Abraham Lincoln: a History Volume Ii Part 9

President Buchanan and the strong pro-slavery faction which was directing his course paid no attention whatever to this proposal of a compromise. Shylock had come into court to demand his bond, and would heed no pleas of equity or appeals to grace. The elections of December 21 and January 4 were held in due time, and with what result we have already seen. John Calhoun counted the votes on January 13 and declared the "Lecompton Const.i.tution with slavery" adopted, prudently reserving, however, any announcement concerning the State officers or Legislature under it. This much accomplished, he hurried away to Washington, where he was received with open arms by the President and his advisers, who at once proceeded with a united and formidable effort to legalize the transparent farce by Congressional sanction.

On the second day of February, 1858, President Buchanan transmitted to Congress the Lecompton Const.i.tution, "received from J. Calhoun, Esq.,"

and "duly certified by himself." The President's accompanying special message argues that the organic law of the Territory conferred the essential rights of an enabling act; that the free-State party stood in the att.i.tude of willful and chronic revolution; that their various refusals to vote were a sufficient bar to complaint and objection; that the several steps in the creation and work of the Lecompton Convention were regular and legal. "The people of Kansas have, then, 'in their own way,' and in strict accordance with the organic act, framed a const.i.tution and State government, have submitted the all-important question of slavery to the people, and have elected a governor, a member to represent them in Congress, members of the State Legislature, and other State officers. They now ask admission into the Union under this const.i.tution, which is Republican in form. It is for Congress to decide whether they will admit or reject the State which has thus been created. For my own part I am decidedly in favor of its admission and thus terminating the Kansas question."

[Sidenote] 1858.

The vote of January 4 against the const.i.tution he declared to be illegal because it was "held after the Territory had been prepared for admission into the Union as a sovereign State, and when no authority existed in the Territorial Legislature which could possibly destroy its existence or change its character." His own inconsistency was lightly glossed over. "For my own part, when I instructed Governor Walker in general terms, in favor of submitting the const.i.tution to the people, I had no object in view except the all-absorbing question of slavery.... I then believed, and still believe, that under the organic act, the Kansas Convention were bound to submit this all-important question of slavery to the people. It was never, however, my opinion that independently of this act they would have been bound to submit any portion of the const.i.tution to a popular vote, in order to give it validity."

To the public at large, the central point of interest in this special message, however, was the following dogmatic announcement by the President: "It has been solemnly adjudged by the highest judicial tribunal known to our laws that slavery exists in Kansas by virtue of the Const.i.tution of the United States. Kansas is, therefore, at this moment as much a slave-State as Georgia or South Carolina. Without this, the equality of the sovereign States composing the Union would be violated, and the use and enjoyment of a territory acquired by the common treasure of all the States would be closed against the people and the property of nearly half the members of the Confederacy.

Slavery can, therefore, never be prohibited in Kansas except by means of a const.i.tutional provision and in no other manner can this be obtained so promptly, if a majority of the people desire it, as by admitting it into the Union under its present const.i.tution."

In the light of subsequent history this extreme pro-slavery programme was not only wrong in morals and statesmanship, but short-sighted and foolhardy as a party policy. But to the eyes of President Buchanan this latter view was not so plain. The country was apparently in the full tide of a pro-slavery reaction. He had not only been elected President, but the Democratic party had also recovered its control of Congress. The presiding officer of each branch was a Southerner. Out of 64 members of the Senate, 39 were Democrats, 20 Republicans, and five Americans or Know-Nothings. Of the 237 members of the House, 131 were Democrats, 92 Republicans, and 14 Americans. Here was a clear majority of fourteen in the upper and twenty-five in the lower House.

This was indeed no longer the formidable legislative power which repealed the Missouri Compromise, but it seemed perhaps a sufficient force to carry out the President's recommendation. His error was in forgetting that this apparent popular indors.e.m.e.nt was secured to him and his party by means of the double construction placed upon the Nebraska bill and the Cincinnati platform, by the caucus bargain between the leaders of the South and the leaders of the North. The moment had come when this unnatural alliance needed to be exposed and in part repudiated.

