Part 8 (1/2)
In this speech there was one notable omission. The slavery question was not once touched upon. Those who have eyes only to see plots hatched by the slave power in national politics, are sure to construe this silence as part of an ign.o.ble game. It is possible that Douglas purposely evaded this question; but it does not by any means follow that he was deliberately playing into the hands of Southern leaders.
The simple truth is, that it was quite possible in the early forties for men, in all honesty, to ignore slavery, because they regarded it either as a side issue or as no issue at all. It was quite possible to think on large national policies without confusing them with slavery.
Men who shared with Douglas the pulsating life of the Northwest wanted Texas as a ”theater for enterprise and industry.” As an Ohio representative said, they desired ”a West for their sons and daughters where they would be free from family influences, from a.s.sociated wealth and from those thousand things which in the old settled country have the tendency of keeping down the efforts and enterprises of young people.” The hearts of those who, like Douglas, had carved out their fortunes in the new States, responded to that sentiment in a way which neither a John Quincy Adams nor a Winthrop could understand.
Yet the question of slavery in the proposed State of Texas was thrust upon the attention of Congress by the persistent tactics of Alexander H. Stephens and a group of Southern a.s.sociates. They refused to accept all terms of annexation which did not secure the right of States formed south of the Missouri Compromise line to come into the Union with slavery, if they desired to do so.[193] Douglas met this opposition with the suggestion that not more than three States besides Texas should be created out of the new State, but that such States should be admitted into the Union with or without slavery, as the people of each should determine, at the time of their application to Congress for admission. As the germ of the doctrine of Popular Sovereignty, this resolution has both a personal and a historic interest. While it failed to pa.s.s,[194] it suggested to Stephens and his friends a mode of adjustment which might satisfy all sides. It was at his suggestion that Milton Brown of Tennessee proposed resolutions providing for the admission of not more than four States besides Texas, out of the territory acquired. If these States should be formed south of the Missouri Compromise line, they were to be admitted with or without slavery, as the people of each should determine. Northern men demurred, but Douglas saved the situation by offering as an amendment, ”And in such States as shall be formed north of said Missouri Compromise line, slavery or involuntary servitude, except for crime, shall be prohibited.”[195] The amendment was accepted, and thus amended, the joint resolution pa.s.sed by an ample margin of votes. In view of later developments, this extension of the Missouri Compromise line is a point of great significance in the career of Douglas.
Not long after Douglas had voiced his vision of ”an ocean-bound republic,” he was called upon to a.s.sist one of the most remarkable emigrations westward, from his own State. The Mormons in Hanc.o.c.k County had become the most undesirable of neighbors to his const.i.tuents. Once the allies of the Democrats, they were now held in detestation by all Gentiles of adjoining counties, irrespective of political affiliations. The announcement of the doctrine of polygamy by the Prophet Smith had been accompanied by acts of defiance and followed by depredations, which, while not altogether unprovoked, aroused the non-Mormons to a dangerous pitch of excitement. In the midst of general disorder in Hanc.o.c.k County, Joseph Smith was murdered. Every deed of violence was now attributed to the Danites, as the members of the militant order of the Mormon Church styled themselves. Early in the year 1845, the Nauvoo Charter was repealed; and Governor Ford warned his quondam friends confidentially that they had better betake themselves westward, suggesting California as ”a field for the prettiest enterprise that has been undertaken in modern times.” Disgraceful outrages filled the summer months of 1845 in Hanc.o.c.k County. A band of Mormon-haters ravaged the county, burning houses, barns, and grain stacks, and driving unprotected Mormon settlers into Nauvoo. To put an end to this state of affairs, Governor Ford sent Judge Douglas and Attorney-General McDougal, with a force of militia under the command of General Hardin, into Hanc.o.c.k County.
Public meetings in all the adjoining counties were now demanding the expulsion of the Mormons in menacing language.[196] While General Hardin issued a proclamation bidding Mormons and anti-Mormons to desist from further violence, and promised that his scanty force of four hundred would enforce the laws impartially, the commissioners entered into negotiations with the Mormon authorities. On the pressing demand of the commissioners and of a deputation from the town of Quincy, Brigham Young announced that the Mormons purposed to leave Illinois in the spring, ”for some point so remote that there will not need to be a difficulty with the people and ourselves.”
