step. For three hours he held the Senate and the audience in the galleries in rapt attention, while with more than his wonted gravity and earnestness he denounced the Lecompton constitution.[633] He began with a conciliatory reference to the President's message. He was happy to find, after a more careful examination, that the President had refrained from making any recommendation as to the course which Congress should pursue with regard to the constitution. And so, he added adroitly, the Kansas question is not to be treated as an administration measure. He shared the disappointment of the President that the constitution had not been submitted fully and freely to the people of Kansas; but the President, he conceived, had made a fundamental error in supposing that the Nebraska Act provided for the disposition of the slavery question apart from other local matters. The direct opposite was true. The main object of the Act was to remove an odious restriction by which the people had been prevented from deciding the slavery question for themselves, like all other local and domestic concerns. If the President was right in thinking that by the terms of the Nebraska bill the slavery question must be submitted to the people, then every other clause of the constitution should be submitted to them. To do less would be to reduce popular sovereignty to a farce.

But Douglas could not maintain this conciliatory attitude. His sense of justice was too deeply outraged. He recalled facts which every well-informed person knew. "I know that men, high in authority and in the confidence of the territorial and National Government, canvassed every part of Kansas during the election of delegates, and each one of them pledged himself to the people that no snap judgment was to be taken. Up to the time of the meeting of the convention, in October last, the pretense was kept up, the profession was openly made, and believed by me, and I thought believed by them, that the convention intended to submit a constitution to the people, and not to attempt to put a government in operation without such submission."[634] How was this pledge redeemed? All men, forsooth, must vote for the constitution, whether they like it or not, in order to be permitted to vote for or against slavery! This would be like an election under the First Consul, when, so his enemies averred, Napoleon addressed his troops with the words: "Now, my soldiers, you are to go to the election and vote freely just as you please. If you vote for Napoleon, all is well; vote against him, and you are to be instantly shot." That was a fair election! "This election," said Douglas with bitter irony, "is to be equally fair! All men in favor of the constitution may vote for it—all men against it shall not vote at all! Why not let them vote against it? I have asked a very large number of the gentlemen who framed the constitution ... and I have received the same answer from every one of them.... They say if they allowed a negative vote the constitution would have been voted down by an overwhelming majority, and hence the fellows shall not be allowed to vote at all."

"Will you force it on them against their will," he demanded, "simply because they would have voted it down if you had consulted them? If you will, are you going to force it upon them under the plea of leaving them perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way? Is that the mode in which I am called upon to carry out the principle of self-government and popular sovereignty in the Territories?" It is no answer, he argued, that the constitution is unobjectionable. "You have no right to force an unexceptionable constitution on a people." The pro-slavery clause was not the offense in the constitution, to his mind. "If Kansas wants a slave-State constitution she has a right to it, if she wants a free-State constitution she has a right to it. It is none of my business which way the slavery clause is decided. I care not whether it is voted up or down." The whole affair looked to him "like a system of trickery and jugglery to defeat the fair expression of the will of the people."[635]

The vehemence of his utterance had now carried Douglas perhaps farther than he had meant to go.[636] He paused to plead for a fair policy which would redeem party pledges:

"Ignore Lecompton, ignore Topeka; treat both those party movements as irregular and void; pass a fair bill—the one that we framed ourselves when we were acting as a unit; have a fair election—and you will have peace in the Democratic party, and peace throughout the country, in ninety days. The people want a fair vote. They never will be satisfied without it. They never should be satisfied without a fair vote on their Constitution....

"Frame any other bill that secures a fair, honest vote, to men of all parties, and carries out the pledge that the people shall be left free to decide on their domestic institutions for themselves, and I will go with you with pleasure, and with all the energy I may possess. But if this Constitution is to be forced down our throats, in violation of the fundamental principle of free government, under a mode of submission that is a mockery and insult, I will resist it to the last. I have no fear of any party associations being severed. I should regret any social or political estrangement, even temporarily; but if it must be, if I can not act with you and preserve my faith and my honor, I will stand on the great principle of popular sovereignty, which declares the right of all people to be left perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way. I will follow that principle wherever its logical consequences may take me, and I will endeavor to defend it against assault from any and all quarters. No mortal man shall be responsible for my action but myself. By my action I will compromit no man."[637]

The speech made a profound impression. No one could mistake its import. The correspondent of the New York Tribune was right in thinking that it "marked an important era in our political history."[638] Douglas had broken with the dominant pro-slavery faction of his party. How far he would carry his party with him, remained to be seen. But that a battle royal was imminent, was believed on all sides. "The struggle of Douglas with the slave-power will be a magnificent spectacle to witness," wrote one who had hitherto evinced little admiration for the author of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.[639]

Douglas kept himself well in hand throughout his speech. His manner was at times defiant, but his language was restrained. At no time did he disclose the pain which his rupture with the administration cost him, except in his closing words. What he had to expect from the friends of the administration was immediately manifest. Senator Bigler of Pennsylvania sprang to the defense of the President. In an irritating tone he intimated that Douglas himself had changed his position on the question of submission, alluding to certain private conferences at Douglas's house; but as though bound by a pledge of secrecy, Bigler refrained from making the charge in so many words. Douglas, thoroughly aroused, at once absolved, him from any pledges, and demanded to know when they had agreed not to submit the constitution to the people. The reply of Bigler was still allusive and evasive. "Does he mean to say," insisted Douglas excitedly, "that I ever was, privately or publicly, in my own house or any other, in favor of a constitution without its being submitted to the people?" "I have made no such allegation," was the reply. "You have allowed it to be inferred," exclaimed Douglas in exasperated tones.[640] And then Green reminded him, that in his famous report of January 4, 1854, he had proposed to leave the slavery question to the decision of the people "by their appropriate representatives chosen by them for that purpose," with no suggestion of a second, popular vote. Truly, his most insidious foes were now those of his own political household.

Anti-slavery men welcomed this revolt of Douglas without crediting him with any but self-seeking motives. They could not bring themselves to believe other than ill of the man who had advocated the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Republicans accepted his aid in their struggle against the Lecompton fraud, but for the most part continued to regard him with distrust. Indeed, Douglas made no effort to placate them. He professed to care nothing for the cause of the slave which was nearest their hearts. Hostile critics, then, were quick to point out the probable motives from which he acted. His senatorial term was drawing to a close. He was of course desirous of a re-election. But his nominee for governor had been defeated at the last election, and the State had been only with difficulty carried for the national candidates of the party. The lesson was plain: the people of Illinois did not approve the Kansas policy of Senator Douglas. Hence the weathercock obeyed the wind.

