Stephen A. Douglas: A Study in American Politics Part 29

[Footnote 636: "I spoke rapidly, without preparation," he afterward said. _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 47.]

[Footnote 637: _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 18.]

[Footnote 638: New York _Tribune_, December 9, 1857.]

[Footnote 639: New York _Tribune_, December 10, 1857.]

[Footnote 640: _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., pp. 21-22.]

[Footnote 641: _Globe_, 5 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 120.]

[Footnote 642: _Ibid._, p. 137.]

[Footnote 643: Chicago _Times_, December 24, 1857.]

[Footnote 644: _Ibid._, December 23, 1857.]

[Footnote 645: Correspondent to Cleveland _Plaindealer_, quoted in Chicago _Times_, January 29, 1858.]

[Footnote 646: Mrs. Jefferson Davis to Mrs. Pierce, MS. Letter, April 4, 1858.]

[Footnote 647: Mrs. Roger Pryor, Reminiscences of Peace and War, pp.

69-70.]

[Footnote 648: _Ibid._, Chapter 4.]

[Footnote 649: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, p. 289.]

[Footnote 650: Message of February 2, 1858.]

[Footnote 651: Senate Report No. 82, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., February 18, 1858.]

[Footnote 652: Minority Report, p. 52.]

[Footnote 653: Minority Report, p. 64.]

[Footnote 654: _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 502.]

[Footnote 655: _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., pp. 572-573.]

[Footnote 656: Washington _Union_, February 26, 1858.]

[Footnote 657: Richmond _South_, quoted in Chicago _Times_, December 18, 1857.]

[Footnote 658: Sheahan, Douglas, p. 328; _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., App., pp. 193-194.]

[Footnote 659: _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., App., pp. 194-201, _pa.s.sim._]

[Footnote 660: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, pp. 297-299.]

[Footnote 661: Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, II, p. 563.]

[Footnote 662: Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, II, pp.

566-567.]

[Footnote 663: This cannot, of course, be demonstrated, but it accords with his subsequent conduct.]

[Footnote 664: _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 1869.]

[Footnote 665: _Ibid._, p. 1870.]

[Footnote 666: _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 1870.]

[Footnote 667: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, p. 300.]

[Footnote 668: c.o.x, Three Decades of Federal Legislation, p. 58.]

CHAPTER XVI

THE JOINT DEBATES WITH LINCOLN

National politics made strange bed-fellows in the winter of 1857-8.

Douglas consorting with Republicans and flouting the administration, was a rare spectacle. There was a moment in this odd alliance when it seemed likely to become more than a temporary fusion of interests. The need of concerted action brought about frequent conferences, in which the distrust of men like Wilson and Colfax was, in a measure, dispelled by the engaging frankness of their quondam opponent.[669]

Douglas intimated that in all probability he could not act with his party in future.[670] He a.s.sured Wilson that he was in the fight to stay--in his own words, "he had checked his baggage and taken a through ticket."[671] There was an odd disposition, too, on the part of some Republicans to indorse popular sovereignty, now that it seemed likely to exclude slavery from the Territories.[672] There was even a rumor afloat that the editor of the New York _Tribune_ favored Douglas for the presidency.[673] On at least two occasions, Greeley was in conference with Senator Douglas at the latter's residence. To the gossiping public this was evidence enough that the rumor was correct.

And it may well be that Douglas dallied with the hope that a great Const.i.tutional Union party might be formed.[674] But he could hardly have received much encouragement from the Republicans, with whom he was consorting, for so far from losing their political ident.i.ty, they calculated upon bringing him eventually within the Republican fold.[675]

A Const.i.tutional Union party, embracing Northern and Southern Unionists of Whig or Democratic antecedents, might have supplied the gap left by the old Whig party. That such a party would have exercised a profound nationalizing influence can scarcely be doubted. Events might have put Douglas at the head of such a party. But, in truth, such an outcome of the political chaos which then reigned, was a remote possibility.

