Stephen A. Douglas: A Study in American Politics Part 34

[Footnote 769: Debates, p. 234.]

[Footnote 770: _Ibid._, p. 238.]

[Footnote 771: Sheahan, Douglas, p. 432.]

[Footnote 772: Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, II, p. 146 note.]

[Footnote 773: Sheahan, Douglas, pp. 439-442; Herndon-Weik, Lincoln, II, p. 128.]

[Footnote 774: It has not been generally observed that the Democrats gained more than their opponents over the State contest of 1856. The election returns were as follows:

Democratic ticket in 1856, 106,643; in 1858, 121,609; gain, 14,966.

Republican ticket in 1856, 111,375; in 1858, 125,430; gain, 14,055.

CHAPTER XVII

THE AFTERMATH

Douglas had achieved a great personal triumph. Not even his Republican opponents could gainsay it. In the East, the Republican newspapers applauded him undisguisedly, not so much because they admired him or lacked sympathy with Lincoln, as because they regarded his re-election as a signal condemnation of the Buchanan administration. Moreover, there was a general expectation in anti-slavery circles to which Theodore Parker gave expression when he wrote, "Had Lincoln succeeded, Douglas would be a ruined man.... But now in place for six years more, with his own personal power unimpaired and his positional influence much enhanced, he can do the Democratic party a world of damage."[775]

There was cheer in this expectation even for those who deplored the defeat of Lincoln.

As Douglas journeyed southward soon after the November elections, he must have felt the poignant truth of Lincoln's shrewd observation that he was himself becoming sectional. Though he was received with seeming cordiality at Memphis and New Orleans, he could not but notice that his speeches, as Lincoln predicted, "would not go current south of the Ohio River as they had formerly." Democratic audiences applauded his bold insistence upon the universality of the principles of the party creed, but the tone of the Southern press was distinctly unfriendly to him and his Freeport doctrine.[776] He told his auditors at Memphis that he indorsed the decision of the Supreme Court; he believed that the owners of slaves had the same right to take them into the Territories as they had to take other property; but slaves once in the Territory were then subject to local laws for protection, on an equal footing with all other property. If no local laws protecting slave property were pa.s.sed, slavery would be practically excluded.

"Non-action is exclusion." It was a matter of soil, climate, interests, whether a Territory would permit slavery or not. "You come right back to the principle of dollars and cents ... If old Joshua E.

Giddings should raise a colony in Ohio and settle down in Louisiana, he would be the strongest advocate of slavery in the whole South; he would find when he got there, his opinion would be very much modified; he would find on those sugar plantations that it was not a question between the white man and the negro, but between the negro and the crocodile." "The Almighty has drawn the line on this continent, on one side of which the soil must be cultivated by slave labor; on the other by white labor."[777]

At New Orleans, he repeated more emphatically much the same thought.

"There is a line, or belt of country, meandering through the valleys and over the mountain tops, which is a natural barrier between free territory and slave territory, on the south of which are to be found the productions suitable to slave labor, while on the north exists a country adapted to free labor alone.... But in the great central regions, where there may be some doubt as to the effect of natural causes, who ought to decide the question except the people residing there, who have all their interests there, who have gone there to live with their wives and children!"[778]

It was characteristic of the man that he thought politics even when he was in pursuit of health. Advised to take an ocean voyage, he decided to visit Cuba so that even his recreative leisure might be politically profitable, for the island was more than ever coveted by the South and he wished to have the advantage of first-hand information about this unhappy Spanish province. Landing in New York upon his return, he was given a remarkable ovation by the Democracy of the city; and he was greeted with equal warmth in Philadelphia and Baltimore.[779] Even a less ambitious man might have been tempted to believe in his own capacity for leadership, in the midst of these apparently spontaneous demonstrations of regard. At the capital, however, he was less cordially welcomed. He was not in the least surprised, for while he was still in the South, the newspapers had announced his deposition from the chairmanship of the Committee on Territories. He knew well enough what he had to expect from the group of Southern Democrats who had the ear of the administration.[780] Nevertheless, his removal from a position which he had held ever since he entered the Senate was a bitter pill.