In all this there was a modicum of truth. Douglas would not have been the power that he was, had he not kept in touch with his constituency. But a sense of honor, a desire for consistency, and an abiding faith in the justice of his great principle, impelled him in the same direction. These were thoroughly honorable motives, even if he professed an indifference as to the fate of the negro. He had pledged his word of honor to his constituents that the people of Kansas should have a fair chance to pronounce upon their constitution. Nothing short of this would have been consistent with popular sovereignty as he had expounded it again and again. And Douglas was personally a man of honor. Yet when all has been said, one cannot but regret that the sense of fair play, which was strong in him, did not assert itself in the early stages of the Kansas conflict and smother that lawyer's instinct to defend, a client by the technicalities of the law. Could he only have sought absolute justice for the people of Kansas in the winter of 1856, the purity of his motives would not have been questioned in the winter of 1858.

Even those colleagues of Douglas who doubted his motives, could not but admire his courage. It did, indeed, require something more than audacity to head a revolt against the administration. No man knew better the thorny road that he must now travel. No man loved his party more. No man knew better the hazard to the Union that must follow a rupture in the Democratic party. But if Douglas nursed the hope that Democratic senators would follow his lead, he was sadly disappointed. Three only came to his support—Broderick of California, Pugh of Ohio, and Stuart of Michigan,—while the lists of the administration were full. Green, Bigler, Fitch, in turn were set upon him.

Douglas bitterly resented any attempt to read him out of the party by making the Lecompton constitution the touchstone of genuine Democracy; yet each day made it clearer that the administration had just that end in view. Douglas complained of a tyranny not consistent with free Democratic action. One might differ with the President on every subject but Kansas, without incurring suspicion. Every pensioned letter writer, he complained, had been intimating for the last two weeks that he had deserted the Democratic party and gone over to the Black Republicans. He demanded to know who authorized these tales.[641] Senator Fitch warned him solemnly that the Democratic party was the only political link in the chain which now bound the States together. "None ... will hold that man guiltless, who abandons it upon a question having in it so little of practical importance ... and by seeking its destruction, thereby admits his not unwillingness that a similar fate should be visited on the Union, perhaps, to subserve his selfish purpose."[642] These attacks roused Douglas to vehement defiance. More emphatically than ever, he declared the Lecompton constitution "a trick, a fraud upon the rights of the people."

If Douglas misjudged the temper of his colleagues, he at least gauged correctly the drift of public sentiment in Illinois and the Northwest. Of fifty-six Democratic newspapers in Illinois, but one ventured to condone the Lecompton fraud.[643] Mass meetings in various cities of the Northwest expressed confidence in the course of Senator Douglas.

He now occupied a unique position at the capital. Visitors were quite as eager to see the man who had headed the revolt as to greet the chief executive.[644] His residence, where Mrs. Douglas dispensed a gracious hospitality, was fairly besieged with callers.[645] Washington society was never gayer than during this memorable winter.[646] None entertained more lavishly than Senator and Mrs. Douglas. Whatever unpopularity he incurred at the Capitol, she more than offset by her charming and gracious personality. Acknowledged as the reigning queen of the circle in which she moved, Mrs. Douglas displayed a social initiative that seconded admirably the independent, self-reliant attitude of her husband. When Adele Cutts Douglas chose to close the shutters of her house at noon, and hold a reception by artificial light every Saturday afternoon, society followed her lead. There were no more brilliant affairs in Washington than these afternoon receptions and hops at the Douglas residence in Minnesota Block.[647] In contrast to these functions dominated by a thoroughly charming personality, the formal precision of the receptions at the White House was somewhat chilling and forbidding. President Buchanan, bachelor, with his handsome but somewhat self-contained niece, was not equal to this social rivalry.[648] Moreover, the cares of office permitted the perplexed, wearied, and timid executive no respite day or night.

Events in Kansas gave heart to those who were fighting Lecomptonism. At the election appointed by the convention, the "constitution with slavery" was adopted by a large majority, the free-State people refusing to vote; but the legislature, now in the control of the free-State party, had already provided for a fair vote on the whole constitution. On this second vote the majority was overwhelmingly against the constitution. Information from various sources corroborated the deductions which unprejudiced observers drew from the voting. It was as clear as day that the people of Kansas did not regard the Lecompton constitution as a fair expression of their will.[649]

Ignoring the light which made the path of duty plain, President Buchanan sent the Lecompton constitution to Congress with a message recommending the admission of Kansas.[650] To his mind, the Lecompton convention was legally constituted and had exercised its powers faithfully. The organic act did not bind the convention to submit to the people more than the question of slavery. Meantime the Supreme Court had handed down its famous decision in the Dred Scott case. Fortified by this dictum, the President told Congress that slavery existed in Kansas by virtue of the Constitution of the United States. "Kansas is, at this moment, as much a slave State as Georgia or South Carolina"! Slavery, then, could be prohibited only by constitutional provision; and those who desired to do away with slavery would most speedily compass their ends, if they admitted Kansas at once under this constitution.

The President's message with the Lecompton constitution was referred to the Committee on Territories and gave rise to three reports: Senator Green of Missouri presented the majority report, recommending the admission of Kansas under this constitution; Senators Collamer and Wade united on a minority report, leaving Douglas to draft another expressing his dissent on other grounds.[651] Taken all in all, this must be regarded as the most satisfactory and convincing of all Douglas's committee reports. It is strong because it is permeated by a desire for justice, and reinforced at every point by a consummate marshalling of evidence. Barely in his career had his conspicuous qualities as a special pleader been put so unreservedly at the service of simple justice. He planted himself firmly, at the outset, upon the incontrovertible fact that there was no satisfactory evidence that the Lecompton constitution was the act and deed of the people of Kansas.[652]

It had been argued that, because the Lecompton convention had been duly constituted, with full power to ordain a constitution and establish a government, consequently the proceedings of the convention must be presumed to embody the popular will. Douglas immediately challenged this assumption. The convention had no more power than the territorial legislature could confer. By no fair construction of the Kansas-Nebraska Act could it be assumed that the people of the Territory were authorized, "at their own will and pleasure, to resolve themselves into a sovereign power, and to abrogate and annul the organic act and territorial government established by Congress, and to ordain a constitution and State government upon their ruins, without the consent of Congress." Surely, then, a convention which the territorial legislature called into being could not abrogate or impair the authority of that territorial government established by Congress. Hence, he concluded, the Lecompton constitution, formed without the consent of Congress, must be considered as a memorial or petition, which Congress may accept or reject. The convention was the creature of the territorial legislature. "Such being the case, whenever the legislature ascertained that the convention whose existence depended upon its will, had devised a scheme to force a constitution upon the people without their consent, and without any authority from Congress, ... it became their imperative duty to interpose and exert the authority conferred upon them by Congress in the organic act, and arrest and prevent the consummation of the scheme before it had gone into operation."[653] This was an unanswerable argument.

