The Life of Stephen A. Douglas Part 4

It was not possible to treat the matter lightly. Evidently a tide of fanatical pa.s.sion had set against him, not only in the old North, but in the new Northwest, the field of his undisputed mastery.

It was necessary to bestir himself in earnest and turn back this rising flood which threatened to engulf him just as he came in sight of his goal. The symptoms were decidedly bad. The elections thus far held indicated a surprising revolt against his new Democratic gospel of popular sovereignty. As the autumn advanced the omens grew worse. New Hampshire and Connecticut had already manifested their disapproval. Iowa, hitherto staunchly Democratic, was carried by the Whigs. The later New England elections showed the most amazing Democratic defection. Pennsylvania elected to Congress twenty-one p.r.o.nounced opponents of popular sovereignty and slavery extension. Ohio and Indiana had both cast their votes for Pierce.

But at this election Ohio rejected the revised Democratic platform by 75,00 and Indiana by 13,000.

After his rebuff in Chicago he plunged into the Illinois campaign, which was fought on the Kansas-Nebraska issue. In the northern part of the State his receptions were chilly and his audiences unfriendly, sometime indulging in boisterous demonstrations of hostility. "Burning effigies, effigies suspended by robes, banners with all the vulgar mottoes and inscriptions that pa.s.sion and prejudice could suggest, were displayed at various points.

Whenever he attempted to speak, the noisy demonstrations which had proved so successful in Chicago were repeated."

But as he moved southward the people became more cordial. The great center of political activity was Springfield, where the State Fair, lasting through the first week of October, attracted thousands of people, and the politicians a.s.sembled to make speeches and plan campaigns. He spoke on October 3rd at the State House. The most important matter pending was the choice of the legislature which should elect a Senator to succeed his colleague Shields, who was a candidate for reelection. The opposition was a heterogeneous compound of Whigs, anti-Nebraska Democrats and all other political elements opposed to the revised Democratic creed. The leading candidates of this fusion party for Senator were Lyman Trumbull, a Democrat opposed to the new program of slavery extension, and Abraham Lincoln, the recognized leader of the Whig party of the State. It was expected that Lincoln would answer Douglas on the following day.

This political tourney held in the little Western Capital was in many ways a rather notable event. The great question of human slavery had now definitely pa.s.sed from the region of mere moral disquisition into that of active statesmanship. It had become the decisive practical problem of the time, the attempt to solve which was revolutionizing party politics and sweeping away the political philosophy of the past. The opinions of men on this question were determining their a.s.sociations and directing their conduct, regardless of minor matters, which are now forgotten. The South was united for the support and extension of slavery. The North was tending to unity in the resolve to prevent its further spread.

Already the new generation of Southern statesmen were plotting to divide the Union and were bent on extending the slave holding States across the continent, believing that when the separation occurred, California would join the Southern Confederation and thus give them a Republic extending from ocean to ocean and controlling the mouth of the Mississippi.

The first step in this plan had already been taken by opening to slavery the Territory of Kansas, which then contained a large part of Colorado. The remaining task of pushing their western border on to the Pacific seemed comparatively easy. Already treason was festering in the heart of the South, but Douglas, now the most powerful ally of these plotting traitors, was entirely devoted to the Union. He neither felt nor thought deeply on any question. The symptoms of coming revolution were merely disclosures of political strategy to him. The South held out the bait of the Presidency, and he led its battle. In his attachment to the Union and his subordination of both morals and statecraft to its preservation as the supreme end, he was a faithful echo of the great statesmen of the preceding age. But a generation of statesmen had appeared in the North with a large and growing following who were reluctantly reaching the conclusion that the primary rights of man were even more sacred than the Union. Political expediency was not their ultimate test of right.

