Part 39 (1/2)

Don't despair of the Republic.”[910] And when Crittenden proposed to the Senate that the people at large should be allowed to express their approval, or disapproval, of his amendments by a vote, Douglas cordially indorsed the suggested referendum in a speech of great power.

There was dross mingled with the gold in this speech of January 3d.

Not all his auditors by any means were ready to admit that the attempt of the Federal government to control the slavery question in the Territories, regardless of the wishes of the inhabitants, was the real cause of Southern discontent. Nor were all willing to concede that ”whenever Congress had refrained from such interference, harmony and fraternal feeling had been restored.”[911] The history of Kansas was still too recent. Yet from these premises, Douglas drew the conclusion ”that the slavery question should be banished forever from the Halls of Congress and the arena of Federal politics by an irrepealable const.i.tutional provision.”[912]

The immediate occasion for revolution in the South was no doubt the outcome of the presidential election; but that it furnished a just cause for the dissolution of the Union, he would not for an instant admit. No doubt Mr. Lincoln's public utterances had given some ground for apprehension. No one had more vigorously denounced these dangerous, revolutionary doctrines than he; but neither Mr. Lincoln nor his party would have the power to injure the South, if the Southern States remained in the Union and maintained full delegations in Congress. ”Besides,” he added, ”I still indulge the hope that when Mr. Lincoln shall a.s.sume the high responsibilities which will soon devolve upon him, he will be fully impressed with the necessity of sinking the politician in the statesman, the partisan in the patriot, and regard the obligations which he owes to his country as paramount to those of his party.”[913]

No one brought the fearful alternatives into view, with such inexorable logic, as Douglas in this same speech. While he denounced secession as ”wrong, unlawful, unconst.i.tutional, and criminal,” he was bound to recognize the fact of secession. ”South Carolina had no right to secede; _but she has done it_. The rights of the Federal government remain, but possession is lost. How can possession be regained, by arms or by a peaceable adjustment of the matters in controversy? _Are we prepared for war?_ I do not mean that kind of preparation which consists of armies and navies, and supplies, and munitions of war; but are we prepared IN OUR HEARTS for war with our own brethren and kindred? I confess I am not.”[914]

These were not mere words for oratorical effect. They were expressions wrung from a tortured heart, bound by some of the tenderest of human affections to the people of the South. Buried in the land of her birth rested the mother of his two boys, whom he had loved tenderly and truly. There in the Southland were her kindred, the kindred of his two boys, and many of his warmest personal friends. The prospect of war brought no such poignant grief to men whose a.s.sociations for generations had been confined to the North.

Returning to the necessity of concession and compromise, he frankly admitted that he had thrown consistency to the winds. The preservation of the Union was of more importance than party platforms or individual records. ”I have no hesitation in saying to senators on all sides of this Chamber, that I am prepared to act on this question with reference to the present exigencies of the case, as if I had never given a vote, or uttered a word, or had an opinion upon the subject.”[915]

Nor did he hesitate to throw the responsibility for disagreement in the Committee of Thirteen upon the Republican members. In the name of peace he pled for less of party pride and the pride of individual opinion. ”The political party which shall refuse to allow the people to determine for themselves at the ballot-box the issue between revolution and war on the one side, and obstinate adherence to a party platform on the other, will a.s.sume a fearful responsibility. A war upon a political issue, waged by the people of eighteen States against the people and domestic inst.i.tutions of fifteen sister-States, is a fearful and revolting thought.”[916] But Republican senators were deaf to all warnings from so recent a convert to non-partisan politics.

While the Committee of Thirteen was in session, Major Anderson moved his garrison from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, urging repeatedly the need of reinforcements. At the beginning of the new year, President Buchanan was inspired to form a good resolution.

He resolved that Anderson should not be ordered to return to Moultrie but should be reinforced. On the 5th of January, the ”Star of the West,” with men, arms and ammunition, was dispatched to Charleston harbor. On the 9th the steamer was fired upon and forced to return without accomplis.h.i.+ng its mission. Then came the news of the secession of Mississippi. In rapid succession Florida, Alabama, and Georgia pa.s.sed ordinances of secession.[917] Louisiana and Texas were sure to follow the lead of the other cotton States.

In spite of these untoward events, the Republican senators remained obdurate. Their answer to the Crittenden referendum proposition was the Clark resolution, which read, ”The provisions of the Const.i.tution are ample for the preservation of the Union, and the protection of all the material interests of the country; it needs to be obeyed rather than amended.”[918] On the 21st of the month, the senators of the seceding States withdrew; yet Douglas could still say to anxious Union men at the South, ”There is hope of adjustment, and the prospect has never been better than since we first a.s.sembled.”[919] And Senator Crittenden concurred in this view. On what could they have grounded their hopes?

