Part 13 (2/2)
It was precisely at this time, when the Illinois legislature was instructing him to reverse his att.i.tude toward the Wilmot Proviso, that Senator Douglas began to change his policy. Believing that the combination against him in the legislature was largely accidental and momentary, he refused to resign.[321] Events amply justified his course; but the crisis was not without its lessons for him. The futility of a compromise based on an extension of the Missouri Compromise line was now apparent. Opposition to the extension of slavery was too strong; and belief in the free status of the acquired territory too firmly rooted in the minds of his const.i.tuents. There remained the possibility of reintegrating the Democratic party through the application of the principle of ”squatter sovereignty,” Was it possible to offset the anti-slavery sentiment of his Northern const.i.tuents by an insistent appeal to their belief in local self-government?
The taproot from which squatter sovereignty grew and flourished, was the instinctive attachment of the Western American to local government; or to put the matter conversely, his dislike of external authority. So far back as the era of the Revolution, intense individualism, bold initiative, strong dislike of authority, elemental jealousy of the fruits of labor, and pa.s.sionate attachment to the soil that has been cleared for a home, are qualities found in varying intensity among the colonists from New Hamps.h.i.+re to Georgia. Nowhere, however, were they so marked as along the Western border, where centrifugal forces were particularly strong and local attachments were abnormally developed. Under stress of real or fancied wrongs, it was natural for settlers in these frontier regions to meet for joint protest, or if the occasion were grave enough, to enter into political a.s.sociation, to resist encroachment upon what they felt to be their natural rights. Whenever they felt called upon to justify their course, they did so in language that repeated, consciously or unconsciously, the theory of the social contract, with which the political thought of the age was surcharged. In these frontier communities was born the political habit that manifested itself on successive frontiers of American advance across the continent, and that finally in the course of the slavery controversy found apt expression in the doctrine of squatter sovereignty.[322]
None of the Territories carved out of the original Northwest had shown greater eagerness for separate government than Illinois. The isolation of the original settlements grouped along the Mississippi, their remoteness from the seat of territorial government on the Wabash, and the consequent difficulty of obtaining legal protection and efficient government, predisposed the people of Illinois to demand a territorial government of their own, long before Congress listened to their memorials. Bitter controversy and even bloodshed attended their efforts.[323]
A generation later a similar contest occurred for the separation of the fourteen northern counties from the State. When Congress changed the northern boundary of Illinois, it had deviated from the express provisions of the Ordinance of 1787, which had drawn the line through the southern bend of Lake Michigan. This departure from the Magna Charta of the Northwest furnished the would-be secessionists with a pretext. But an editorial in the _Northwestern Gazette and Galena Advertiser_, January 20, 1842, naively disclosed their real motive.
Illinois was overwhelmed with debt, while Wisconsin was ”young, vigorous, and free from debt.” ”Look at the district as it is now,”
wrote the editor fervidly, ”the _f.a.g end_ of the State of Illinois--its interest wholly disregarded in State legislation--in short, treated as a mere _province_--taxed; laid under tribute in the form of taxation for the benefit of the South and Middle.” The right of the people to determine by vote whether the counties should be annexed to Illinois, was accepted without question. A meeting of citizens in Jo Daviess County resolved, that ”until the Ordinance of 1787 was altered by common consent, the free inhabitants of the region had, in common with the free inhabitants of the Territory of Wisconsin, an absolute, vested, indefeasible right to form a permanent const.i.tution and State government.”[324] This was the burden of many memorials of similar origin.
The desire of the people of Illinois to control local interests extended most naturally to the soil which nourished them. That the Federal Government should without their consent dispose of lands which they had brought under cultivation, seemed to verge on tyranny. It mattered not that the settler had taken up lands to which he had no t.i.tle in law. The wilderness belonged to him who subdued it.
Therefore land leagues and claim a.s.sociations figure largely in the history of the Northwest. Their object was everywhere the same, to protect the squatter against the chance bidder at a public land sale.
The concessions made by the const.i.tutional convention of 1847, in the matter of local government, gave great satisfaction to the Northern element in the State. The new const.i.tution authorized the legislature to pa.s.s a general law, in accordance with which counties might organize by popular vote under a towns.h.i.+p system. This mode of settling a bitter and protracted controversy was thoroughly in accord with the democratic spirit of northern Illinois. The newspapers of the northern counties welcomed the inauguration of the towns.h.i.+p system as a formal recognition of a familiar principle. Said the _Will County Telegraph_:[325] ”The great principle on which the new system is based is this: that except as to those things which pertain to State unity and those which are in their nature common to the whole county, it is right that each small community should regulate its own local matters without interference.” It was this sentiment to which popular sovereignty made a cogent appeal.
No man was more sensitive than Senator Douglas to these subtle influences of popular tradition, custom, and current sentiment. Under the c.u.mulative impression of the events which have been recorded, his confidence in popular sovereignty as an integrating force in national and local politics increased, and his public utterances became more a.s.sured and positive.[326] By the close of the year 1850, he had the satisfaction of seeing the collapse of the Free-Soil party in Illinois, and of knowing that the joint resolutions had been repealed which had so nearly accomplished his overthrow. A political storm had been weathered. Yet the diverse currents in Illinois society might again roil local politics. So long as a bitter commercial rivalry divided northern and southern Illinois, and social differences held the sections apart, misunderstandings dangerous to party and State alike would inevitably follow. How could these diverse elements be fused into a true and enduring union? To this task Douglas set his hand. The ways and means which he employed, form one of the most striking episodes in his career.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 294: Reid was afterward Governor of North Carolina and United States Senator.]
[Footnote 295: For many of the facts relating to Douglas's courts.h.i.+p and marriage, I am indebted to his son, Judge Robert Martin Douglas, of North Carolina.]
[Footnote 296: At the death of Colonel Martin, this plantation was worked by some seventeen slaves, according to his will.]
[Footnote 297: This impression is fully confirmed by the terms of his will.]
[Footnote 298: He was himself fully conscious of this influence. See his speech at Raleigh, August 30, 1860.]
[Footnote 299: The facts are so stated in Colonel Martin's will, for a transcript of which I am indebted to Judge R.M. Douglas.]
[Footnote 300: Extract from the will of Colonel Martin.]
[Footnote 301: This letter, dated August 3, 1850, is in the possession of Mrs. James W. Patton of Springfield, Illinois.]
[Footnote 302: The characteristics of Illinois as a const.i.tuency in 1850 are set forth in greater detail, in an article by the writer in the _Iowa Journal of History and Politics_, July, 1905.]
[Footnote 303: See Patterson, Early Society in Southern Illinois in the Fergus Historical Series, No. 14. Also Ford, History of Illinois, pp. 38, 279-280; and Greene, Sectional forces in the History of Illinois--in the Publications of Illinois Historical Library, 1903.]
[Footnote 304: Between 1818 and 1840, fifty-seven new counties were organized, of which fourteen lay in the region given to Illinois by the s.h.i.+fting of the northern boundary. See Publications of the Illinois Historical Library, No. 8, pp. 79-80.]
[Footnote 305: Ford, History of Illinois, pp. 280-281.]
[Footnote 306: _Ibid._, p. 280.]
[Footnote 307: See Davidson and Stuve, History of Illinois, Chapter on ”State Policy.”]
[Footnote 308: Shaw, Local Government in Illinois, in the Johns Hopkins University Studies, Vol. I; Newell, Towns.h.i.+p Government in Illinois.]
[Footnote 309: Harris, Negro Servitude in Illinois, Chapter II.]
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