The matter of immediate concern to Douglas was the probable att.i.tude of his allies toward his re-election to the Senate. There was a wide divergence among Republican leaders; but active politicians like Greeley and Wilson, who were not above fighting the devil with his own weapons, counselled their Illinois brethren not to oppose his return.[676] There was no surer way to disrupt the Democratic party.

In spite of these admonitions, the Republicans of Illinois were bent upon defeating Douglas. He had been too uncompromising and bitter an opponent of Trumbull and other "Black Republicans" to win their confidence by a few months of conflict against Lecomptonism. "I see his tracks all over our State," wrote the editor of the Chicago _Tribune_, "they point only in one direction; not a single toe is turned toward the Republican camp. Watch him, use him, but do not trust him--not an inch."[677] Moreover, a little coterie of Springfield politicians had a candidate of their own for United States senator in the person of Abraham Lincoln.[678]

The action of the Democratic State convention in April closed the door to any reconciliation with the Buchanan administration. Douglas received an unqualified indors.e.m.e.nt. The Cincinnati platform was declared to be "the only authoritative exposition of Democratic doctrine." No power on earth except a similar national convention had a right "to change or interpolate that platform, or to prescribe new or different tests." By sound party doctrine the Lecompton const.i.tution ought to be "submitted to the direct vote of the actual inhabitants of Kansas at a fair election."[679] Could any words have been more explicit? The administration responded by a merciless proscription of Douglas office-holders and by unremitting efforts to create an opposition ticket. Under pressure from Washington, conventions were held to nominate candidates for the various State offices, with the undisguised purpose of dividing the Democratic vote for senator.[680]

On the 16th of June, the Republicans of Illinois threw advice to the winds and adopted the unusual course of naming Lincoln as "the first and only choice of the Republicans of Illinois for the United States Senate." It was an act of immense political significance. Not only did it put in jeopardy the political life of Douglas, but it ended for all time to come any coalition between his following and the Republican party.

The subsequent fame of Lincoln has irradiated every phase of his early career. To his contemporaries in the year 1858, he was a lawyer of recognized ability, an astute politician, and a frank aspirant for national honors. Those who imagine him to have been an unambitious soul, upon whom honors were thrust, fail to understand the Lincoln whom Herndon, his partner, knew. Lincoln was a seasoned politician. He had been identified with the old Whig organization; he had repeatedly represented the Springfield district in the State legislature; and he had served one term without distinction in Congress. Upon the pa.s.sage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act he had taken an active part in fusing the opposing elements into the Republican party. His services to the new party made him a candidate for the senatorship in 1855, and received recognition in the national Republican convention of 1856, when he was second on the list of those for whom the convention balloted for Vice-president. He was not unknown to Republicans of the Northwest, though he was not in any sense a national figure. Few men had a keener insight into political conditions in Illinois. None knew better the ins and outs of political campaigning in Illinois.

Withal, Lincoln was rated as a man of integrity. He had strong convictions and the courage of his convictions. His generous instincts made him hate slavery, while his antecedents prevented him from loving the negro. His anti-slavery sentiments were held strongly in check by his sound sense of justice. He had the temperament of a humanitarian with the intellect of a lawyer. While not combative by nature, he possessed the characteristic American trait of measuring himself by the attainments of others. He was solicitous to match himself with other men so as to prove himself at least their peer. Possessed of a cause that enlisted the service of his heart as well as his head, Lincoln was a strong advocate at the bar and a formidable opponent on the stump. Douglas bore true witness to Lincoln's powers when he said, on hearing of his nomination, "I shall have my hands full. He is the strong man of his party--full of wit, facts, dates--and the best stump speaker, with his droll ways and dry jokes, in the West. He is as honest as he is shrewd; and if I beat him, my victory will be hardly won."[681]

The nomination of Lincoln was so little a matter of surprise to him and his friends, that at the close of the convention he was able to address the delegates in a carefully prepared speech. Wishing to sound a dominant note for the campaign, he began with these memorable words:

"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 the 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."[682]