Lincoln, though yet comparatively obscure, was destined soon to become the leader of this new school of ethical statesmen, as distinguished from the old school of political temporizers and opportunists to which Douglas belonged. Lincoln, as Douglas well knew, was a man of finer intellectual gifts than any of the great senatorial triumvirate whom he had successfully met. His moral feelings were tuned to as high a key as Sumner's. He had a firmer grasp of the central truths of the new politico-moral creed than Chase. He had more tact and sagacity than Seward. He had more patience with temporary error, more serene faith in the health and sanity of human nature than any of the three. He was a greater master of the art of popular oratory than any of them. Above all he had the power, dangerous to Douglas, of seizing the most ingenious and artfully concealed sophism and good naturedly dragging it to the light.

Endowed with the most exuberant flow of genial humor, he was yet sternly earnest in his belief in the inviolable sanct.i.ty of moral right. During his recent years he had read much and thought deeply.

He had mastered a style rarely equaled in clearness, simplicity and power. Without the prejudices and entanglements of a past political career, he entered the arena in the ripeness of his slow-maturing powers. Not only his temperament and intellect but his experience and training admirably fitted him for the high task which he was destined to perform.

When Douglas opened his speech at the State House, he unconsciously lent new importance to Lincoln by announcing that he understood that he was to answer him, and requesting him to come forward and arrange terms for the debate. But Lincoln was not present and he plunged into his argument, defending the Kansas-Nebraska bill, his own course and that of his party. Lincoln spoke the next day and among his most eager listeners was Douglas, who occupied a seat in front and was generously invited to reply. The speech, four hours long, was an agreeable surprise to Lincoln's friends, a startling revelation to Douglas and an astonishing event to the crowd, who recognized in the awkward country lawyer a dangerous antagonist for the great Senator, the incomparable master of the art of political debate. He realized that this obscure adversary had clutched him with a power never felt in his great struggles with the giants of the Senate. He indicated his sense of the importance of the contest by devoting two hours to a reply. The chief interest of this meeting now is in the new prominence which it gave to Lincoln.

The long duel lasted intermittently through four years, and finally gave Lincoln such fame that he was chose over Seward and Chase to lead the anti-slavery forces which they had roused from lethargy and organized into unity.

The Illinois campaign continued with great spirit and Douglas had the mortification of seeing what he regarded as a wave of fanaticism engulf the State. The anti-Nebraska fusion carried the legislature, defeated Shields and, after a brief contest between Trumball, the anti-Nebraska Democrat, and Lincoln, the anti-slavery Whig, elected the former Senator.

Chapter VIII. Decline of Popular Sovereignty.

Congress had confessed its incompetency to deal with the Kansas problem and referred it to the decision of rude squatters on the frontier. They dealt with this grave congressional question in characteristic fashion. An Emigrant Aid Society, organized in Ma.s.sachusetts, was among the means adopted by the North to colonize the Territory and mold its inst.i.tutions. The adventurous frontiersmen of western Missouri were chiefly relied on by the South to shape the new State. The Emigrant Society founded the town of Lawrence and established there a formidable anti-slavery colony. The Missouri squatters organized a "Self-Defensive a.s.sociation" and attempted to drive out the Northern settlers. Elections were held by the colonists from the North and their Missouri neighbors in which the Missourians outnumbered their rivals and captured the territorial government. The Northern colonists organized a State and attempted to run it. Irregular warfare was maintained between the Lawrence squatters and the invading Missourians to determine which faction was ent.i.tled to exercise the sovereignty delegated by Congress.

The House pa.s.sed a bill to admit Kansas with the Const.i.tution adopted at Topeka by the Northern settlers in their abortive effort to organize a State. It failed in the Senate and a few days later the Federal troops dispersed the usurping State legislature. The Governor seeing that all civil authority was ended, negotiate a truce between the warring factions, resigned and hastened away from the scene of the disastrous experiment of Squatter Sovereignty.