The haste with which the Southern leaders advanced step by step, forced every issue, and were now pushing their allies to the wall was, to say the least, bad management, but it grew logically out of their situation. They were swimming against the stream. The leading forces of civilization, population, wealth, commerce, intelligence, were bearing them down. The balance of power was lost. Already there were sixteen free-States to fifteen slave-States. Minnesota and Oregon, inevitably destined also to become free, were applying for admission to the Union.

[Sidenote] Official Manifesto, Oct. 8, 1754.

[Sidenote] Senator Brown to Adams, June 18, 1856. Greeley, "Am.

Conflict," Vol. I., p. 278.

[Sidenote] Official proceedings, Pamphlet.

Still, the case of the South was not hopeless. Kansas was apparently within their grasp. Existing law provided for the formation and admission of four additional States to be carved out of Texas, which would certainly become slave-States. Then there remained the possible division of California, and a race for the possession of New Mexico and Arizona. Behind all, or, more likely, before all except Kansas, in the order of desired events, was the darling ambition of President Buchanan, the annexation of Cuba. As United States Minister to England he had publicly declared that if Spain refused to sell us that coveted island we should be justified in wresting it from her by force; as Presidential candidate he had confidentially avowed, amid the first blushes of his new honor, "If I can be instrumental in settling the slavery question upon the terms I have mentioned, and then add Cuba to the Union, I shall, if President, be willing to give up the ghost, and let Breckinridge take the government." Thus, even excluding the more problematical chances which lay hidden in filibustering enterprises, there was a possibility, easily demonstrable to the sanguine, that a decade or two might change mere numerical preponderance from the free to the slave-States. Nor could this possibility be waved aside by any affectation of incredulity. Not alone Mr. Buchanan but the whole Democratic party was publicly pledged to annexation. "Resolved," said the Cincinnati platform, "that the Democratic party will expect of the next Administration that every proper effort be made to insure our ascendency in the Gulf of Mexico"; while another resolution declaring sympathy with efforts to "regenerate" Central America was no less significant.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHN CALHOUN.]

But to accomplish such marvels, they must not sit with folded hands.

The price of slavery was fearless aggression. They must build on a deeper foundation than Presidential elections, party majorities, or even than votes in the Senate. The theory of the government must be reversed, the philosophy of the republic interpreted anew. In this subtler effort they had made notable progress. By the Kansas-Nebraska act they had paralyzed the legislation of half a century. By the Dred Scott decision they had changed the Const.i.tution and blighted the Declaration of Independence. By the Lecompton trick they would show that in conflict with their dogmas the public will was vicious, and in conflict with their intrigues the majority powerless. They had the President, the Cabinet, the Senate, the House, the Supreme Court, and, by no means least in the immediate problem, John Calhoun with his technical invest.i.ture of far-reaching authority. The country had recovered from the shock of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and rewarded them with Buchanan. Would it not equally recover from the shock of the Lecompton Const.i.tution?

It was precisely at this point that the bent bow broke. The great bulk of the Democratic party followed the President and his Southern advisers, even in this extreme step; but to a minority sufficient to turn the scale the Lecompton scandal had become too offensive for further tolerance.

In the Senate, with its heavy Democratic majority, the Administration easily secured the pa.s.sage of a bill to admit Kansas with the Lecompton Const.i.tution. Out of eleven Democratic Senators from free States, only three--Douglas of Illinois, Broderick of California, and Stuart of Michigan--took courage to speak and vote against the measure. In the House of Representatives, however, with a narrower margin of political power, the scheme, after an exciting discussion running through about two months, met a decisive defeat. A formidable popular opposition to it had developed itself in the North, in which speeches and letters from Governor Walker and Secretary Stanton in denunciation of it were a leading feature and a powerful influence.