For the sake of peace Douglas smothered his resentment, and, for a brief time at least, sought to demonstrate his political orthodoxy in matters where there was no conflict of opinion. As a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, he cordially supported the bill for the purchase of Cuba, even though the chairman, Slidell, had done more to injure him in the recent campaign than any other man. There were those who thought he demeaned himself by attending the Democratic caucus and indorsing the Slidell project.[781]

It was charged that the proposed appropriation of $30,000,000 was to be used to bribe Spanish ministers to sell Cuba; that the whole project was motived by the desire of the South to acquire more slave territory; and that Douglas was once more cultivating the South to secure the presidency in 1860. The first of these charges has never been proved; the second is probably correct; but the third is surely open to question. As long ago as Folk's administration, Douglas had expressed his belief that the Pearl of the Antilles must some day fall to us; and on various occasions he had advocated the annexation of Cuba, with the consent of Spain and the inhabitants. At New Orleans, he had been called upon to express his views regarding the acquisition of the island; and he had said, without hesitation, "It is folly to debate the acquisition of Cuba. It naturally belongs to the American continent. It guards the mouth of the Mississippi River, which is the heart of the American continent and the body of the American nation."

At the same time he was careful to add that he was no filibuster: he desired Cuba only upon terms honorable to all concerned.[782]

Subsequent events acquit Douglas of truckling to the South at this time. No doubt he would have been glad to let bygones be bygones, to close up the gap of unpleasant memories between himself and the administration, and to restore Democratic harmony. For Douglas loved his party and honored its history. To him the party of Jefferson and Jackson was inseparably linked with all that made the American Commonwealth the greatest of democracies. Yet where men are acutely conscious of vital differences of opinion, only the hourly practice of self-control can prevent clashing. Neither Douglas nor his opponents were prepared to undergo any such rigid self-discipline.

On February 23d, the pent-up feeling broke through all barriers and laid bare the thoughts and intents of the Democratic factions. The Kansas question once more recurring, Brown of Mississippi now demanded adequate protection for property; that is, "protection sufficient to protect animate property." Any other protection would be a delusion and a cheat. If the territorial legislature refused such protection, he for one would demand it of Congress. He dissented altogether from the doctrine of the Senator from Illinois, that by non-action, or unfriendly legislation a Territory could annul a decision of the Supreme Court and exclude slavery. That was mistaking power for right.

"What I want to know is, whether you will interpose against power and in favor of right.... If the Territorial Legislature refuses to act, will you act?... If it pa.s.s laws hostile to slavery, will you annul them, and subst.i.tute laws favoring slavery in their stead?" "What I and my people ask is action; positive, unqualified action. Our understanding of the doctrine of non-intervention was, that you were not to intervene against us, but I never understood that we could have any compromise or understanding here which could release Congress from an obligation imposed on it by the Const.i.tution of the United States."[783]

Reluctant as Douglas must have been to accentuate the differences between himself and the Southern Democrats, he could not remain silent, for silence would be misconstrued. With all the tact which he could muster out of a not too abundant store, he sought to conciliate, without yielding his own opinions. It was a futile effort. At the very outset he was forced to deny the right of slave property to other protection than common property. Thence he pa.s.sed with wider and wider divergence from the Southern position over the familiar ground of popular sovereignty. To the specific demands which Brown had voiced, he replied that Congress had never pa.s.sed an act creating a criminal code for any organized Territory, nor any law protecting any species of property. Congress had left these matters to the territorial legislatures. Why, then, make an exception of slave property? The Supreme Court had made no such distinction. "I know," said Douglas, in a tone little calculated to soothe the feelings of his opponents, "I know that some gentlemen do not like the doctrine of non-intervention as well as they once did. It is now becoming fashionable to talk sneeringly of 'your doctrine of non-intervention,' Sir, that doctrine has been a fundamental article in the Democratic creed for years."