The meeting of Congress on December 3rd, 1855, marked another stage in the great struggle. So completely were the parties disorganized that it was found impossible to cla.s.sify this Congress. From December 3rd to February 2nd the House was unable even to organize itself. On December 31st the President sent in his message. He disposed of the overshadowing problem in a few brief words and devoted the message to ephemeral matters long since as completely forgotten as himself. Although civil war had been raging in Kansas for many months and the carnival of crime was still in progress on that frontier, he gravely a.s.sured Congress that it was a matter of congratulation that the Republic was tranquilly advancing in a career of prosperity and peace. He told them that the people of the Territory were clothed with the power of self-government and that he had not felt justified in interfering with their exercise of that right. But on January 24th he sent another message announcing in general terms the disappointment of his hopes and recommending an enabling act for the admission of Kansas as a State.

The Senate consisted of thirty-four Democrats, twelve Whigs and thirteen Republicans. Douglas was the recognized leader of the majority, without whose presence they were unwilling to take any decisive action. But he was detained by sickness and did not take his seat until February 11th.

On the 12th of March he presented to the Senate a most elaborate report from his Committee, together with a bill to authorize the people of Kansas to organize a State whenever they should number 93,420.

It is impossible to read this report, which was prepared by himself, without admiring his subtle art and consummate skill. He argued away the power of Congress to impose restrictions on new States applying for their admission, other than that the Const.i.tution be republican in form, and insisted that the people of the Territories must be left perfectly free to form their own inst.i.tutions and were ent.i.tled to admission as matter of right. He traced the trouble to the pernicious activity of the Emigrant Aid Company, which had attempted to force New England inst.i.tutions and customs upon the Territory. He accused this Company of systematic colonization and drew a moving picture of the march of these political colonists across Missouri, pouring out their denunciations of slavery, exhibiting their hostility to the inst.i.tutions of that State, until at last the people in alarm resolved on defense. He admitted that there might be some cause for regret over the occasional errors and excesses of the Missourians; but it must not be forgotten that they were defending their internal prosperity and domestic security against the invasion of New England fanatics, who were bringing in their grain "the horrors of servile insurrection and intestine war."

The attempt to organize a State government at Topeka he condemned as a seditious movement, designed to overthrow the territorial government and the authority of the United States. He justified the law referring the question of slavery to the inhabitants, and traced its failure to the intemperate pa.s.sions of those who had precipitated this mad contest for mastery.

Collamer of Vermont presented the minority report, condemning the violence of the friends of slavery, deploring the fearful results of the experiment of Squatter Sovereignty and urging speedy admission of the State. It condemned the provision of the law referring the question of slavery to the inhabitants and traced the entire trouble to that blunder.

Sumner at once denounced the report of the majority, intimated his purpose of properly setting the brand of falsehood upon it in a subsequent speech, and told them to "begin their game with loaded dice."

Douglas angrily challenged him to deny a single fact in the report and said he was ready to overwhelm him with proof. "We are ready to meet the issue," he said, "and there will be no dodging. We intend to meet it boldly; to require submission to the laws and to the const.i.tuted authorities; to reduce to subjection those who resist them, and to punish rebellion and treason. I am glad that a defiant spirit is exhibited here; we accept the issue."

Two days later Trumbull spoke in unsparing criticism of the report of the Committee. It happened that Douglas was absent when he began.

Word was carried to him and he hurried to the Senate. When Trumbull closed and the usual motion to adjourn was made, he protested against it and denounced the discourtesy of discussing the report during his absence. He was vexed especially by his colleague's exasperating statement that was a "life-long Democrat and was representing the Democracy of Illinois in the Senate." He a.s.sured them that Trumbull was without party standing in that state, and proposed that they sign a joint resignation, thus submitting their quarrel to the people. But there was a deeper wound than this which still rankled, and he turned from his colleague to pour out his wrath on Sumner for the publication of the "Appeal of the Independent Democrats," and the old quarrel between them was rehea.r.s.ed anew with increasing bitterness on both sides.

On the 20th he spoke for two hours and a half in defense of his report. Charges of fraud, violence or illegal voting, he said, were made in but seven of the eighteen election districts into which Kansas was divided, although ample provisions had been made for the presentation of protests to the Governor. A large majority of both branches of the legislature were elected by these eleven districts where no complaints were made. At least a quorum must have been legally elected. The minority report charged that on the day of the territorial election, "large bodies of armed men from the State of Missouri appeared at the polls in most of the districts, and by most violent and tumultuous carriage and demeanor, over-awed the defenseless inhabitants and by their own votes, elected a large majority of the members of both houses of said a.s.sembly."