There can be little doubt that Douglas's advice weighed heavily with the Mormons. As a judge, he had administered the law impartially between Mormon and non-Mormon; and this was none too common in the civic history of the Mormon Church. As an aspirant for office, he had frankly courted their suffrages; but times had changed. The reply of the commissioners, though not unkindly worded, contained some wholesome advice. ”We think that steps should be taken by you to make it apparent that you are actually preparing to remove in the spring.
By carrying out, in good faith, your proposition to remove, as submitted to us, we think you should be, and will be, permitted to depart peaceably next spring for your destination, west of the Rocky Mountains.... We recommend to you to place every possible restraint in your power over the members of your church, to prevent them from committing acts of aggression or retaliation on any citizens of the State, as a contrary course may, and most probably will, bring about a collision which will subvert all efforts to maintain the peace in this county; and we propose making a similar request of your opponents in this and the surrounding counties.”[197]
Announcing the result of their negotiations to the anti-Mormon people of Hanc.o.c.k County, the commissioners gave equally good advice: ”Remember, whatever may be the aggression against you, the sympathy of the public may be forfeited. It cannot be denied that the burning of the houses of the Mormons ... was an act criminal in itself, and disgraceful to its perpetrators.... A resort to, or persistence in, such a course under existing circ.u.mstances will make you forfeit all the respect and sympathy of the community.”
Unhappily this advice was not long heeded by either side. While Douglas was giving his vote for men and money for the Mexican War and the gallant Hardin was serving his country in command of a regiment, ”the last Mormon war” broke out, which culminated in the siege and evacuation of Nauvoo. Pa.s.sing westward into No-man's-land, the Mormons became eventually the founders of one of the Territories by which Douglas sought to span the continent.
It was only in the Northwest that the cry for the re-occupation of Oregon had the ring of sincerity; elsewhere it had been thought of as a response to the re-annexation of Texas,--more or less of a vote-catching device. The sentiment in Douglas's const.i.tuency was strongly in favor of an aggressive policy in Oregon. The first band of Americans to go thither, for the single purpose of settlement and occupation, set out from Peoria.[198] These were ”young men of the right sort,” in whom the eternal _Wanderl.u.s.t_ of the race had been kindled by tales of returned missionaries. Public exercises were held on their departure, and the community sanctioned this outflow of its youthful strength. Dwellers in the older communities of the East had little sympathy with this enterprise. It was ill-timed, many hundred years in advance of the times. Why emigrate from a region but just reclaimed from barbarism, where good land was still abundant?[199]
Perhaps it was in reply to such doubts that an Illinois rhymester bade his New England brother
”Scan the opening glories of the West, Her boundless prairies and her thousand streams, The swarming millions who will crowd her breast, 'Mid scenes enchanting as a poet's dreams: And then bethink you of your own stern land, Where ceaseless toil will scarce a pittance earn, And gather quickly to a hopeful band,-- Say parting words,--and to the westward turn.”[200]
Douglas tingled to his fingers' ends with the sentiment expressed in these lines. The prospect of forfeiting this Oregon country,--this greater Northwest,--to Great Britain, stirred all the belligerent blood in his veins. Had it fallen to him to word the Democratic platform, he would not have been able to choose a better phrase than ”re-occupation of Oregon.” The elemental jealousy and hatred of the Western pioneer for the claim-jumper found its counterpart in his hostile att.i.tude toward Great Britain. He was equally fearful lest a low estimate of the value of Oregon should make Congress indifferent to its future. He had endeavored to have Congress purchase copies of Greenhow's _History of the Northwest Coast of North America_, so that his colleagues might inform themselves about this El Dorado.[201]
There was, indeed, much ignorance about Oregon, in Congress and out.