"If you repudiate the doctrine of non-intervention and form a slave code by act of Congress, when the people of a Territory refuse it, you must step off the Democratic platform.... I tell you, gentlemen of the South, in all candor, I do not believe a Democratic candidate can ever carry any one Democratic State of the North on the platform that it is the duty of the Federal government to force the people of a Territory to have slavery when they do not want it."[784]

What Brown had a.s.serted with his wonted impulsiveness, was then reaffirmed more soberly by his colleague, Jefferson Davis, upon whom more than any other Southerner the mantle of Calhoun had fallen. State sovereignty was also his major premise. The Const.i.tution was a compact. The Territories were common property of the States. The territorial legislatures were mere instruments through which the Congress of the United States "executed its trust in relation to the Territories." If, as the Senator from Illinois insisted, Congress had granted full power to the inhabitants of the Territories to legislate on all subjects not inconsistent with the Const.i.tution, then Congress had exceeded its authority. Turning to Douglas, Davis said, "Now, the senator asks, will you make a discrimination in the Territories? I say, yes, I would discriminate in the Territories wherever it is needful to a.s.sert the right of citizens.... I have heard many a siren's song on this doctrine of non-intervention; a thing shadowy and fleeting, changing its color as often as the chameleon."[785]

When Douglas could again get the floor, he retorted sharply, "The senator from Mississippi says, if I am not willing to stand in the party on his platform, I can go out. Allow me to inform him that I stand on the platform, and those that jump off must go out of the party."

Hot words now pa.s.sed between them. Davis spoke disdainfully of men who seek to build up a political reputation by catering to the prejudice of a majority, to exclude the property of the minority. And Douglas retorted, "I despise to see men from other sections of the Union pandering to a public sentiment against what I conceive to be common rights under the Const.i.tution." "Holding the views that you do," said Davis, "you would have no chance of getting the vote of Mississippi to-day." The senator has "confirmed me in the belief that he is now as full of heresy as he once was of adherence to the doctrine of popular sovereignty, correctly construed; that he has gone back to his first love of squatter sovereignty, a thing offensive to every idea of conservatism and sound government."

Davis made repeated efforts to secure an answer to the question whether, in the event that slavery should be excluded by the people of a Territory and the Supreme Court should decide against such action, Douglas would maintain the rights of the slave-holders. Douglas replied, somewhat evasively, that when the Supreme Court should decide upon the const.i.tutionality of the local laws, he would abide by the decision. "That is not the point," rejoined Davis impatiently; "Congress must compel the Territorial Legislature to perform its proper functions"; _i.e._ actively protect slave property. "Well,"

said Douglas with exasperating coolness, "on that point, the Senator and I differ. If the Territorial Legislature will not pa.s.s such laws as will encourage mules, I will not force them to have them." Again Davis insisted that his question had not been answered. Douglas repeated, "I will vote against any law by Congress attempting to interfere with a regulation made by the Territories, with respect to any kind of property whatever, whether horses, mules, negroes, or anything else."[786]

But there was a flaw in Douglas's armor which Green of Missouri detected. Had the Senator from Illinois not urged the intervention of Congress to prevent polygamy in Utah? "Not at all," replied Douglas; "the people of that Territory were in a state of rebellion against the Federal authorities." What he had urged was the repeal of the organic act of the Territory, so that the United States might exercise absolute jurisdiction and protect property in that region. "But if the people of a Territory took away property in slaves, were they not also defying the Federal authorities?" persisted Green. Unquestionably Congress might revoke the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Douglas admitted; but it should be remembered that the act was bottomed upon an agreement.

There was a distinct understanding that the question whether territorial laws affecting the right of property in slaves were const.i.tutional, should be referred to the Supreme Court. "If const.i.tutional, they were to remain in force until repealed by the Territorial Legislature; if not, they were to become void not by action of Congress but by the decision of the court."[787] And Douglas quoted at length from a speech by Senator Benjamin in 1856, to prove his point. But it was precisely this agreement of 1854, which was now being either repudiated or construed in the interest of the South.