The lower House of Congress always responds quickly to currents of public sentiment; but in this case it caught direction all the more promptly because its members were to be chosen anew in the ensuing autumn. However much they might have party subordination and success at heart, some of them felt that they could not defend before their anti-slavery const.i.tuencies the Oxford frauds, the Calhoun dictatorship, the theory that slave property is above const.i.tutional sanction, and the dogma that "Kansas is therefore at this moment as much a slave-State as Georgia or South Carolina." When the test vote was taken on April 1, out of the 53 Democratic representatives from the free-States 31 voted for Lecompton; but the remaining 22,[2]

joining their strength to the opposition, pa.s.sed a subst.i.tute, originating with Mr. Crittenden of the Senate, which in substance directed a resubmission of the Lecompton Const.i.tution to the people of Kansas;--if adopted, the President to admit the new State by a simple proclamation; if rejected, the people to call a convention and frame a new instrument.

As the October vote had been the turning-point in the local popular struggle in the Territory, this adoption of the Crittenden-Montgomery subst.i.tute, by a total vote of 120 to 112 in the House of Representatives, was the culmination of the National intrigue to secure Kansas for the South. It was a narrow victory for freedom; a change of 5 votes would have pa.s.sed the Lecompton bill and admitted the State with slavery, and a const.i.tutional prohibition against any change for seven years to come. With his authority to control election returns, there is every reason to suppose that Calhoun would have set up a pro-slavery State Legislature, to choose two pro-slavery senators, whom in its turn the strong Lecompton majority in the United States Senate would have admitted to seats; and thus the whole chain of fraud and usurpation back to the first Border-Ruffian invasion of Kansas would have become complete, legal, and irrevocable, on plea of mere formal and technical regularity.

Foiled in its main object, the Administration made another effort which served to break somewhat the force and humiliation of its first and signal defeat. The two Houses of Congress having disagreed as stated, and each having once more voted to adhere to its own action, the President managed to make enough converts among the anti-Lecompton Democrats of the House to secure the appointment of a committee of conference. This committee devised what became popularly known as the "English bill," a measure which tendered a land grant to the new State, and provided that on the following August 3d the people of Kansas might vote "proposition accepted" or "proposition rejected."

Acceptance should work the admission of the State with the Lecompton Const.i.tution, while rejection should postpone any admission until her population reached the ratio of representation required for a member of the House. "Hence it will be argued," exclaimed Douglas, "in one portion of the Union that this is a submission of the const.i.tution, and in another portion that it is not." The English bill became a law; but the people of Kansas once more voted to reject the "proposition"

by nearly ten thousand majority.

[Sidenote] Douglas, Senate Speech, March 22, 1858. App. "Globe,"

pp. 199, 200.

Douglas opposed the English bill as he had done the Lecompton bill, thus maintaining his att.i.tude as the chief leader of the anti-Lecompton opposition. In proportion as he received encouragement and commendation from Republican and American newspapers, he fell under the ban of the Administration journals. The "Washington Union"

especially pursued him with denunciation. "It has read me out of the Democratic party every other day, at least, for two or three months,"

said he, "and keeps reading me out; and, as if it had not succeeded, still continues to read me out, using such terms as 'traitor,'

'renegade,' 'deserter,' and other kind and polite epithets of that nature." He explained that this arose from his having voted in the Senate against its editor for the office of public printer; but he also pointed out that he did so because that journal had become pro-slavery to the point of declaring "that the emanc.i.p.ation acts of New York, of New England, of Pennsylvania, and of New Jersey were unconst.i.tutional, were outrages upon the right of property, were violations of the Const.i.tution of the United States." "The proposition is advanced," continued he, "that a Southern man has a right to move from South Carolina with his negroes into Illinois, to settle there and hold them there as slaves, anything in the const.i.tution and laws of Illinois to the contrary notwithstanding." Douglas further intimated broadly that the President and Cabinet were inspiring these editorials of the Administration organ, as part and parcel of the same system and object with which they were pushing the Lecompton Const.i.tution with its odious "property" doctrine; and declared, "if my protest against this interpolation into the policy of this country or the creed of the Democratic party is to bring me under the ban, I am ready to meet the issue."