But the report contained not a word about the eleven uncontested districts affected by this invasion. In the eleven uncontested districts the judges made their returns in due form and, no protests nor charges of fraud or illegal voting being presented, the Governor granted certificates of election as a matter of course.

The minority stated that in many districts protest had not been made because the inhabitants, discouraged and intimidated by the Missouri invaders, had let the matter pa.s.s. Yet at Lawrence and Leavenworth, the chief centers of the alleged Missouri violence the people were not intimidated from contesting the election, what reason was there to suppose that elsewhere, remote from the scene of trouble, they were so completely conquered that they dared not protest against their wrongs and pet.i.tion for redress of their grievances?

The thirty-three judges appointed by the Government to conduct the election in the eleven districts, all swore that the returns contained a true statement of the votes polled by the lawful voters.

The Governor, two weeks after giving certificates of election, issued his proclamation commanding the members to a.s.semble on the 2d of July. He recognized the legitimacy of the legislature in his message, invoking the Divine blessing on it and recommending the pa.s.sage of important laws. But he afterward quarreled with the legislature. He then sought to repudiate it and impeach its validity by charging that it had been elected by Missouri invaders.

The only evidence before the Committee tending to show irregularities in the election was the hearsay statement of the Governor, which flatly contradicted his solemn official declarations. The legislature itself had investigated the elections of all members against whom contests were filed and its legitimacy was finally and conclusively established. The malcontents having failed to capture the legislature, encouraged by Governor Reeder (who had meanwhile been relieved from office), inst.i.tuted their rebellious Topeka movement and, in defiance of the law, attempted to organize a State.

The movement was revolutionary and intended to subvert the existing Government. Only two laws enacted by the territorial legislature were complained of as unjust,--that relating to elections and that relating to slaves. The social, domestic and pecuniary relations of the people had adjusted themselves to this body of laws which Congress was asked to annul; and these friends of the negro who had organized a rebellious State government in his behalf, had adopted a Const.i.tution which forever excluded him from the State. The entire trouble in Kansas, he continued, rose not from any vice inherent in the law, but from abuses of the rights given by it to the people. The law simply permitted them to form their domestic inst.i.tutions in their own way. If that great principle had been permitted free operation, there would have been no violence or trouble in Kansas. The good order reigning in Nebraska, where the law was fairly tried, was sufficient proof of its wisdom.

The opponents of this great principle had insisted on moulding the State of Kansas from without. Having failed to induce Congress to interfere in the internal affairs of the Territory, they then sought to accomplish their purpose by means of a society organized in Washington and charted in Ma.s.sachusetts, with several millions of capital. They had deliberately attempted to discredit the Kansas-Nebraska bill and its supporters, in order to influence the approaching presidential election. The whole responsibility for the disturbance in Kansas rested upon the Ma.s.sachusetts Emigrant Aid Company and its affiliated societies. The people of Missouri never contemplated the invasion of conquest of the Territory. If they had imitated the example set by New England, they had done it on the principle of self-defense, and had always been ready to abandon their counter-movement as soon as the managers of the New England invasion ceased their efforts to shape the domestic inst.i.tutions of the Territory by an unwarranted scheme of foreign interference. When the cardinal principle of self-government should be recognized as binding on all, there would be an end of the slavery controversy, and the occupation of political agitators, whose hopes of position and promotion depended upon their capacity to disturb the country, would be gone.

The debate lingered along indecisively through the Spring weeks and the Senators poured out their mutual recriminations with increasing bitterness. Personal relations among them were seriously strained.

Both parties were conscious that their const.i.tuents shared their pa.s.sions and applauded their acrimony.

On the 19th and 20th of May, Sumner delivered his philippic on "The Crime Against Kansas." The t.i.tle of the speech was a gratuitous insult to the power which had held sway in American politics for fifty years and learned to enjoy that sense of superiority and sacredness which characterized the hierarchy in the middle ages.