Jefferson Davis frankly deprecated the "great hazard" which representatives from his section ran in 1854; but, he added, "I take it for granted my friends who are about me must have understood at that time clearly that this was the mere reference of a right; and that if decided in our favor, congressional legislation would follow in its train, and secure to us the enjoyment of the right thus defined."[788]

The wide divergence of purpose and opinion which this debate revealed, dashed any hope of a united Democratic party in 1860. Men who looked into the future were sobered by the prospect. If the Democratic party were rent in twain,--the only surviving national party,--if Northerners and Southerners could no longer act together within a party of such elastic principles, what hope remained for the Union?

The South was already boldly facing the inevitable. Said Brown, pa.s.sionately, "If I cannot obtain the rights guaranteed to me and my people under the Const.i.tution, as expounded by the Supreme Court, then, Sir, I am prepared to retire from the concern.... When our const.i.tutional rights are denied us, we _ought_ to retire from the Union.... If you are going to convert the Union into a masked battery from behind which to make war on me and my property, in the name of all the G.o.ds at once, why should I not retire from it?"[789]

After the 23d of February, Douglas neither gave nor expected quarter from the Southern faction led by Jefferson Davis. So far from avoiding conflict, he seems rather to have forced the fighting. He flaunted his views in the faces of the fire-eaters. Prudence would have suggested silence, when a convention of Southern States met at Vicksburg and resolved that "all laws, State and Federal, prohibiting the African slave-trade, ought to be repealed,"[790] but Douglas, who knew something of the dimensions which this illicit traffic had already a.s.sumed, at once declared himself opposed to it. He said privately in a conversation, which afterwards was reported by an anonymous correspondent to the New York _Tribune_, that he believed fifteen thousand Africans were brought into the country last year. He had seen "with his own eyes three hundred of those recently imported miserable beings in a slave-pen at Vicksburg, Mississippi, and also large numbers at Memphis, Tennessee."[791]

In a letter which speedily became public property, Douglas said that he would not accept the nomination of the Democratic party, if the convention should interpolate into the party creed "such new issues as the revival of the African slave-trade, or a congressional slave code for the Territories."[792] And to leave no doubt as to his att.i.tude he wrote a second letter, devoted exclusively to this subject; it also found its way, as the author probably intended it should, into the newspapers. He opposed the revival of the African slave-trade because it was abolished by one of the compromises which had made the Federal Union and the Const.i.tution. "In accordance with this compromise, I am irreconcilably opposed to the revival of the African slave-trade, in any form and under any circ.u.mstances."[793] How deeply this unequivocal condemnation lacerated the feelings of the South, will never be known until the economic necessities and purposes of the large plantation owners are more clearly revealed.

The captious criticism of the Freeport doctrine by Southerners of the Calhoun-Jefferson Davis school was less damaging, from a legal point of view, than the sober a.n.a.lysis of Lincoln. The emphasis in Lincoln's famous question at Freeport fell upon the word _lawful_: "Can the people of a United States Territory, in any lawful way," etc. Douglas had replied to the question of legal right by an a.s.sertion of the power of the people of the Territories. This answer, as Lincoln pointed out subsequently, was equivalent to saying that "a thing may be lawfully driven away from where it has the lawful right to be."[794] As a prediction, Douglas's simple statement, that if the people of a Territory wanted slavery they would have it, and if they did not, they would not let it be forced on them, was fully justified by the facts of American history. It has been characteristic of the American people that, without irreverence for law, they have not allowed it to stand in the way of their natural development: they have not, as a rule, driven rough-shod over law, but have quietly allowed undesirable laws to fall into innocuous desuetude.

