Stephen A. Douglas: A Study in American Politics Part 23

Douglas found his vocabulary inadequate to express his scorn. Like most Democrats he was sensitive on the subject of party nomenclature.[525] "Republican" was a term which had a.s.sociations with the very father of Democracy, though the party had long since dropped the hyphenated t.i.tle. But this new, so-called Republican party had wisely dropped the prefix "national," suggested Douglas, because "it is a purely sectional party, with a platform which cannot cross the Ohio river, and a creed which inevitably brings the North and South into hostile collision." In view of the emphasis which their platform put upon the negro, Douglas thought that consistency required the subst.i.tution of the word "Black" for "National." The Democratic party, on the other hand, had no sympathy with those who believed in making the negro the social and political equal of the white man. "Our people are a white people; our State is a white State; and we mean to preserve the race pure, without any mixture with the negro. If you,"

turning to his Republican opponents, "wish your blood and that of the African mingled in the same channel, we trust that you will keep at a respectful distance from us, and not try to force that on us as one of your domestic inst.i.tutions."[526] In such wise, Douglas labored to befog and discredit the issues for which the new party stood. The demagogue in him overmastered the statesman.

Douglas believed himself--and with good reason--to be the probable nominee of his party in the approaching presidential election. Several State conventions had already declared for him. There was no other Democrat, save President Pierce, whose name was so intimately a.s.sociated with the policy of the party as expressed in the Kansas-Nebraska bill. Yet, while both were in favor at the South, neither Pierce nor Douglas was likely to secure the full party vote at the North. This consideration led to a diversion in favor of James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania. The peculiar availability of this well-known Democrat consisted in his having been on a foreign mission when the Kansas-Nebraska bill was under fire. Still, Buchanan was reported "sound" on the essential features of this measure. Before the national convention met, a well-organized movement was under way to secure the nomination of the Pennsylvanian.[527] Equally well-organized and even more noisy and demonstrative was the following of Douglas, as the delegates began to a.s.semble at Cincinnati during the first week in June.

The first ballot in the convention must have been a grievous disappointment to Douglas and his friends. While Buchanan received 135 votes and Pierce 122, he could muster only 33. Only the Missouri and Illinois delegations cast their full vote for him. Of the slave States, only Missouri and Kentucky gave him any support. As the balloting continued, however, both Buchanan and Douglas gained at the expense of Pierce. After the fourteenth ballot, Pierce withdrew, and the bulk of his support was turned over to Douglas. Ca.s.s, the fourth candidate before the convention, had been from the first out of the running, his highest vote being only seven. On the sixteenth ballot, Buchanan received 168 and Douglas 122. Though Buchanan now had a majority of the votes of the convention, he still lacked thirty of the two-thirds required for a nomination.[528]

It was at this juncture that Douglas telegraphed to his friend Richardson, who was chairman of the Illinois delegation and a prominent figure in the convention, instructing him to withdraw his name. The announcement was received with loud protestations. The dispatch was then read: "If the withdrawal of my name will contribute to the harmony of our party or the success of our cause, I hope you will not hesitate to take the step ... if Mr. Pierce or Mr. Buchanan, or any other statesman who is faithful to the great issues involved in the contest, shall receive a majority of the convention, I earnestly hope that all my friends will unite in insuring him two-thirds, and then making his nomination unanimous. Let no personal considerations disturb the harmony or endanger the triumph of our principles."[529]

Very reluctantly the supporters of Douglas obeyed their chief, and on the seventeenth ballot, James Buchanan received the unanimous vote of the convention. For the second time Douglas lost the nomination of his party.

Douglas bore himself admirably. At a ma.s.s-meeting in Washington,[530]

he made haste to pledge his support to the nominee of the convention.

His generous words of commendation of Buchanan, as a man possessing "wisdom and nerve to enforce a firm and undivided execution, of the laws" of the majority of the people of Kansas, were uttered without any apparent misgivings. Prophetic they certainly were not. Douglas could approve the platform unqualifiedly, for it was a virtual indors.e.m.e.nt of the principle which he had proclaimed from the housetops for the greater part of two years. "The American Democracy,"

read the main article in the newly adopted resolutions, "recognize and adopt the principles contained in the organic laws establishing the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas as embodying the only sound and safe solution of the slavery question, upon which the great national idea of the people of this whole country can repose in its determined conservation of the Union, and non-interference of Congress with slavery in the Territories or in the District of Columbia."[531]

Douglas deemed it a cause for profound rejoicing that the party was at last united upon principles which could be avowed everywhere, North, South, East, and West. As the only national party in the Republic, the Democracy had a great mission to perform, for in his opinion "no less than the integrity of the Const.i.tution, the preservation and perpetuity of the Union," depended upon the result of this election.[532]

No man could have been more magnanimous under defeat and so little resentful at a personal slight. His manly conduct received favorable comment on all sides.[533] He was still the foremost figure in the Democratic party. To be sure, James Buchanan was the t.i.tular leader, but he stood upon a platform erected by his rival. His letter of acceptance left no doubt in the minds of all readers that he indorsed the letter and the spirit of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.[534]

A fortnight later the Republican national convention met at Philadelphia, and with great enthusiasm adopted a platform declaring it to be the duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territories "those twin relics of barbarism, polygamy and slavery." Even in this new party, availability dictated the choice of a presidential candidate.

The real leaders of the party were pa.s.sed over in favor of John C.

Fremont, whose romantic career was believed to be worth many votes.

Pitted against Buchanan and Fremont, was Millard Fillmore who had been nominated months before by the American party, and who subsequently received the indors.e.m.e.nt of what was left of the moribund Whig party.[535]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 507: This aspect of party has been treated at greater length in an article by the writer ent.i.tled "The Nationalizing Influence of Party," _Tale Review_, November; 1906.]