In the prolonged debate upon the admission of Kansas, Douglas took part only as some taunt or challenge brought him to his feet. While the bill for the admission of Minnesota, also reported by the Committee on Territories, was under fire, Senator Brown of Mississippi elicited from Douglas the significant concession, that he did not deem an enabling act absolutely essential, so long as the constitution clearly embodied the will of the people. Neither did he think a submission of the constitution always essential; it was, however, a fair way of ascertaining the popular will, when that will was disputed." Satisfy me that the constitution adopted by the people of Minnesota is their will, and I am prepared to adopt it. Satisfy me that the constitution adopted, or said to be adopted, by the people of Kansas, is their will, and I am prepared to take it.... I will never apply one rule to a free State and another to a slave-holding State."[654] Nevertheless, even his Democratic colleagues continued to believe that slavery had something to do with his opposition. In the classic phraseology of Toombs, "there was a 'nigger' in it."

The opposition of Douglas began to cause no little uneasiness. Brown paid tribute to his influence, when he declared that if the Senator from Illinois had stood with the administration, "there would not have been a ripple on the surface." "Sir, the Senator from Illinois gives life, he gives vitality, he gives energy, he lends the aid of his mighty genius and his powerful will to the Opposition on this question."[655] But Douglas paid a fearful price for this power. Every possible ounce of pressure was brought to bear upon him. The party press was set upon him. His friends were turned out of office. The whole executive patronage was wielded mercilessly against his political following. The Washington Union held him up to execration as a traitor, renegade, and deserter.[656] "We cannot affect indifference at the treachery of Senator Douglas," said a Richmond paper. "He was a politician of considerable promise. Association with Southern gentlemen had smoothed down the rugged vulgarities of his early education, and he had come to be quite a decent and well-behaved person."[657] To political denunciation was now to be added the sting of mean and contemptible personalities.

Small wonder that even the vigorous health of "the Little Giant" succumbed to these assaults. For a fortnight he was confined to his bed, rising only by sheer force of will to make a final plea for sanity, before his party took its suicidal plunge. He spoke on the 22d of March under exceptional conditions. In the expectation that he would speak in the forenoon, people thronged the galleries at an early hour, and refused to give up their seats, even when it was announced that the Senator from Illinois would not address the Senate until seven o 'clock in the evening. When the hour came, crowds still held possession of the galleries, so that not even standing room was available. The door-keepers wrestled in vain with an impatient throng without, until by motion of Senator Gwin, ladies were admitted to the floor of the chamber. Even then, Douglas was obliged to pause several times, for the confusion around the doors to subside.[658] He spoke with manifest difficulty, but he was more defiant than ever. His speech was at once a protest and a personal vindication. Denial of the right of the administration to force the Lecompton constitution upon the people of Kansas, went hand in hand with a defense of his own Democracy. Sentences culled here and there suggest not unfairly the stinging rebukes and defiant challenges that accentuated the none too coherent course of his speech:

"I am told that this Lecompton constitution is a party test, a party measure; that no man is a Democrat who does not sanction it ... Sir, who made it a party test? Who made it a party measure?... Who has interpolated this Lecompton constitution into the party platform?... Oh! but we are told it is an Administration measure. Because it is an Administration measure, does it therefore follow that it is a party measure?" ... "I do not recognize the right of the President or his Cabinet ... to tell me my duty in the Senate Chamber." "Am I to be told that I must obey the Executive and betray my State, or else be branded as a traitor to the party, and hunted down by all the newspapers that share the patronage of the government, and every man who holds a petty office in any part of my State to have the question put to him, 'Are you Douglas's enemy? if not, your head comes off.'" "I intend to perform my duty in accordance with my own convictions. Neither the frowns of power nor the influence of patronage will change my action, or drive me from my principles. I stand firmly, immovably upon those great principles of self-government and state sovereignty upon which the campaign was fought and the election won.... If, standing firmly by my principles, I shall be driven into private life, it is a fate that has no terrors for me. I prefer private life, preserving my own self-respect and manhood, to abject and servile submission to executive will. If the alternative be private life or servile obedience to executive will, I am prepared to retire. Official position has no charms for me when deprived of that freedom of thought and action which becomes a gentleman and a senator.'"[659]

On the following day, the Senate passed the bill for the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton constitution, having rejected the amendment of Crittenden to submit that constitution to a vote of the people of Kansas. A similar amendment, however, was carried in the House. As neither chamber would recede from its position, a conference committee was appointed to break the deadlock.[660] It was from this committee, controlled by Lecomptonites, that the famous English bill emanated. Stated briefly, the substance of this compromise measure—for such it was intended to be—was as follows: Congress was to offer to Kansas a conditional grant of public lands; if this land ordinance should be accepted by a popular vote, Kansas was to be admitted to the Union with the Lecompton constitution by proclamation of the President; if it should be rejected, Kansas was not to be admitted until the Territory had a population equal to the unit of representation required for the House of Representatives.

Taken all in all, the bill was as great a concession as could be expected from the administration. Not all were willing to say that the bill provided for a vote on the constitution, but Northern adherents could point to the vote on the land ordinance as an indirect vote upon the constitution. It is not quite true to say that the land grant was a bribe to the voters of Kansas. As a matter of fact, the amount of land granted was only equal to that usually offered to the Territories, and it was considerably less than the area specified in the Lecompton constitution. Moreover, even if the land ordinance were defeated in order to reject the constitution, the Territory was pretty sure to secure as large a grant at some future time. It was rather in the alternative held out, that the English bill was unsatisfactory to those who loved fair play. Still, under the bill, the people of Kansas, by an act of self-denial, could defeat the Lecompton constitution. To that extent, the supporters of the administration yielded to the importunities of the champion of popular sovereignty.

Under these circumstances it would not be strange if Douglas "wavered."[661] Here was an opportunity to close the rift between himself and the administration, to heal party dissensions, perhaps to save the integrity of the Democratic party and the Union. And the price which he would have to pay was small. He could assume, plausibly enough,—as he had done many times before in his career,—that the bill granted all that he had ever asked. He was morally sure that the people of Kansas would reject the land grant to rid themselves of the Lecompton fraud. Why hesitate then as to means, when the desired end was in clear view?