Douglas still believed in the efficacy of compromise to preserve the Union. Through many channels he received intelligence from the South, and he knew well that the leaders of public opinion were not of one mind. Some, at least, regarded the proposed Southern confederacy as a means of securing a revision of the Const.i.tution. Men like Benjamin of Louisiana were still ready to talk confidentially of a final adjustment.[920] Moreover, there was a persistent rumor that Seward was inclining to the Crittenden Compromise; and Seward, as the prospective leader of the incoming administration, would doubtless carry many Republicans with him. Something, too, might be expected from the Peace Convention, which was to meet on February 4th, in Was.h.i.+ngton.

Meantime Douglas lent his aid to such legislative labors as the exigencies of the hour permitted. Once again, he found himself acting with the Republicans to do justice to Kansas, for Kansas was now a suppliant for admission into the Union with a free const.i.tution. Again specious excuses were made for denying simple justice. Toward the obstructionists, his old enemies, Douglas showed no rancor: there was no time to lose in personalities. ”The sooner we close up this controversy the better, if we intend to wipe out the excited and irritated feelings that have grown out of it. It will have a tendency to restore good feelings.”[921] But not until the Southern senators had withdrawn, was Kansas admitted to the Union of the States, which was then hanging in the balance.

Whenever senators from the slave States could be induced to name their tangible grievances, and not to dwell merely upon antic.i.p.ated injuries, they were wont to cite the Personal Liberty Acts. In spite of his good intentions, Douglas was drawn into an altercation with Mason of Virginia, in which he cited an historic case where Virginia had been the offender. Recovering himself, he said ingenuously, ”I hope we are not to bandy these little cases backwards and forwards for the purpose of sectional irritation. Let us rather meet the question, and give the Const.i.tution the true construction, and allow all criminals to be surrendered according to the law of the State where the offense was committed.”[922]

As evidence of his desire to remove this most tangible of Southern gravamina, Douglas introduced a supplementary fugitive slave bill on January 28th.[923] Its notable features were the provision for jury trial in a Federal court, if after extradition a fugitive should persist in claiming his freedom; and the provisions for the payment of damages to the claimant, if he should lose through violence a fugitive slave to whom he had a valid t.i.tle. The Federal government in turn might bring suit against the county where the rescue had occurred, and the county might reimburse itself by suing the offenders to the full amount of the damages paid.[924] Had this bill pa.s.sed, it would have made good the most obvious defects in the much-defamed legislation of 1850; but the time had long since pa.s.sed, when such concessions would satisfy the South.

Douglas had to bear many a gibe for his publicly expressed hopes of peace. Mason denounced his letter to Virginia gentlemen as a ”puny, pusillanimous attempt to hoodwink” the people of Virginia. But Douglas replied with an earnest reiteration of his expectations. Yet all depended, he admitted, on the action of Virginia and the border States. For this reason he deprecated the uncompromising att.i.tude of the senator from Virginia, when he said, ”We want no concessions.”

Equally deplorable, he thought, was the spirit evinced by the senator from New Hamps.h.i.+re who applauded that regrettable remark. ”I never intend to give up the hope of saving this Union so long as there is a ray left,” he cried.[925] Why try to force slavery to go where experience has demonstrated that climate is adverse and where the people do not want it? Why prohibit slavery where the government cannot make it exist? ”Why break up the Union upon an abstraction?”

Let the one side give up its demand for protection and the other for prohibition; and let them unite upon an amendment to the Const.i.tution which shall deny to Congress the power to legislate upon slavery everywhere, except in the matter of fugitive slaves and the African slave-trade. ”Do that, and you will have peace; do that, and the Union will last forever; do that, and you do not extend slavery one inch, nor circ.u.mscribe it one inch; you do not emanc.i.p.ate a slave, and do not enslave a free-man.”[926]

In the course of his eloquent plea for mutual concession, Douglas was repeatedly interrupted by Wigfall of Texas, whose State was at the moment preparing to leave the Union. In ironical tones, Wigfall begged to be informed upon what ground the senator based his hope and belief that the Union would be preserved. Douglas replied, ”I see indications every day of a disposition to meet this question now and consider what is necessary to save the Union.” And then, antic.i.p.ating the sneers of his interrogator, he said sharply, ”If the senator will just follow me, instead of going off to Texas; sit here, and act in concert with us Union men, we will make him a very efficient agent in accomplis.h.i.+ng that object.”[927] But to the obdurate mind of Wigfall this Union talk was ”the merest balderdash.” Compromise on the basis of non-intervention, he p.r.o.nounced ”worse than 'Sewardism,' for it had hypocrisy and the other was bold and open.” There was, unhappily, only too much truth in his pithy remark that ”the apple of discord is offered to us as the fruit of peace.”