He had not long to wait for the issue. The party rupture was radical, not superficial. It was, as he had himself pointed out, part of the contest for national supremacy between slavery and freedom. From time to time he still held out the olive-branch and pointed wistfully to the path of reconciliation. But the reactionary faction which ruled Mr. Buchanan never forgave Douglas for his part in defeating Lecompton, and more especially for what they alleged to be his treachery to his caucus bargain, in refusing to accept and defend all the logical consequences of the Dred Scott decision.

[1] Buchanan to Silliman and others, Aug. 15, 1857. Senate Ex. Doc.

No. 8, 1st Sess. 35th Cong. Vol. I., p. 74.

[2] From California, 1; Illinois, 5; Indiana, 3; New Jersey, 1; New York, 2; Ohio, 6; Pennsylvania, 4. For Lecompton: California, 1; Connecticut, 2; Indiana, 3; New Jersey, 2; New York, 10; Ohio, 2; Pennsylvania, 11.

CHAPTER VIII

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES

The anti-Lecompton recusancy of Douglas baffled the plotting extremists of the South, and created additional dissension in the Democratic ranks; and this growing Democratic weakness and the increasing Republican ardor and strength presaged a possible Republican success in the coming Presidential election. While this condition of things gave national politics an unusual interest, the State of Illinois now became the field of a local contest which for the moment held the attention of the entire country in such a degree as to involve and even eclipse national issues.

In this local contest in Illinois, the choice of candidates on both sides was determined long beforehand by a popular feeling, stronger and more unerring than ordinary individual or caucus intrigues.

Douglas, as author of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, as a formidable Presidential aspirant, and now again as leader of the anti-Lecompton Democrats, could, of course, have no rival in his party for his own Senatorial seat. Lincoln, who had in 1854 gracefully yielded his justly won Senatorial honors to Trumbull, and who alone bearded Douglas in his own State throughout the whole anti-Nebraska struggle, with anything like a show of equal political courage and intellectual strength, was as inevitably the leader and choice of the Republicans. Their State convention met in Springfield on the 16th of June, 1858, and, after its ordinary routine work, pa.s.sed with acclamation a separate resolution, which declared "that Abraham Lincoln is the first and only choice of the Republicans of Illinois for the United States Senate as the successor of Stephen A. Douglas."

The proceedings of the convention had consumed the afternoon, and an adjournment was taken. At 8 o'clock that same evening, the convention having rea.s.sembled in the State-house, Lincoln appeared before it, and made what was perhaps the most carefully prepared speech of his whole life. Every word of it was written, every sentence had been tested; but the speaker delivered it without ma.n.u.script or notes. It was not an ordinary oration, but, in the main, an argument, as sententious and axiomatic as if made to a bench of jurists. Its opening sentences contained a political prophecy which not only became the ground-work of the campaign, but heralded one of the world's great historical events. He said:

[Sidenote] Lincoln-Douglas Debates, p. 1.

"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 pa.s.sed. '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 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."

Then followed his demonstration, through the incidents of the Nebraska legislation, the Dred Scott decision, and present political theories and issues, which would by and by find embodiment in new laws and future legal doctrines. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise, the language of the Nebraska bill, which declared slavery "subject to the Const.i.tution," the Dred Scott decision, which declared that "subject to the Const.i.tution" neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature could exclude slavery from a Territory--the argument presented point by point and step by step with legal precision the silent subversion of cherished principles of liberty. "Put this and that together," said he, "and we have another nice little niche, which we may ere long see filled with another Supreme Court decision, declaring that the Const.i.tution of the United States does not permit a State to exclude slavery from its limits.... Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being alike lawful in all the States.... We shall lie down,"

continued the orator, "pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free; and we shall awake to the reality instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State."

His peroration was a battle-call: "Our cause, then, must be intrusted to and conducted by its own undoubted friends, those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work, who do care for the result. Two years ago the Republicans of the nation mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong. We did this under the single impulse of resistance to a common danger, with every external circ.u.mstance against us. Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we brave all then to falter now?--now, when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered, and belligerent? The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail--if we stand firm we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate or mistakes delay it, but sooner or later the victory is sure to come."