Douglas found himself subjected to a new pressure, harder even to resist than any he had yet felt. Some of his staunch supporters in the anti-Lecompton struggle went over to the administration, covering their retreat by just such excuses as have been suggested. Was he wiser and more conscientious than they? A refusal to accept the proffered olive branch now meant,—he knew it well,—the irreconcilable enmity of the Buchanan faction. And he was not asked to recant, but only to accept what he had always deemed the very essence of statesmanship, a compromise. His Republican allies promptly evinced their distrust. They fully expected him to join his former associates. From them he could expect no sympathy in such a dilemma.[662] His political ambitions, no doubt, added to his perplexity. They were bound up in the fate of the party, the integrity of which was now menaced by his revolt. On the other hand, he was fully conscious that his Illinois constituency approved of his opposition to Lecomptonism and would regard a retreat across this improvised political bridge as both inglorious and treacherous. Agitated by conflicting emotions, Douglas made a decision which probably cost him more anguish than any he ever made; and when all has been said to the contrary, love of fair play would seem to have been his governing motive.[663]

When Douglas rose to address the Senate on the English bill, April 29th, he betrayed some of the emotion under which he had made his decision. He confessed an "anxious desire" to find such provisions as would permit him to support the bill; but he was painfully forced to declare that he could not find the principle for which he had contended, fairly carried out. He was unable to reconcile popular sovereignty with the proposed intervention of Congress in the English bill. "It is intervention with inducements to control the result. It is intervention with a bounty on the one side and a penalty on the other."[664] He frankly admitted that he did not believe there was enough in the bounty nor enough in the penalty to influence materially the vote of the people of Kansas; but it involved "the principle of freedom of election and—the great principle of self-government upon which our institutions rest." And upon this principle he took his stand. "With all the anxiety that I have had," said he with deep feeling, "to be able to arrive at a conclusion in harmony with the overwhelming majority of my political friends in Congress, I could not bring my judgment or conscience to the conclusion that this was a fair, impartial, and equal application of the principle."[665]

As though to make reconciliation with the administration impossible, Douglas went on to express his distrust of the provision of the bill for a board of supervisors of elections. Instead of a board of four, two of whom should represent the Territory and two the Federal government, as the Crittenden bill had provided, five were to constitute the board, of whom three were to be United States officials. "Does not this change," asked Douglas significantly, "give ground for apprehension that you may have the Oxford, the Shawnee, and the Delaware Crossing and Kickapoo frauds re-enacted at this election?"[666] The most suspicions Republican could hardly have dealt an unkinder thrust.

There could be no manner of doubt as to the outcome of the English bill in the Senate. Douglas, Stuart, and Broderick were the only Democrats to oppose its passage, Pugh having joined the majority. The bill passed the House also, nine of Douglas's associates in the anti-Lecompton fight going over to the administration.[667] Douglas accepted this defection with philosophic equanimity, indulging in no vindictive feelings.[668] Had he not himself felt misgivings as to his own course?

By midsummer the people of Kansas had recorded nearly ten thousand votes against the land ordinance and the Lecompton constitution. The administration had failed to make Kansas a slave State. Yet the Supreme Court had countenanced the view that Kansas was legally a slave Territory. What, then, became of the great fundamental principle of popular sovereignty? This was the question which Douglas was now called upon to answer.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 621: Report of the Covode Committee, pp. 105-106; Cutts, Constitutional and Party Questions, p. 111; Speech of Douglas at Milwaukee, Wis., October 14, 1860, Chicago Times and Herald, October 17, 1860.]

[Footnote 622: Spring, Kansas, p. 213; Rhodes, History of the United States, II, p. 274.]

[Footnote 623: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, pp. 277-278.]

[Footnote 624: Ibid., pp. 278-279; Spring, Kansas, p. 223.]

[Footnote 625: See Article VII, of the Kansas constitution, Senate Reports, No. 82, 35 Cong., 1 Sess.]

[Footnote 626: Schedule Section 14.]

[Footnote 627: Covode Report, p. 111.]

[Footnote 628: Chicago Times, November 19, 1857.]

[Footnote 629: Chicago Times, November 20 and 21, 1857.]

[Footnote 630: Speech at Milwaukee, October 14, 1860, Chicago Times and Herald, October 17, 1860.]

[Footnote 631: New York Tribune, December 3, 1857.]

[Footnote 632: Globe, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 5.]

[Footnote 633: Chicago Times, December 19, 1857.]

[Footnote 634: Globe, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 17.]

[Footnote 635: Globe, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., pp. 17-18.]

[Footnote 636: "I spoke rapidly, without preparation," he afterward said. Globe, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 47.]

[Footnote 637: Globe, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 18.]

[Footnote 638: New York Tribune, December 9, 1857.]

[Footnote 639: New York Tribune, December 10, 1857.]

[Footnote 640: Globe, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., pp. 21-22.]

[Footnote 641: Globe, 5 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 120.]

[Footnote 642: Ibid., p. 137.]

[Footnote 643: Chicago Times, December 24, 1857.]

[Footnote 644: Ibid., December 23, 1857.]

[Footnote 645: Correspondent to Cleveland Plaindealer, quoted in Chicago Times, January 29, 1858.]

[Footnote 646: Mrs. Jefferson Davis to Mrs. Pierce, MS. Letter, April 4, 1858.]

[Footnote 647: Mrs. Roger Pryor, Reminiscences of Peace and War, pp. 69-70.]

[Footnote 648: Ibid., Chapter 4.]

[Footnote 649: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, p. 289.]

[Footnote 650: Message of February 2, 1858.]

[Footnote 651: Senate Report No. 82, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., February 18, 1858.]

[Footnote 652: Minority Report, p. 52.]

[Footnote 653: Minority Report, p. 64.]

[Footnote 654: Globe, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 502.]

[Footnote 655: Globe, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., pp. 572-573.]

[Footnote 656: Washington Union, February 26, 1858.]

[Footnote 657: Richmond South, quoted in Chicago Times, December 18, 1857.]

[Footnote 658: Sheahan, Douglas, p. 328; Globe, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., App., pp. 193-194.]

[Footnote 659: Globe, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., App., pp. 194-201, passim.]

[Footnote 660: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, pp. 297-299.]

[Footnote 661: Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, II, p. 563.]

[Footnote 662: Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, II, pp. 566-567.]

[Footnote 663: This cannot, of course, be demonstrated, but it accords with his subsequent conduct.]