It was a sad commentary on the state of the Union that while the six cotton States were establis.h.i.+ng the const.i.tution and government of a Southern Confederacy, the Federal Senate was providing for the territorial organization of that great domain whose acquisition had been the joint labor of all the States. Three Territories were projected. In one of these, Colorado, a provisional government had already been set up by the mining population of the Pike's Peak country. To the Colorado bill Douglas interposed serious objections.

By its provisions, the southern boundary cut off a portion of New Mexico, which was slave Territory, and added it to Colorado. At the same time a provision in the bill prevented the territorial legislature from pa.s.sing any law to destroy the rights of private property. Was the new Territory of Colorado to be free or slave?

Another provision debarred the territorial legislature from condemning private property for public uses. How, then, could Colorado construct even a public road? Still another provision declared that there should be no discrimination in the rate of taxation between different kinds of property. How, then, could Colorado make those necessary exemptions which were to be found on all statute books?[928]

In his encounter with Senator Green, who had succeeded him as chairman of the Committee on Territories, Douglas did not appear to good advantage. It was easy to prove his first objection idle, as there was no slave property in northern New Mexico. As for the other objectionable provisions, all--by your leave!--were to be found in the Was.h.i.+ngton Territory Act, which had pa.s.sed through Douglas's committee without comment.[929]

Douglas proposed a subst.i.tute for the Colorado bill, nevertheless, which, besides rectifying these errors,--for such he still deemed them to be,--proposed that the people of the Territory should elect their own officers. He reminded the Senate that the Kansas-Nebraska bill had been sharply criticised, because while professing to recognize popular sovereignty, it had withheld this power. At that time, however, the governor was also an Indian agent and a Federal officer; now, the two functions were separated. He proposed that, henceforth, the President and Senate should appoint only such officers as performed Federal duties.[930] When Senator Wade suggested that Douglas had experienced a conversion on this point, because he happened to be in opposition to the incoming administration, which would appoint the new territorial officers, Douglas referred to his utterances in the last session, as proof of his disinterestedness in the matter.[931]

Even in his role of peace-maker, Douglas could not help remarking that the bill contained not a word about slavery. ”I am rejoiced,” he said, somewhat ironically, ”to find that the two sides of the House, representing the two sides of the 'irrepressible conflict,' find it impossible when they get into power, to practically carry on the government without coming to non-intervention, and saying nothing upon the subject of slavery. Although they may not vote for my proposition, the fact that they have to avow the principle upon which they have fought me for years is the only one upon which they can possibly agree, is conclusive evidence that I have been right in that principle, and that they have been wrong in fighting me upon it.”[932]

In the House the Colorado bill was amended by the excision of the clause providing for appeals to the United States Supreme Court in all cases involving t.i.tle to slaves. Douglas promptly pointed out the significance of this omission. The decisions of the territorial court regarding slavery would now be final. The question of whether the territorial legislature might, or might not, exclude slavery, would now be decided by territorial judges who would be appointed by a Republican President.[933] The Republicans now in control of the Senate were eager to press their advantage. And Douglas had to acquiesce. After all, the practical importance of the matter was not great. No one antic.i.p.ated that slavery ever would exist in these new Territories.

The subst.i.tute which Douglas offered for the Colorado bill, and subsequently for the other territorial bills, deserves more than a pa.s.sing allusion. Not only was it his last contribution to territorial legislation, but it suggested a far-reaching change in our colonial policy. It was the logical conclusion of popular sovereignty practically applied.[934] Congress was invited to abdicate all but the most meagre power in organizing new Territories. The task of framing an organic act for the government of a Territory was to be left to a convention chosen by adult male citizens who were in actual residence; but this organic law must be republican in form, and in every way subordinate to the Const.i.tution and to all laws and treaties affecting the Indians and the public lands. A Territory so organized was to be admitted into the Union whenever its population should be equal to the unit required for representation in the lower house of Congress. The initiative in taking a preliminary census and calling a territorial convention, was to be taken by the judge of the Federal court in the Territory. The tutelage of the Federal government was thus to be reduced to lowest terms.

Congress was to confine itself to general provisions applicable to all Territories, leaving the formation of new Territories to the caprice of the people in actual residence. This was a generous concession to popular sovereignty; but even so, the paramount authority was still vested in Congress. Congress, and not the people, was to designate the bounds of the Territory; Congress was to pa.s.s judgment upon the republicanism of the organic law, and a Federal judge was to set the machinery of popular sovereignty in motion. Obviously the time had pa.s.sed when Congress would make so radical a departure from precedent.

Least of all were the Republican members disposed to weaken the hold of the Federal government upon Territories where the question of slavery might again become acute.