Part 2 (1/2)

The contee his h office and great responsibilities, and no other motive than ambition was so natural and obvious an explanation of his course But it is questionable if any such positive judght, in his conteatory upon historians What he did was in accord with a political principle which he had avowed, and it was not in conflict with any moral principle he had ever avowed, for he did not pretend to believe that slavery rong True, he had once thought the Missouri Cons that he had abandoned that opinion It is enough to decide that he took a wrong course, and to point out how ambition may very well have led hi, and took it solely because he was a course he did not fail to do that which will often force us, in spite of ourselves, into ad to the end Neither the swelling uproar from without nor a resolute and conspicuously able opposition within the Senate daunted hie with furious energy He set upon Chase savagely, charging hiained tinorance of the bill, to flood the country with slanderous attacks upon it and upon its author The audacity of the announcement that the Coh justified by the skill of his contention It was a principle, he maintained, and no mere temporary expedient, for which Clay and Webster had striven, which both parties had indorsed, which the country had acquiesced in,--the principle of ”popular sovereignty” That principle lay at the base of our institutions; it was illustrated in all the achievements of our past; it, and it alone, would enable us in safety to go on and extend our institutions into new regions Cass, though he made difficulties about details, supported the bill, and the Southerners played their part well

But Douglas afterwards said, and truly: ”I passed the Kansas-Nebraska act hout the whole controversy in both houses The speeches were nothing It was thefro surprise”

Chase was the true leader of the opposition, and he was equipped with a h mastery of the slavery question in its historical and constitutional aspects By shrewd a out the division between the Northern and Southern supporters of the bill; for the Southerners held that slave-owners had a constitutional right to go into any Territory with their property,--a right hich neither Congress nor a territorial legislature could interfere Douglas, however, e in the important clause To please Cass and others, he made it declare that the Compromise of 1820 was ”inconsistent with” instead of ”superseded by”

the principles of the later co the true intent and islate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the inhabitants thereof perfectly free to forulate their domestic institutions in their oay, subject only to the Constitution of the United States” That, as Benton said, was a little stump speech incorporated in the bill; and it proved a very effective stuic and the accurate knowledge of Chase, nor the lofty invective of Sumner, nor the smooth eloquence of Everett, nor Seward's rare combination of political adroitness with an alertness to moral forces, matched, in hand to hand debate, the keen- force of Douglas Their set speeches were impressive, but in the quick fire, the question-and-answer, the give-and-take of a free discussion, he was the ht of the third of March, he rose before a full Senate and crowded galleries to close the debate, he was at his best Often interrupted, he welcomed every interruption with courtesy, and never once failed to put his assailant on the defensive Now Su that he had come into office by a sacrifice of principle; noas defending his own State of New York against a charge of infidelity to the corapher and successor of Webster, was protesting that he had not meant to misrepresent Webster's views

Always, after these encounters, Douglas kne to coer issue, as if they, and not he, were trying to obscure it A spectator h-minded men were culprits, and he their inquisitor Now and then, as when he dealt with the abolitionists, there was no questioning the sincerity of his feeling, and it stirred hienuine eloquence He was not surprised that Boston burned hiy Had not Boston closed her Faneuil Hall upon the aged Webster? Did not Sumner live there? And he turned upon the senator from Massachusetts: ”Sir, you will reht an opportunity to put forth your abolition incendiarism, you appealed to our sense of justice by the sentiment, 'Strike, but hear me first!' But when Mr Webster went back in 1850 to speak to his constituents in his own self-defense, to tell the truth and to expose his slanderers, you would not hear hiain, as at the end of a paragraph of unadorned but trenchant sentences the sreat, swart head was thrown backward, and the deep voice swelled into a tone of triumph or defiance, the listeners could not forbear to applaud Once, even Seward broke forth: ”I have never had so ht”

The vote in the Senate was 27 ayes to 14 noes; but in the House the opposition was dangerously strong, and but for the precaution of securing the support of the adht have failed

There was a fierce parlialas's friend and chief lieutenant, kept the House in continuous session thirty-six hours trying to force through arose on both sides Personal encounters were ilas, in constant attendance, watched every move of the opposition and was instant with the counter-ht to a vote, and then it passed, with a slight change, by a ned it, and Douglas, turning fro it into law to the harder task of defending it before the country, beheld the whole field of national politics transfor party, crushed to earth in 1852, made no move to take a stand on the new issue; it was dead His own historical Dehout the North in a turmoil that see swiftly and secretly into life on the old issue of enners and Roman Catholics, seemed to stand for the idea that the best way to meet the slavery issue was to run away from it Another new party, conceived in the spirit of the appeal of the independent De to be born State after State was falling under the power of the Know-Nothings; and those s and De an opportunity to fight slavery outside of its breastworks of co at last under the naan to call themselves Republicans