[Footnote 664: Globe, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 1869.]

[Footnote 665: Ibid., p. 1870.]

[Footnote 666: Globe, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 1870.]

[Footnote 667: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, p. 300.]

[Footnote 668: Cox, Three Decades of Federal Legislation, p. 58.]



CHAPTER XVI

THE JOINT DEBATES WITH LINCOLN

National politics made strange bed-fellows in the winter of 1857-8. Douglas consorting with Republicans and flouting the administration, was a rare spectacle. There was a moment in this odd alliance when it seemed likely to become more than a temporary fusion of interests. The need of concerted action brought about frequent conferences, in which the distrust of men like Wilson and Colfax was, in a measure, dispelled by the engaging frankness of their quondam opponent.[669] Douglas intimated that in all probability he could not act with his party in future.[670] He assured Wilson that he was in the fight to stay—in his own words, "he had checked his baggage and taken a through ticket."[671] There was an odd disposition, too, on the part of some Republicans to indorse popular sovereignty, now that it seemed likely to exclude slavery from the Territories.[672] There was even a rumor afloat that the editor of the New York Tribune favored Douglas for the presidency.[673] On at least two occasions, Greeley was in conference with Senator Douglas at the latter's residence. To the gossiping public this was evidence enough that the rumor was correct. And it may well be that Douglas dallied with the hope that a great Constitutional Union party might be formed.[674] But he could hardly have received much encouragement from the Republicans, with whom he was consorting, for so far from losing their political identity, they calculated upon bringing him eventually within the Republican fold.[675]

A Constitutional Union party, embracing Northern and Southern Unionists of Whig or Democratic antecedents, might have supplied the gap left by the old Whig party. That such a party would have exercised a profound nationalizing influence can scarcely be doubted. Events might have put Douglas at the head of such a party. But, in truth, such an outcome of the political chaos which then reigned, was a remote possibility.

The matter of immediate concern to Douglas was the probable attitude of his allies toward his re-election to the Senate. There was a wide divergence among Republican leaders; but active politicians like Greeley and Wilson, who were not above fighting the devil with his own weapons, counselled their Illinois brethren not to oppose his return.[676] There was no surer way to disrupt the Democratic party. In spite of these admonitions, the Republicans of Illinois were bent upon defeating Douglas. He had been too uncompromising and bitter an opponent of Trumbull and other "Black Republicans" to win their confidence by a few months of conflict against Lecomptonism. "I see his tracks all over our State," wrote the editor of the Chicago Tribune, "they point only in one direction; not a single toe is turned toward the Republican camp. Watch him, use him, but do not trust him—not an inch."[677] Moreover, a little coterie of Springfield politicians had a candidate of their own for United States senator in the person of Abraham Lincoln.[678]

The action of the Democratic State convention in April closed the door to any reconciliation with the Buchanan administration. Douglas received an unqualified indorsement. The Cincinnati platform was declared to be "the only authoritative exposition of Democratic doctrine." No power on earth except a similar national convention had a right "to change or interpolate that platform, or to prescribe new or different tests." By sound party doctrine the Lecompton constitution ought to be "submitted to the direct vote of the actual inhabitants of Kansas at a fair election."[679] Could any words have been more explicit? The administration responded by a merciless proscription of Douglas office-holders and by unremitting efforts to create an opposition ticket. Under pressure from Washington, conventions were held to nominate candidates for the various State offices, with the undisguised purpose of dividing the Democratic vote for senator.[680]

On the 16th of June, the Republicans of Illinois threw advice to the winds and adopted the unusual course of naming Lincoln as "the first and only choice of the Republicans of Illinois for the United States Senate." It was an act of immense political significance. Not only did it put in jeopardy the political life of Douglas, but it ended for all time to come any coalition between his following and the Republican party.

The subsequent fame of Lincoln has irradiated every phase of his early career. To his contemporaries in the year 1858, he was a lawyer of recognized ability, an astute politician, and a frank aspirant for national honors. Those who imagine him to have been an unambitious soul, upon whom honors were thrust, fail to understand the Lincoln whom Herndon, his partner, knew. Lincoln was a seasoned politician. He had been identified with the old Whig organization; he had repeatedly represented the Springfield district in the State legislature; and he had served one term without distinction in Congress. Upon the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act he had taken an active part in fusing the opposing elements into the Republican party. His services to the new party made him a candidate for the senatorship in 1855, and received recognition in the national Republican convention of 1856, when he was second on the list of those for whom the convention balloted for Vice-president. He was not unknown to Republicans of the Northwest, though he was not in any sense a national figure. Few men had a keener insight into political conditions in Illinois. None knew better the ins and outs of political campaigning in Illinois.

Withal, Lincoln was rated as a man of integrity. He had strong convictions and the courage of his convictions. His generous instincts made him hate slavery, while his antecedents prevented him from loving the negro. His anti-slavery sentiments were held strongly in check by his sound sense of justice. He had the temperament of a humanitarian with the intellect of a lawyer. While not combative by nature, he possessed the characteristic American trait of measuring himself by the attainments of others. He was solicitous to match himself with other men so as to prove himself at least their peer. Possessed of a cause that enlisted the service of his heart as well as his head, Lincoln was a strong advocate at the bar and a formidable opponent on the stump. Douglas bore true witness to Lincoln's powers when he said, on hearing of his nomination, "I shall have my hands full. He is the strong man of his party—full of wit, facts, dates—and the best stump speaker, with his droll ways and dry jokes, in the West. He is as honest as he is shrewd; and if I beat him, my victory will be hardly won."[681]

The nomination of Lincoln was so little a matter of surprise to him and his friends, that at the close of the convention he was able to address the delegates in a carefully prepared speech. Wishing to sound a dominant note for the campaign, he began with these memorable words:

"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 the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new—North as well as South."[682]

All evidence, continued Lincoln, pointed to a design to make slavery national. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, the popular indorsement of Buchanan, and the Dred Scott decision, were so many parts of a plot. Only one part was lacking; viz. another decision declaring it unconstitutional for a State to exclude slavery. Then the fabric would be complete for which Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James had each wrought his separate piece with artful cunning. It was impossible not to believe that these Democratic leaders had labored in concert. To those who had urged that Douglas should be supported, Lincoln had only this to say: Douglas could not oppose the advance of slavery, for he did not care whether slavery was voted up or down. His avowed purpose was to make the people care nothing about slavery. The Republican cause must not be intrusted to its adventitious allies, but to its undoubted friends.