To the popular mind Oregon was the country drained by the Columbia River, a vast region on the northwest coast. As defined by the authority whom Douglas summoned to the aid of his colleagues, Oregon was the territory west of the Rocky Mountains between the parallels of 42 and 54 40' north lat.i.tude.[202] Treaties between Russia and Great Britain, and between Russia and the United States, had fixed the southern boundary of Russian territory on the continent at 54 40'; a treaty between the United States and Spain had given the forty-second parallel as the northern boundary of the Spanish possessions; and a joint treaty of occupation between Great Britain and the United States in 1818,--renewed in 1827,--had established a _modus vivendi_ between the rival claimants, which might be terminated by either party on twelve months' notice. Meantime Great Britain and the United States were silent compet.i.tors for exclusive owners.h.i.+p of the mainland and islands between Spanish and Russian America. Whether the technical questions involved in these treaties were so easily dismissed, was something that did not concern the resolute expansionist. It was enough for him that, irrespective of t.i.tle derived from priority of discovery, the United States had, as Greenhow expressed it, a stronger ”national right,” by virtue of the process by which their people were settling the Mississippi Valley and the great West. This was but another way of stating the theory of manifest destiny.
No one knew better than Douglas that paper claims lost half their force unless followed up by vigorous action. Priority of occupation was a far better claim than priority of discovery. Hence, the government must encourage actual settlement on the Oregon. Two isolated bills that Douglas submitted to Congress are full of suggestion, when connected by this thought: one provided for the establishment of the territory of Nebraska;[203] the other, for the establishment of military posts in the territories of Nebraska and Oregon, to protect the commerce of the United States with New Mexico and California, as well as emigration to Oregon.[204] Though neither bill seems to have received serious consideration, both were to be forced upon the attention of Congress in after years by their persistent author.
A bill had already been reported by the Committee on Territories, boldly extending the government of the United States over the whole disputed area.[205] Conservatives in both parties deprecated such action as both hasty and unwise, in view of negotiations then in progress; but the Hotspurs would listen to no prudential considerations. Sentiments such as those expressed by Morris of Pennsylvania irritated them beyond measure. Why protect this wandering population in Oregon? he asked. Let them take care of themselves; or if they cannot protect themselves, let the government defend them during the period of their infancy, and then let them form a republic of their own. He did not wish to imperil the Union by crossing barriers beyond which nature had intended that we should not go.
This frank, if not cynical, disregard of the claims of American emigrants,--”wandering and unsettled” people, Morris had called them,--brought Douglas to his feet. Memories of a lad who had himself once been a wanderer from the home of his fathers, spurred him to resent this thinly veiled contempt for Western emigrants and the part which they were manfully playing in the development of the West. The gentleman should say frankly, retorted Douglas, that he is desirous of dissolving the Union. Consistency should force him to take the ground that our Union must be dissolved and divided up into various, separate republics by the Alleghanies, the Green and the White Mountains.
Besides, to cede the territory of Oregon to its inhabitants would be tantamount to ceding it to Great Britain. He, for one, would never yield an inch of Oregon either to Great Britain or any other government. He looked forward to a time when Oregon would become a considerable member of the great American family of States. Wait for the issue of the negotiations now pending? When had negotiations not been pending! Every man in his senses knew that there was no hope of getting the country by negotiation. He was for erecting a government on this side of the Rockies, extending our settlements under military protection, and then establis.h.i.+ng the territorial government of Oregon. Facilitate the means of communication across the Rocky Mountains, and let the people there know and feel that they are a part of the government of the United States, and under its protection; that was his policy.
As for Great Britain: she had already run her network of possessions and fortifications around the United States. She was intriguing for California, and for Texas, and she had her eye on Cuba; she was insidiously trying to check the growth of republican inst.i.tutions on this continent and to ruin our commerce. ”It therefore becomes us to put this nation in a state of defense; and when we are told that this will lead to war, all I have to say is this, violate no treaty stipulations, nor any principle of the law of nations; preserve the honor and integrity of the country, but, at the same time, a.s.sert our right to the last inch, and then, if war comes, let it come. We may regret the necessity which produced it, but when it does come, I would administer to our citizens Hannibal's oath of eternal enmity, and not terminate the war until the question was settled forever. I would blot out the lines on the map which now mark our national boundaries on this continent, and make the area of liberty as broad as the continent itself. I would not suffer petty rival republics to grow up here, engendering jealousy of each other, and interfering with each other's domestic affairs, and continually endangering their peace. I do not wish to go beyond the great ocean--beyond those boundaries which the G.o.d of nature has marked out, I would limit myself only by that boundary which is so clearly defined by nature.”[206]
The vehemence of these words startled the House, although it was not the only belligerent speech on the Oregon question. Cooler heads, like J.Q. Adams, who feared the effect of such imprudent utterances falling upon British ears, remonstrated at the unseemly haste with which the bill was being ”driven through” the House, and counselled with all the weight of years against the puerility of provoking war in this fas.h.i.+on. But the most that could be accomplished in the way of moderation was an amendment, which directed the President to give notice of the termination of our joint treaty of occupation with Great Britain. This precaution proved to be unnecessary, as the Senate failed to act upon the bill.