But such an answer was unworthy of a man who prided himself upon his fidelity to the obligation of the Const.i.tution and the laws. Feeling the full force of Lincoln's inexorable logic,[795] but believing that it was bottomed on a false premise, Douglas endeavored to give his Freeport doctrine its proper const.i.tutional setting. During the summer, he elaborated an historical and const.i.tutional defense of popular sovereignty. The editors of _Harper's Magazine_ so far departed from the traditions of that popular periodical as to publish this long and tedious essay in the September number. Douglas probably calculated that through this medium better than almost any other, he would reach those readers to whom Lincoln made his most effective appeal.[796]

The essay bore the t.i.tle "The Dividing Line between Federal and Local Authority," with the sub-caption, "Popular Sovereignty in the Territories." In his interpretation of history, the author proved himself rather a better advocate than historian. He had traversed much the same ground in his speeches--and with far more vivacity and force.

Douglas searched the colonial records, and found--one is tempted to say, to find--our fathers contending unremittingly for "the inalienable right, when formed into political communities, to exercise exclusive power of legislation in their local legislatures in respect to all things affecting their internal polity--slavery not excepted."[797]

Douglas took issue with the fundamental postulate of Lincoln's syllogism--that a Territory is the mere creature of Congress and cannot be clothed with powers not possessed by the creator. He denied that such an inference could be drawn from that clause in the Const.i.tution which permits Congress to dispose of, and make all needful rules for, the territory or other property belonging to the United States. Names were deceptive. The word "territory" in this connection was not used in a political, but in a geographical sense.

The power of Congress to organize governments for the Territories must be inferred rather from the power to admit new States into the Union.

The Federal government possessed only expressly delegated powers; and the absence of any explicit authority to interfere in local territorial affairs must be held to inhibit any exercise of such power. It was on these grounds that the Supreme Court had ruled that Congress was not authorized by the Const.i.tution to prohibit slavery in the Territories.

It had been erroneously held by some, continued the essayist, that the Court decided in the Dred Scott case that a territorial legislature could not legislate in respect to slave property like other property.

He understood the Court to speak only of forbidden powers--powers denied to Congress, to State legislatures and to territorial legislatures alike. But if ever slavery should be decided to be one of these forbidden subjects of legislation, then the conclusion would be inevitable that the Const.i.tution established slavery in the Territories beyond the power of the people to control it by law, and guaranteed to every citizen the right to go there and be protected in the enjoyment of his slave property; then every member of Congress would be in duty bound to supply adequate protection, if the rights of property should be invaded. Not only so, but another conclusion would follow,--if the Const.i.tution should be held to establish slavery in the Territories beyond the power of the people to control it,--Congress would be bound to provide adequate protection for slave property everywhere, _in the States_ as well as in the Territories.

Douglas immediately went on to show that such was not the decision of the Court in the Dred Scott case. The Court had held that "the right of property in slaves is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Const.i.tution." Yes, but where? Why in that provision which speaks of persons "held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof"; not under the Const.i.tution, not under the laws of Congress, Douglas emphasized, but _under the laws of the particular State where such service is due._ And so, when the Court declared that "the government, in express terms, is pledged to protect it [slave property] in all future time," it added "if the slave escapes from his owner." "This is the only contingency," Douglas maintained, "in which the Federal Government is authorized, required, or permitted to interfere with slavery in the States or Territories; and in that case only for the purpose of 'guarding and protecting the owner in his rights' to reclaim his slave property." Slave-owners, therefore, who moved with their property to a Territory, must hold it like all other property, subject to local law, and look to local authorities for its protection.

One other question remained: was the word "State," as used in the clause just cited, intended to include Territories? Douglas so contended. Otherwise, "the Territories must become a sanctuary for all fugitives from service and justice." In numerous clauses in the Const.i.tution, the Territories were recognized as _States_.