[Footnote 508: Sheahan, Douglas, pp. 264-265.]

[Footnote 509: _Ibid._, p. 271.]

[Footnote 510: _Ibid._, p. 269.]

[Footnote 511: Cutts, Const.i.tutional and Party Questions, pp. 98-99.]

[Footnote 512: Davidson and Stuve, History of Illinois, pp. 641-643.]

[Footnote 513: See items scattered through the Illinois _State Register_ for these exciting weeks.]

[Footnote 514: See Illinois State _Register_, October 6, 1854, and subsequent issues.]

[Footnote 515: Nearly every biographer of Lincoln has noted this apparent breach of agreement on the part of Douglas, but none has questioned the accuracy of the story, though the unimaginative Lamon betrays some misgivings, as he records Lincoln's course after the "Peoria truce." See Lamon, Lincoln, p. 358. The statement of Irwin (in Herndon-Weik, Lincoln, II, p. 329) does not seem credible, in the light of all the attendant circ.u.mstances.]

[Footnote 516: _Whig Almanac_ 1855.]

[Footnote 517: MS. Letter, Douglas to Lanphier, December 18, 1854.]

[Footnote 518: MS. Letter, Douglas to Lanphier, December 18, 1854.]

[Footnote 519: Davidson and Stuve, History of Illinois, pp. 689-690; Sheahan, Douglas, pp. 275-276.]

[Footnote 520: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, p. 67.]

[Footnote 521: _Globe_, 33 Cong., 2 Sess., App., p. 216.]

[Footnote 522: Globe, 33 Cong., 2 Sess., App., p. 330.]

[Footnote 523: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, pp. 97-98, 130, 196.]

[Footnote 524: _Globe_, 34 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 655.]

[Footnote 525: _Ibid._, App., p. 391.]

[Footnote 526: _Globe,_34 Cong., 1 Sess., App. p. 392.]

[Footnote 527: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, pp. 169-171.]

[Footnote 528: Stanwood, History of the Presidency, p. 265. Douglas received 73 votes from the slave States and Buchanan 47; Buchanan received 28 votes in New England, Douglas 13; Buchanan received 41 votes from the Northwest, Douglas 19. The loss of Buchanan in the South was more than made good by his votes from the Middle Atlantic States.]

[Footnote 529: Sheahan, Douglas, pp. 448-449; Proceedings of the National Democratic Convention, 1856.]

[Footnote 530: Washington _Union_, June 7, 1856.]

[Footnote 531: Stanwood, History of the Presidency, p. 267.]

[Footnote 532: Washington _Union_, June 7, 1856.]

[Footnote 533: Correspondent to Cincinnati _Enquirer_, June 12, 1856.]

[Footnote 534: The letter read, "This legislation is founded upon principles as ancient as free government itself, and in accordance with them has simply declared that the people of a Territory like those of a State, shall decide for themselves whether slavery shall or shall not exist within their limits. The Kansas-Nebraska Act does no more than give the force of law to this elementary principle of self-government, declaring it to be 'the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic inst.i.tutions in their own way, subject only to the Const.i.tution of the United States.' How vain and illusory would any other principle prove in practice in regard to the Territories," etc. Cincinnati _Enquirer_, June 22, 1856.]

[Footnote 535: Stanwood, History of the Presidency, pp. 269-274.]

CHAPTER XIII

THE TESTING OF POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY

The author of the Kansas-Nebraska bill doubtless antic.i.p.ated a gradual and natural occupation of the new Territories by settlers like those home-seekers who had taken up government lands in Iowa and other States of the Northwest. In the course of time, it was to be expected, such communities would form their own social and political inst.i.tutions, and so determine whether they would permit or forbid slave-labor. By that rapid, and yet on the whole strangely conservative, American process the people of the Territories would become politically self-conscious and ready for statehood. Not all at once, but gradually, a politically self-sufficient ent.i.ty would come into being. Such had been the history of American colonization; it seemed the part of wise statesmanship to follow the trend of that history.

Theoretically popular sovereignty, as applied in the Kansas-Nebraska Act, was not an advance over the doctrine of Ca.s.s and d.i.c.kinson. It professed to be the same which had governed Congress in organizing Utah and New Mexico. Nevertheless, popular sovereignty had an artificial quality which squatter sovereignty lacked. The relation between Congress and the people of the Territories, in the matter of slavery, was now to be determined not so much by actual conditions as by an abstract principle. Federal policy was indoctrinated.

There was, too, this vital difference between squatter sovereignty in Utah and New Mexico and popular sovereignty in Nebraska and Kansas: the former were at least partially inhabited and enjoyed some degree of social and political order; the latter were practically uninhabited. It was one thing to grant control over all domestic concerns to a population _in esse_, and another and quite different thing to grant control to a people _in posse_. In the Kansas-Nebraska Act hypothetical communities were endowed with the capacity of self-government, and told to decide for themselves a question which would become a burning issue the very moment that the first settlers set foot in the Territories. Congress attempted thus to solve an equation without a single known quant.i.ty.

Moreover, slavery was no longer a matter of local concern. Doubtless it was once so regarded; but the time had pa.s.sed when the conscience of the North would acquiesce in a _laissez faire_ policy. By force of circ.u.mstances slavery had become a national issue. Ardent haters of the inst.i.tution were not willing that its extension or restriction should be left to a fraction of the nation, artificially organized as a Territory. The Kansas-Nebraska Act prejudiced the minds of many against the doctrine, however sound in theory it may have seemed, by unsettling what the North regarded as its vested right in the free territory north of the line of the Missouri Compromise. The Act made the political atmosphere electric. The conditions for obtaining a calm, dispa.s.sionate judgment on the domestic concern of chief interest, were altogether lacking.