No one expected from the new President any masterful leaders.h.i.+p of the people as a whole or of his party. Few listened with any marked attention, therefore, to his inaugural address. His references to Texas and Oregon were in accord with the professions of the Democratic party, except possibly at one point, which was not noted at the time but afterward widely commented upon. ”Our t.i.tle to the country of the Oregon,” said he, ”is clear and unquestionable.” The text of the Baltimore platform read, ”Our t.i.tle to the _whole_ of the territory of Oregon is clear and unquestionable.” Did President Polk mean to be ambiguous at this point? Had he any reason to swerve from the strict letter of the Democratic creed?
In his first message to Congress, President Polk alarmed staunch Democrats by stating that he had tried to compromise our clear and unquestionable claims, though he a.s.sured his party that he had done so only out of deference to his predecessor in office. Those inherited policies having led to naught, he was now prepared to rea.s.sert our t.i.tle to the whole of Oregon, which was sustained ”by irrefragable facts and arguments.” He would therefore recommend that provision be made for terminating the joint treaty of occupation, for extending the jurisdiction of the United States over American citizens in Oregon, and for protecting emigrants in transit through the Indian country.
These were strong measures. They might lead to war; but the temper of Congress was warlike; and a group of Democrats in both houses was ready to take up the programme which the President had outlined.
”Fifty-four forty or fight” was the cry with which they sought to rally the Chauvinists of both parties to their standard. While Ca.s.s led the skirmis.h.i.+ng line in the Senate, Douglas forged to the fore in the House.[207]
It is good evidence of the confidence placed in Douglas by his colleagues that, when territorial questions of more than ordinary importance were pending, he was appointed chairman of the Committee on Territories.[208] If there was one division of legislative work in which he showed both capacity and talent, it was in the organization of our Western domain and in its preparation for statehood. The vision which dazzled his imagination was that of an ocean-bound republic; to that manifest destiny he had dedicated his talents, not by any self-conscious surrender, but by the irresistible sweep of his imagination, always impressed by things in the large and reinforced by contact with actual Western conditions. Finance, the tariff, and similar public questions of a technical nature, he was content to leave to others; but those which directly concerned the making of a continental republic he mastered with almost jealous eagerness. He had now attained a position, which, for fourteen years, was conceded to be indisputably his, for no sooner had he entered the Senate than he was made chairman of a similar committee. His career must be measured by the wisdom of his statesmans.h.i.+p in the peculiar problems which he was called upon to solve concerning the public domain. In this sphere he laid claim to expert judgment; from him, therefore, much was required; but it was the fate of nearly every territorial question to be bound up more or less intimately with the slavery question. Upon this delicate problem was Douglas also able to bring expert testimony to bear? Time only could tell. Meantime, the House Committee on Territories had urgent business on hand.
Texas was now knocking at the door of the Union, and awaited only a formal invitation to become one of the family of States, as the chairman was wont to say cheerily. Ten days after the opening of the session Douglas reported from his committee a joint resolution for the admission of Texas, ”on an equal footing with the original states in all respects whatever.”[209] There was a certain pleonasm about this phrasing that revealed the hand of the chairman: the simple statement must be reinforced both for legal security and for rhetorical effect. Six days later, after but a single speech, the resolution went to a third reading and was pa.s.sed by a large majority.[210] Voted upon with equal dispatch by the Senate, and approved by the President, the joint resolution became law, December 29, 1845.