Clever as this reasoning was, it clearly was not a fair exposition of the opinion of the Court in the case of Dred Scott. If the Court did not deny the right of a territorial legislature to interfere with slave property, it certainly left that proposition open to fair inference by the phrasing and emphasis of the critical pa.s.sages. It should be noted that Douglas, in quoting the decision, misplaced the decisive clause so as to bring it in juxtaposition to the reference to the fugitive slave clause of the Const.i.tution, thus redistributing the emphasis and confusing the real significance of the foregoing paragraph.[798] Douglas stated subsequently that he did not believe the decision of the Court reached the power of a territorial legislature, because there was no territorial legislature in the record nor any allusion to one; because there was no territorial enactment before the Court; and because there was no fact in the case alluding to or connected with territorial legislation.[799] All this was perfectly true. The opinion of the Court was _obiter dicens_; but the Court expressed its opinion nevertheless. As Lincoln said, men knew what to expect of the Court when a territorial act prohibiting slavery came before it. Yet this was what Douglas would not concede.

He would not admit the inference. Congress could confer powers upon a territorial legislature which it could not itself exercise. The dividing line between Federal and local authority was so drawn as to permit Congress to inst.i.tute governments with legislative, judicial, and executive functions but without permitting Congress to exercise those functions itself. From Douglas's point of view, a Territory was not a dependency of the Federal government, but an inchoate Commonwealth, endowed with many of the attributes of sovereignty possessed by the full-fledged States.

So unusual an event as a political contribution by a prominent statesman to a popular magazine, created no little excitement.[800]

Attorney-General Black came to the defense of the South with an unsigned contribution to the Washington _Const.i.tution_, the organ of the administration.[801] And Douglas, who had meantime gone to Ohio to take part in the State campaign, replied caustically to this critique in his speech at Wooster, September 16th. Black rejoined in a pamphlet under his own name. Whereupon Douglas returned to the attack with a slashing pamphlet, which he sent to the printer in an unfinished form and which did him little credit.[802]

This war of pamphlets was productive of no results. Douglas and Black were wide apart upon their major premises, and diverged inevitably in their conclusions. Holding fast to the premise that a Territory was not sovereign but a "subordinate dependency," Black ridiculed the attempts of Douglas to clothe it, not with complete sovereignty but with "the attributes of sovereignty."[803] Then Douglas denounced in scathing terms the absurdity of Black's a.s.sumption that property in the Territories would be held by the laws of the State from which it came, while it must look for redress of wrongs to the law of its new domicile.[804]

The Ohio campaign attracted much attention throughout the country, not only because the gubernatorial candidates were thoroughgoing representatives of the Republican party and of Douglas Democracy, but because both Lincoln and Douglas were again brought into the arena.[805] While the latter did not meet in joint debate, their successive appearance at Columbus and Cincinnati gave the campaign the aspect of a prolongation of the Illinois contest. Lincoln devoted no little attention to the _Harper's Magazine_ article, while Douglas defended himself and his doctrine against all comers. There was a disposition in many quarters to concede that popular sovereignty, whether theoretically right or wrong, would settle the question of slavery in the Territories.[806] Apropos of Douglas's speech at Columbus, the New York _Times_ admitted that at least his principles were "definite" and uttered in a "frank, gallant and masculine"

spirit;[807] and his speeches were deemed of enough importance to be printed entire in the columns of this Republican journal. "He means to go to Charleston," guessed the editor shrewdly, "as the unmistakable representative of the Democratic party of the North and to bring this influence to bear upon Southern delegates as the only way to secure their interests against anti-slavery sentiment represented by the Republicans. He will claim that not a single Northern State can be carried on a platform more pro-slavery than his. The Democrats of the North have yielded all they will."[808]

While Douglas was in Ohio, he was saddened by the intelligence that Senator Broderick of California, his loyal friend and staunch supporter in the Lecompton fight, had fallen a victim to the animosity of the Southern faction in his State. The Washington _Const.i.tution_ might explain his death as an affair of honor--he was shot in a duel--but intelligent men knew that Broderick's a.s.sailant had desired to rid Southern "chivalry" of a hated political opponent.[809] A month later, on the night of October 16th, John Brown of Kansas fame marshalled his little band of eighteen men and descended upon the United States a.r.s.enal at Harper's Ferry. What did these events portend?