The a.s.saults on brother Senators were brutal. Senator Butler of South Carolina, a polite, formal gentleman of the old school, was recognized as the social and intellectual head of the Southern aristocracy. Douglas, though forever excluded from its inner circles, was an efficient and useful ally.

These senatorial leaders of the slavery crusade in Kansas were the victims of Sumner's bitter invective. He referred to them as the Don Quixote and Sancho Panza of slavery and, as if to prove that this comparison was not a mere momentary inspiration of playful humor but the elaboration of malignant hate, he developed the parallel to its minute details. He described Douglas in his speech defending his report as "piling one ma.s.s of elaborate error on another ma.s.s and constraining himself to unfamiliar decencies of speech." But he drew hope from the reflection that the Illinois Senator "is but mortal man; against him is immortal principle.

With finite power he wrestles with the Infinite and he must fall.

Against him are stronger battalions than any marshaled by mortal arm, the inborn, ineradicable, invincible sentiments of the human heart; against him is Nature with all her subtle forces; against him is G.o.d. Let him try to subdue these." He compared the Kansas troubles to the barbarous warfare of the Scottish Highlands when blackmail was levied and robberies committed by marauders "acting under the inspiration of the Douglas of other days," and compared Douglas' recent speech to "the efforts of a distinguished logician to prove that Napoleon Bonaparte never existed."

Douglas answered with extreme bitterness. He declared that Sumner's speech had been got up like a Yankee bedquilt by sewing all the old sc.r.a.ps and patches together. He p.r.o.nounced his cla.s.sic quotations obscene and indecent.

"Is it his object," he asked, "to provoke some of us to kick him as we would a dog in the street? * * * * * The Senator from Ma.s.sachusetts," he declared, "had his speech written, printed, committed to memory, and practiced every night before the gla.s.s, with a negro boy to hold the candle and watch the gestures." He charged Sumner with perjury in taking the senatorial oath to his personal grievance and complained that he had been burned and hung in effigy under the advice of Sumner and his brother agitators because of his unswerving devotion to the Const.i.tution.

"I wish," he said, "the Senate to bear in mind that in the many controversies in which I have been engaged since I have been a member of this body, I never had one in which I was not first a.s.sailed. I have always stood on the defensive. You arrange it on the opposite side of the house to set your hounds after me and then complain when I cuff them over the head and send them back yelping. I never made an attack on any Senator; I have only repelled attacks." He warned Sumner that Butler, who was absent during the speech, would return to speak and act for himself.

Sumner briefly replied, defending himself against the charge of disloyalty to the Const.i.tution in his unwillingness to support its fugitive slave clause, by quoting Jackson's famous dictum that each man swears to support the Const.i.tution as he understands it.

He then turned on Douglas with bitter scorn. He rebuked him for his coa.r.s.e personalities unbecoming a Senator and a gentleman.

"Let him remember," he said, "that the bowie-knife and bludgeon are not the proper emblems of senatorial debate. Let him remember that the swagger of Bob Acres and the ferocity of the Malay cannot add dignity to this body. * * * * I will not go into the details which have flowed out so naturally from his tongue. I only brand them to his face as false. I say also to that Senator, and I wish him to bear it in mind, that no person with the upright form of man can be allowed--" He hesitated in doubt whether to proceed.

"Say it," exclaimed Douglas.

"I will say it," replied Sumner. "No person with the upright form of man can be allowed, without violation of all decency, to switch out from his tongue the perpetual stench of offensive personality.

Sir, that is not a proper weapon of debate, at least on this floor.

The noisome, squat and nameless animal to which I now refer is not a proper model for an American Senator. Will the Senator from Illinois take notice?"

"I will," answered Douglas, "and therefore will not imitate you in that capacity, recognizing the force of the ill.u.s.tration."

"Again," replied Sumner, "the Senator has switched his tongue and again he fills the Senate with its offensive odor."