A welcome that was truly royal awaited Douglas in Chicago. On his way thither, he was met by a delegation which took him a willing captive and conducted him on a special train to his destination. Along the route there was every sign of popular enthusiasm. He entered the city amid the booming of cannon; he was conveyed to his hotel in a carriage drawn by six horses, under military escort; banners with flattering inscriptions fluttered above his head; from balconies and windows he heard the shouts of thousands.[683]

Even more flattering if possible was the immense crowd that thronged around the Tremont House in the early evening to hear his promised speech. Not only the area in front of the hotel, but the adjoining streets were crowded. Illuminations and fireworks cast a lurid light on the faces which were upturned to greet the "Defender of Popular Sovereignty," as he appeared upon the balcony. A man of far less vanity would have been moved by the scene. Just behind the speaker but within the house, Lincoln was an attentive listener.[684] The presence of his rival put Douglas on his mettle. He took in good part a rather discourteous interruption by Lincoln, and referred to him in generous terms, as "a kind, amiable, and intelligent gentleman, a good citizen, and an honorable opponent."[685]

The address was in a somewhat egotistical vein—pardonably egotistical, considering the extraordinary circumstances. Douglas could not refrain from referring to his career since he had confronted that excited crowd in Chicago eight years before, in defense of the compromise measures. To his mind the events of those eight years had amply vindicated the great principle of popular sovereignty. Knowing that he was in a Republican stronghold, he dwelt with particular complacency upon the manful way in which the Republican party had come to the support of that principle, in the recent anti-Lecompton fight. It was this fundamental right of self-government that he had championed through good and ill report, all these years. It was this, and this alone, which had governed his action in regard to the Lecompton fraud. It was not because the Lecompton constitution was a slave constitution, but because it was not the act and deed of the people of Kansas that he had condemned it. "Whenever," said he, "you put a limitation upon the right of a people to decide what laws they want, you have destroyed the fundamental principle of self-government."

With Lincoln's house-divided-against-itself proposition, he took issue unqualifiedly. "Mr. Lincoln asserts, as a fundamental principle of this government, that there must be uniformity in the local laws and domestic institutions of each and all the States of the Union, and he therefore invites all the non-slaveholding States to band together, organize as one body, and make war upon slavery in Kentucky, upon slavery in Virginia, upon slavery in the Carolinas, upon slavery in all of the slave-holding States in this Union, and to persevere in that war until it shall be exterminated. He then notifies the slave-holding States to stand together as a unit and make an aggressive war upon the free States of this Union with a view of establishing slavery in them all; of forcing it upon Illinois, of forcing it upon New York, upon New England, and upon every other free State, and that they shall keep up the warfare until it has been formally established in them all. In other words, Mr. Lincoln advocates boldly and clearly a war of sections, a war of the North against the South, of the free States against the slave States—a war of extermination—to be continued relentlessly until the one or the other shall be subdued, and all the States shall either become free or become slave."[686]

But such uniformity in local institutions would be possible only by blotting out State Sovereignty, by merging all the States in one consolidated empire, and by vesting Congress with plenary power to make all the police regulations, domestic and local laws, uniform throughout the Republic. The framers of our government knew well enough that differences in soil, in products, and in interests, required different local and domestic regulations in each locality; and they organized the Federal government on this fundamental assumption.[687]

With Lincoln's other proposition Douglas also took issue. He refused to enter upon any crusade against the Supreme Court. "I do not choose, therefore, to go into any argument with Mr. Lincoln in reviewing the various decisions which the Supreme Court has made, either upon the Dred Scott case, or any other. I have no idea of appealing from the decision of the Supreme Court upon a constitutional question to the decision of a tumultuous town meeting."[688]

Neither could Douglas agree with his opponent in objecting to the decision of the Supreme Court because it deprived the negro of the rights, privileges, and immunities of citizenship, which pertained only to the white race. Our government was founded on a white basis. "It was made by the white man, for the benefit of the white man, to be administered by white men." To be sure, a negro, an Indian, or any other man of inferior race should be permitted to enjoy all the rights, privileges, and immunities consistent with the safety of society; but each State should decide for itself the nature and extent of these rights.

On the next evening, Republican Chicago greeted its protagonist with much the same demonstrations, as he took his place on the balcony from which Douglas had spoken. Lincoln found the flaw in Douglas's armor at the outset. "Popular sovereignty! Everlasting popular sovereignty! What is popular sovereignty"? How could there be such a thing in the original sense, now that the Supreme Court had decided that the people in their territorial status might not prohibit slavery? And as for the right of the people to frame a constitution, who had ever disputed that right? But Lincoln, evidently troubled by Douglas's vehement deductions from the house-divided-against-itself proposition, soon fell back upon the defensive, where he was at a great disadvantage. He was forced to explain that he did not favor a war by the North upon the South for the extinction of slavery; nor a war by the South upon the North for the nationalization of slavery. "I only said what I expected would take place. I made a prediction only,—it may have been a foolish one, perhaps. I did not even say that I desired that slavery should be put in course of ultimate extinction. I do say so now, however."[689] He believed that slavery had endured, because until the Nebraska Act the public mind had rested in the conviction that slavery would ultimately disappear. In affirming that the opponents of slavery would arrest its further extension, he only meant to say that they would put it where the fathers originally placed it. He was not in favor of interfering with slavery where it existed in the States. As to the charge that he was inviting people to resist the Dred Scott decision, Lincoln responded rather weakly—again laying himself open to attack—"We mean to do what we can to have the court decide the other way."[690]

Lincoln also betrayed his fear lest Douglas should draw Republican votes. Knowing the strong anti-slavery sentiment of the region, he asked when Douglas had shown anything but indifference on the subject of slavery. Away with this quibbling about inferior races! "Let us discard all these things and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal."[691]

From Chicago Douglas journeyed like a conquering hero to Bloomington. At every station crowds gathered to see his gaily decorated train and to catch a glimpse of the famous senator. A platform car bearing a twelve-pound gun was attached to the train and everywhere "popular sovereignty," as the cannon was dubbed, heralded his arrival.[692] On the evening of July 16th he addressed a large gathering in the open air; and again he had among his auditors, Abraham Lincoln, who was hot upon his trail.[693] The county and district in which Bloomington was situated had once been strongly Whig; but was now as strongly Republican. With the local conditions in mind, Douglas made an artful plea for support. He gratefully acknowledged the aid of the Republicans in the recent anti-Lecompton fight, and of that worthy successor of the immortal Clay, John J. Crittenden of Kentucky. After all, was it not a common principle for which they had been contending? "My friends," said Douglas with engaging ingenuousness, "when I am battling for a great principle, I want aid and support from whatever quarter I can get it." Pity, then, that Republican politicians, in order to defeat him, should form an alliance with Lecompton men and thus betray the cause![694]