He did not quail Invited to pronounce the Independence Day oration at Philadelphia, hedenunciation of the Know-Nothings that any ee to make Democrats everywhere, bewildered by the ns, were heartened to an aggressive warfare Soinia, where Henry A Wise had brought the Deainst the only rivals they had in the South, now that the Whigs were giving up the fight The cas never recovered frolas's course had the e, for he had always chan born

The Independence Day oration was also his first popular defense of the Kansas-Nebraska bill But so soon as Congress adjourned he hastened hoo was once more, as in 1850, a centre of hostility, and he announced that he would speak there the evening of Septes at halfof church bells welcoathered, but not to hear hi sentences Hour after hour, froht, he stood before theain, as the uproar lessened, his voice co, in fact, but his resolute bearing saved hie was set upon and he was in danger of his life

Wherever he went in Northern Illinois, si, and in the central counties and in ”Egypt,” the southern part of the State, where the people were largely of Virginian and Kentuckian descent, he was cordially received He kept his hold upon his party in Illinois, and Illinois, alone of all the Northwestern States, would not go over completely to the opposition The Democratic candidate for state treasurer was elected The Know-Nothings and Anti-Nebraska ressmen, and by the defection of certain state senators who held over from a previous election they were enabled to send Lyue at Washi+ngton That, when co proof of Douglas's poith his people Moreover, the Democrats of the North who remained in the party had accepted his leadershi+p In the South, the party organization was soon free of any effective opposition The tings, so long as they were united, could still control the Senate and elect presidents All would still be well, if only all ell on those Western plains whither Douglas declared that the slavery question was now banished forever fro well there When the Kansas-Nebraska bill passed, Sumner exultantly exclaimed: ”It sets freedorapple” Nebraska was conceded to freedom, but the day Kansas, the southern Territory, was thrown open to settlean The whole country was drawn into it

Blue lodges in the South, e forces into the field The Southerners, aided by colonized voters froislature and passed a slave code The Free-Soilers, ignoring the governathered in convention at Topeka, formed a free state constitution, and demanded to be adress asseovernments in Kansas, and the people were separated into hostile camps

Braere frequent, and it was clear that very soon, unless the general government intervened, there would be concerted violence A force of several thousand pro-slaveryLawrence, the principal Free-Soil town The Free-Soil ard of law The pro-slavery men were in a minority, they had resorted to violence and fraud, but they had followed the forms of law

President Pierce, swayed by Jefferson Davis, took the side of slavery

The House was nearly two e to Congress denouncing the Free-Soilers for resisting the laws He followed it up with a proclamation, and placed United States troops at the disposal of the regular territorial governlas, fro report on all that had occurred He, too, laid the blaainst the Topeka constitution, and offered, instead, a bill providing for the admission of Kansas, so soon as her population should reach 93,000, which would entitle her to one representative in Congress, with such constitution as her people ht lawfully adopt The House, with an anti-slaveryKansas at once with the Topeka constitution So was the anti-slavery group in the Senate, noelled into a strong las had to defend the results, as well as the theory, of his law Sumner was the bitterest of his assailants, and their controversy passed all bounds of parliaainst Kansas, Butler, of South Carolina, was represented as the Don Quixote of slavery, Douglas as its Sancho Panza, ”ready to do all its hu offices” The day after that speech, Lawrence was sacked, and civil war broke out in Kansas The next day, Preston Brooks, of South Carolina, assaulted Sumner and beat him down on the floor of the Senate Ten days later, the Democratic convention met at Cincinnati to naood following from the South, but Pierce was the first choice of the Southerners They wanted a servant er a question of the South's preference alone: it was a question of holding the two or three Northern States that were still Democratic Of these, Pennsylvania was the ates because he was a Pennsylvanian and because, abroad on a foreign mission, he had escaped all responsibility for Kansas On the first ballot, he led with 135 votes, Pierce was second with 122, and Douglas had but 33, but as before he rose as the balloting proceeded Pierce's vote fell away; after the fourteenth ballot, his nalas 118 Richardson, Douglas's er, thereupon arose and read a dispatch fro his friends to obey the will of the ive Buchanan the necessary two thirds Once h he had bid for it with his country's peace

But the platform proclaimed the principle of his famous law to be ”the only sound and safe solution of the slavery question” He was at the head of his party as Clay had for so s He had the substance of power, the reality of leadershi+p, whosesoever the trappings and the title ress was n, and it was he who arranged the issues Too act of admirable fairness, intended to secure the people of Kansas in their right to have such a state constitution as they las adopted it and held the Senate for it against the House bill to adreement could be reached, for the Republicans in their platform had declared for the prohibition of slavery in all the Territories ”Bleeding Kansas” was their war-cry, and Douglas charged, not without reason, that theyuntil the election The House went so far as to attach a rider to the ar the President to employ United States troops in aid of the territorial authorities, and would not permit the appropriations to pass in their ordinary forress adjourned and the President was forced to call an extra session

But the Republican party had not yet gathered into its ranks all those who in their hearts favored its policy The reality of civil war in Kansas brought a sobering sense of danger to the Union which worked contrary to the angry revolt against the slave power, and Buchanan's appeal to the lovers of the Union in both sections was successful He was elected, and the Deot once more a free hand with Kansas and the slavery question