[Sidenote] See O.J. Hollister, "Life of Colfax," pp. 119-22.

[Sidenote] J. Watson Webb to Bates, June 9, 1858. MS.

Lincoln's declaration that the cause of slavery restriction "must be intrusted to its own undoubted friends" had something more than a general meaning. We have seen that while Douglas avowed he did not care "whether slavery was voted down or voted up" in the Territories, he had opposed the Lecompton Const.i.tution on the ground of its non-submission to popular vote, and that this opposition caused the Buchanan Democrats to treat him as an apostate. Many earnest Republicans were moved to strong sympathy for Douglas in this att.i.tude, partly for his help in defeating the Lecompton iniquity, partly because they believed his action in this particular a prelude to further political repentance, partly out of that chivalric generosity of human nature which sides with the weak against the strong. In the hour of his trial and danger many wishes for his successful reelection came to him from Republicans of national prominence. Greeley, in the New York "Tribune" as well as in private letters, made no concealment of such a desire. Burlingame, in a fervid speech in the House of Representatives, called upon the young men of the country to stand by the Douglas men. It was known that Colfax and other influential members of the House were holding confidential interviews with Douglas, the object of which it was not difficult to guess. There were even rumors that Seward intended to interfere in his behalf. This report was bruited about so industriously that he felt it necessary to permit a personal friend to write an emphatic denial, so that it might come to Lincoln's knowledge. On the other hand, newspapers ventured the suggestion that Lincoln might retaliate by a combination against Seward's Presidential aspirations.

[Sidenote] Wentworth to Lincoln, April 19, 1858. MS.

Rival politicians in Illinois were suspicious of each other, and did not hesitate to communicate their suspicions to Lincoln. Personal friends, of course, kept him well informed about these various political under-currents, and an interesting letter of his shows that he received and treated the matter with liberal charity. "I have never said or thought more," wrote he, "as to the inclination of some of our Eastern Republican friends to favor Douglas, than I expressed in your hearing on the evening of the 21st April, at the State Library in this place. I have believed--do believe now--that Greeley, for instance, would be rather pleased to see Douglas reelected over me or any other Republican; and yet I do not believe it is so because of any secret arrangement with Douglas--it is because he thinks Douglas's superior position, reputation, experience, and ability, if you please, would more than compensate for his lack of a pure Republican position, and, therefore, his reelection do the general cause of Republicanism more good than would the election of any one of our better undistinguished pure Republicans. I do not know how you estimate Greeley, but I consider him incapable of corruption or falsehood. He denies that he directly is taking part in favor of Douglas, and I believe him.[1]

Still his feeling constantly manifests itself in his paper, which, being so extensively read in Illinois, is, and will continue to be, a drag upon us. I have also thought that Governor Seward, too, feels about as Greeley does; but not being a newspaper editor, his feeling in this respect is not much manifested. I have no idea that he is, by conversation or by letter, urging Illinois Republicans to vote for Douglas."

[Sidenote] Lincoln to Wilson, June 1, 1858. MS.

"As to myself, let me pledge you my word that neither I nor my friends, so far as I know, have been setting stake against Governor Seward. No combination has been made with me, or proposed to me, in relation to the next Presidential candidate. The same thing is true in regard to the next Governor of our State. I am not directly or indirectly committed to any one; nor has any one made any advance to me upon the subject. I have had many free conversations with John Wentworth; but he never dropped a remark that led me to suspect that he wishes to be Governor. Indeed it is due to truth to say that while he has uniformly expressed himself for me, he has never hinted at any condition. The signs are that we shall have a good convention on the 16th, and I think our prospects generally are improving some every day. I believe we need nothing so much as to get rid of unjust suspicions of one another."

[Sidenote] Lincoln to Crittenden, July 7, 1858. Mrs. Coleman, "Life of Crittenden," Vol. II., p. 162.