Douglas called attention to Lincoln's explanation of his house-divided-against-itself argument. It still seemed to him to invite a war of sections. Mr. Lincoln had said that he had no wish to see the people enter into the Southern States and interfere with slavery: for his part, he was equally opposed to a sectional agitation to control the institutions of other States.[695] Again, Mr. Lincoln had said that he proposed, so far as in him lay, to secure a reversal of the Dred Scott decision. How, asked Douglas, will he accomplish this? There can be but one way: elect a Republican President who will pack the bench with Republican justices. Would a court so constituted command respect?[696]

As to the effect of the Dred Scott decision upon slavery in the Territories, Douglas had only this to say: "With or without that decision, slavery will go just where the people want it, and not one inch further." "Hence, if the people of a Territory want slavery, they will encourage it by passing affirmatory laws, and the necessary police regulations, patrol laws, and slave code; if they do not want it they will withhold that legislation, and by withholding it slavery is as dead as if it was prohibited by a constitutional prohibition, especially if, in addition, their legislation is unfriendly, as it would be if they were opposed to it. They could pass such local laws and police regulations as would drive slavery out in one day, or one hour, if they were opposed to it, and therefore, so far as the question of slavery in the Territories is concerned, so far as the principle of popular sovereignty is concerned, in its practical operation, it matters not how the Dred Scott case may be decided with reference to the Territories."[697]

The closing words of the speech approached dangerously near to bathos. Douglas pictured himself standing beside the deathbed of Clay and pledging his life to the advocacy of the great principle expressed in the compromise measures of 1850, and later in the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Strangely enough he had given the same pledge to "the god-like Webster."[698] This filial reverence for Clay and Webster, whom Douglas had fought with all the weapons of partisan warfare, must have puzzled those Whigs in his audience who were guileless enough to accept such statements at their face value.

Devoted partisans accompanied Douglas to Springfield, on the following day. In spite of the frequent downpours of rain and the sultry atmosphere, their enthusiasm never once flagged. On board the same train, surrounded by good-natured enemies, was Lincoln, who was also to speak at the capital.[699] Douglas again found a crowd awaiting him. He had much the same things to say. Perhaps his arraignment of Lincoln's policy was somewhat more severe, but he turned the edges of his thrusts by a courteous reference to his opponent, "with whom he anticipated no personal collision." For the first time he alluded to Lincoln's charge of conspiracy, but only to remark casually, "If Mr. Lincoln deems me a conspirator of that kind, all I have to say is that I do not think so badly of the President of the United States, and the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest judicial tribunal on earth, as to believe that they were capable in their actions and decision of entering into political intrigues for partisan purposes."[700]

Meantime Lincoln, addressing a Republican audience, was relating his recent experiences in the enemy's camp. Believing that he had discovered the line of attack, he sought to fortify his position. He did not contemplate the abolition of State legislatures, nor any such radical policy, any more than the fathers of the Republic did, when they sought to check the spread of slavery by prohibiting it in the Territories.[701] He did not propose to resist the Dred Scott decision except as a rule of political action.[702] Here in Sangamon County, he was somewhat less insistent upon negro equality. The negro was not the equal of the white man in all respects, to be sure; "still, in the right to put into his mouth the bread that his own hands have earned, he is the equal of every other man, white or black."[703]

As matters stood, Douglas had the advantage of Lincoln, since with his national prominence and his great popularity, he was always sure of an audience, and could reply as he chose to the attacks of his antagonist. Lincoln felt that he must come to close terms with Douglas and extort from him admissions which would discredit him with Republicans. With this end in view, Lincoln suggested that they "divide time, and address the same audiences the present canvass."[704] It was obviously to Douglas's interest to continue the campaign as he had begun. He had already mapped out an extensive itinerary. He therefore replied that he could not agree to such an arrangement, owing to appointments already made and to the possibility of a third candidate with whom Lincoln might make common cause. He intimated, rather unfairly, that Lincoln had purposely waited until he was already bound by his appointments. However, he would accede to the proposal so far as to meet Lincoln in a joint discussion in each congressional district except the second and sixth, in which both had already spoken.[705]

It was not such a letter as one would expect from a generous opponent. But politics was no pastime to the writer. He was sparring now in deadly earnest, for every advantage. Not unnaturally Lincoln resented the imputation of unfairness; but he agreed to the proposal of seven joint debates. Douglas then named the times and places; and Lincoln agreed to the terms, rather grudgingly, for he would have but three openings and closings to Douglas's four.[706] Still, as he had followed Douglas in Chicago, he had no reason to complain.

The next three months may be regarded as a prolonged debate, accentuated by the seven joint discussions. The rival candidates traversed much the same territory, and addressed much the same audiences on successive days. At times, chance made them fellow-passengers on the same train or steamboat. Douglas had already begun his itinerary, when Lincoln's last note reached him in Piatt County.[707] He had just spoken at Clinton, in De Witt County, and again he had found Lincoln in the audience.

No general ever planned a military campaign with greater regard to the topography of the enemy's country, than Douglas plotted his campaign in central Illinois. For it was in the central counties that the election was to be won or lost. The Republican strength lay in the upper, northern third of the State; the Democratic strength, in the southern third. The doubtful area lay between Ottawa on the north and Belleville on the south; Oquawka on the northwest and Paris on the east. Only twice did Douglas make any extended tour outside this area: once to meet his appointment with Lincoln at Freeport; and once to engage in the third joint debate at Jonesboro.

The first week in August found Douglas speaking at various points along the Illinois River to enthusiastic crowds. Lincoln followed closely after, bent upon weakening the force of his opponent's arguments by lodging an immediate demurrer against them. On the whole, Douglas drew the larger crowds; but it was observed that Lincoln's audiences increased as he proceeded northward. Ottawa was the objective point for both travelers, for there was to be held the first joint debate on August 21st.