They had, too, a majority of the Supreme Court, and now for the first time the court came forith its view of the question Two days after the inauguration, the Dred Scott decision was handed down, and the territorial controversy passed into a new phase All parties were forced to reconsider their positions Douglas, especially, had need of all his adroitness to bring his doctrine of popular sovereignty into accord with the decision; for so far as it went it accorded completely with that extreme Southern view of Calhoun's and Yancey's and Jefferson Davis's which he had never yet, in his striving after an approachh to accept The court decided that the Declaration of Independence did not ro could becoht of property in slaves was affirress had no power to prohibit slavery in any Territory The announcehth clause of the Missouri Coh to the man who had acconty if the Constitution itself decreed slavery into the Territories? But Douglas, whether he met the difficulty effectively or not, faced it profield in June, he indorsed the decision, not ht; and he claimed that it was in accord with his doctrine For slavery, he pointed out, was dependent for its existence anywhere upon positive legislation This the inhabitants of a Territory, acting through their territorial legislature, could grant or deny as they chose The constitutional right of a slaveholder to take his property into a Territory would avail hiulations to protect it

The decision was, however, universally and rightly considered a great victory for slavery It conderathened the contention of the Southerners But the Southern leaders were in little need of heartening: no cause ever had bolder and firmer champions Under cover of the panic of 1857, which drew roup of the Kansas into the Union as a slave State In the grappling there, freedoer than slavery Robert J Walker, a slaveholder, whoovernorshi+p, reported that the Free-Soilers outnuislature had provided for the election of delegates to a constitutional convention, and when the question of subovernor, an upright man, promptly announced that it would be submitted, and the administration sustained hi away from the polls on election day The convention, under control of the pro-slavery leaders, met in October at Lecouarded slavery elaborately, and hit upon an extraordinary way to submit it to the people The electors were permitted to vote either ”for the constitution with slavery,” or ”for the constitution without slavery,” but not against the constitution as a whole Even if ”the constitution without slavery” carried, such slaves as were already held in Kansas could continue to be held

So far had the Deressed toward the extreme Southern view, and such was the ascendency of the Southerners over Buchanan, that he would not stand up against the outrageous schelas was co of the ways Forced to choose between absolute subserviency to the South and as left of his principle of popular sovereignty, he re faith with Walker and the Kansans At the end of a stormy interview, Buchanan, stirred out of his wonted placidity, threateningly reminded the senator that no Democrat ever broke with a Delas scornfully retorted: ”Mr President, I wish you to reress was no sooner asseralas, in flat rebellion against his party's Southern ain the hter that he was, he had a fighter's best opportunity,--great odds to fight against, and at last a good cause to fight for The administration proscribed hiainst him and reviled him as a traitor Of his party associates in the Senate, but two or three were brave enough to follow him Moreover, the panic had swept away his wealth He was near the end of his term of office, and the trend in Illinois was toward the Republicans The long tide which had so steadily borne hiain but recently, and to the ton, he must have had in ht as that which fortified his favorite hero at Marengo: one battle was lost, but there was tih to win another

The Lecompton plotters had reckoned on the opposition of the Republicans It was Douglas and his handful of folloho confounded the them to make sure of his reelection to the Senate But as the debate progressed, and his na on the same side with Sumner's and Seward's in the divisions, another notion spread Horace Greeley and other Republicans began to suggest that he ht be the man to lead the new party to victory on a hout the North, people who had abhorred him came first to wonder at hiht the Lecompton conspiracy from his old base It was contrary to the principle of the Kansas-Nebraska Act; there had been gross frauds at the election of delegates; the form of sub for slavery or against it

He cared not ”whether slavery was voted up or voted down” Give the people a fair and free chance to form and adopt a constitution, and he would accept it Let them have a fair vote on the Lecompton constitution, and if they ratified it he would accept that Ratified it was at the absurd election the convention had ordered, for the great majority of the settlers could not vote their opposition, but when the legislature, now Free-Soil, took the authority to subainst it by far exceeded the highest total of votes the pro-slavery men had ever las and three other De in the House was greater, and the bill was there a the constitution to the people There was a conference, and in its final form the bill offered the people of Kansas a bribe of lands if they would accept the constitution, and threatened them with an indefinite delay of statehood if they should reject it

Douglas, however, after some hesitation, refused to vote for the bill as amended, and when the time came the Kansans, by more than five to one, rejected the constitution and the bribe

So the session brought no settlelas went back to Illinois and took the stu parliao welcomed him But there awaited him treason in the ranks of his own party,--for the adress, attacked him at home,--and an opposition now colas himself, in his own heart, dreaded as he had never dreaded the ablest of his rivals at Washi+ngton The Republicans had taken the unusual course of holding a convention to nominate their candidate for the Senate, and the candidate was Abraham Lincoln

CHAPTER V