An enormous crowd awaited them. From sunrise to mid-day men, women, and children had poured into town, in every sort of conveyance. It was a typical midsummer day in Illinois. The prairie roads were thoroughly baked by the sun, and the dust rose, like a fine powder, from beneath the feet of horses and pedestrians, enveloping all in blinding clouds. A train of seventeen cars had brought ardent supporters of Douglas from Chicago. The town was gaily decked; the booming of cannon resounded across the prairie; bands of music added to the excitement of the occasion. The speakers were escorted to the public square by two huge processions. So eager was the crowd that it was with much difficulty, and no little delay, that Lincoln and Douglas, the committee men, and the reporters, were landed on the platform.[708]

For the first time in the campaign, the rival candidates were placed side by side. The crowd instinctively took its measure of the two men. They presented a striking contrast:[709] Lincoln, tall, angular, and long of limb; Douglas, short, almost dwarfed by comparison, broad-shouldered and thick-chested. Lincoln was clad in a frock coat of rusty black, which was evidently not made for his lank, ungainly body. His sleeves did not reach his wrists by several inches, and his trousers failed to conceal his huge feet. His long, sinewy neck emerged from a white collar, drawn over a black tie. Altogether, his appearance bordered upon the grotesque, and would have provoked mirth in any other than an Illinois audience, which knew and respected the man too well to mark his costume. Douglas, on the contrary, presented a well-groomed figure. He wore a well-fitting suit of broadcloth; his linen was immaculate; and altogether he had the appearance of a man of the world whom fortune had favored.

The eyes of the crowd, however, sought rather the faces of the rival candidates. Lincoln looked down upon them with eyes in which there was an expression of sadness, not to say melancholy, until he lost himself in the passion of his utterance. There was not a regular feature in his face. The deep furrows that seamed his countenance bore unmistakable witness to a boyhood of grim poverty and grinding toil. Douglas surveyed the crowd from beneath his shaggy brows, with bold, penetrating gaze. Every feature of his face bespoke power. The deep-set eyes; the dark, almost sinister, line between them; the mouth with its tightly-drawn lips; the deep lines on his somewhat puffy cheeks—all gave the impression of a masterful nature, accustomed to bear down opposition. As men observed his massive brow with its mane of abundant, dark hair; his strong neck; his short, compact body; they instinctively felt that here was a personality not lightly to be encountered. He was "the very embodiment of force, combativeness, and staying power."[710]

When Douglas, by agreement, opened the debate, he was fully conscious that he was addressing an audience which was in the main hostile to him. With the instinct of a born stump speaker, he sought first to find common ground with his hearers. Appealing to the history of parties, he pointed out the practical agreement of both Whig and Democratic parties on the slavery question down to 1854. It was when, in accordance with the Compromise of 1850, he brought in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, that Lincoln and Trumbull entered into an agreement to dissolve the old parties in Illinois and to form an Abolition party under the pseudonym "Republican." The terms of the alliance were that Lincoln should have Senator Shields' place in the Senate, and that Trumbull should have Douglas's, when his term should expire.[711] History, thus interpreted, made not Douglas, but his opponent, the real agitator in State politics.

Douglas then read from the first platform of the Black Republicans. "My object in reading these resolutions," he said, "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 desire to know whether Mr. Lincoln to-day stands, as he did in 1854, in favor of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave law. I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to-day, as he did in 1854, against the admission of any more slave States into the Union, even if the people want them. I want to know whether he stands pledged against the admission of a new State into the Union with such a Constitution as the people of that State may see fit to make. I want to know whether he stands to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to the prohibition of the slave trade between the different States. I desire to know whether he stands pledged to prohibit slavery in all the Territories of the United States, North as well as South of the Missouri Compromise line. I desire him to answer whether he is opposed to the acquisition of any more territory, unless slavery is prohibited therein."[712]

In all this there was a rude vehemence and coarse insinuation that was regrettable; yet Douglas sought to soften the asperity of his manner, by adding that he did not mean to be disrespectful or unkind to Mr. Lincoln. He had known Mr. Lincoln for twenty-five years. While he was a school-teacher, Lincoln was a flourishing grocery-keeper. Lincoln was always more successful in business; Lincoln always did well whatever he undertook; Lincoln could beat any of the boys wrestling or running a foot-race; Lincoln could ruin more liquor than all the boys of the town together. When in Congress, Lincoln had distinguished himself by his opposition to the Mexican War, taking the side of the enemy against his own country.[713] If this disparagement of an opponent seems mean and ungenerous, let it be remembered that in the rough give-and-take of Illinois politics, hard hitting was to be expected. Lincoln had invited counter-blows by first charging Douglas with conspiracy. No mere reading of cold print can convey the virile energy with which Douglas spoke. The facial expression, the animated gesture, the toss of the head, and the stamp of the foot, the full, resonant voice—all are wanting.

To a man of Lincoln's temperament, this vigorous invective was indescribably irritating. Rather unwisely he betrayed his vexation in his first words. His manner was constrained. He seemed awkward and ill at ease, but as he warmed to his task, his face became more animated, he recovered the use of his arms, and he pointed his remarks with forceful gestures. His voice, never pleasant, rose to a shrill treble in moments of excitement. After the familiar manner of Western speakers of that day, he was wont to bend his knees and then rise to his full height with a jerk, to enforce some point.[714] Yet with all his ungraceful mannerisms, Lincoln held his hearers, impressing most men with a sense of the honesty of his convictions.

Instead of replying categorically to Douglas's questions, Lincoln read a long extract from a speech which he had made in 1854, to show his attitude then toward the Fugitive Slave Act. He denied that he had had anything to do with the resolutions which had been read. He believed that he was not even in Springfield at the time when they were adopted.[715] As for the charge that he favored the social and political equality of the black and white races, he said, "Anything that argues me into his idea of perfect social and political equality with the negro, is but a specious and fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a horse-chestnut to be a chestnut horse.... I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. 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 ... 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."[716] Slavery had always been, and would always be, "an apple of discord and an element of division in the house." He disclaimed all intention of making war upon Southern institutions, yet he was still firm in the belief that the public mind would not be easy until slavery was put where the fathers left it. He reminded his hearers that Douglas had said nothing to clear himself from the suspicion of having been party to a conspiracy to nationalize slavery. Judge Douglas was not always so ready as now to yield obedience to judicial decisions, as anyone might see who chose to inquire how he earned his title.[717]

In his reply, Douglas endeavored to refresh Lincoln's memory in respect to the resolutions. They were adopted while he was in Springfield, for it was the season of the State Fair, when both had spoken at the Capitol. He had not charged Mr. Lincoln with having helped to frame these resolutions, but with having been a responsible leader of the party which had adopted them as its platform. Was Mr. Lincoln trying to dodge the questions? Douglas refused to allow himself to be put upon the defensive in the matter of the alleged conspiracy, since Lincoln had acknowledged that he did not know it to be true. He would brand it as a lie and let Lincoln prove it if he could.[718]