Stephen A. Douglas by Allen Johnson

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As the northern prairies became accessible by the lake route and the
stage roads, New England and New York poured a steady stream of
homeseekers into the Commonwealth. By the middle of the century, this
Northern immigration had begun to inundate the northern counties and
to overflow into the interior, where it met and mingled with the
counter-current. These Yankee settlers were viewed with hostility, not
unmixed with contempt, by those whose culture and standards of taste
had been formed south of Mason and Dixon's line.[305]

This sectional antagonism was strengthened by the rapid commercial
advance of northern Illinois. Yankee enterprise and thrift worked
wonders in a decade. Governor Ford, all of whose earlier associations
were with the people of southern Illinois, writing about the middle of
the century, admits that although the settlers in the southern part of
the State were twenty, thirty, forty, and fifty years in advance, on
the score of age, they were ten years behind in point of wealth and
all the appliances of a higher civilization.[306] The completion of
the canal between Lake Michigan and the Illinois River, however much
it might contribute to the general welfare of the State, seemed likely
to profit the northern rather than the southern portion. It had been
opposed at the outset by Southerners, who argued soberly that it would
flood the State with Yankees;[307] and at every stage in its progress
it had encountered Southern obstruction, though the grounds for this
opposition were more wisely chosen.

Political ideals and customs were also a divisive force in Illinois
society. True to their earlier political training, the Southern
settlers had established the county as a unit of local government. The
Constitution of 1818 put the control of local concerns in the hands of
three county commissioners, who, though elected by the people, were
not subjected to that scrutiny which selectmen encountered in the New
England town meeting. To the democratic New Englander, every system
seemed defective which gave him no opportunity to discuss neighborhood
interests publicly, and to call local officers to account before an
assembly of the vicinage. The new comers in northern Illinois became
profoundly dissatisfied with the autocratic board of county
commissioners. Since the township might act as a corporate body for
school purposes, why might they not enjoy the full measure of township
government? Their demands grew more and more insistent, until they won
substantial concessions from the convention which framed the
Constitution of 1848. But all this agitation involved a more or less
direct criticism of the system which the people of southern Illinois
thought good enough for Yankees, if it were good enough for
themselves.[308]

In the early history of Illinois, negro slavery was a bone of
contention between men of Northern and of Southern antecedents. When
Illinois was admitted as a State, there were over seven hundred
negroes held in servitude. In spite of the Ordinance of 1787, Illinois
was practically a slave Territory. There were, to be sure, stalwart
opponents of slavery even among those who had come from slave-holding
communities; but taken in the large, public opinion in the Territory
sanctioned negro slavery as it existed under a loose system of
indenture.[309] Even the Constitution of 1818, under which Illinois
came into the Union as a free State, continued the old system of
indenture with slight modification.[310]

It was in the famous contest over the proposed constitutional
convention of 1824 that the influence of Northern opinion respecting
slavery was first felt. The contest had narrowed down to a struggle
between those who desired a convention in order to draft a
constitution legalizing slavery and those who, from policy or
principle, were opposed to slavery in Illinois. Men of Southern birth
were, it is true, among the most aggressive leaders of the
anti-convention forces, but the decisive votes against the convention
were cast in the seven counties recently organized, in which there was
a strong Northern element.[311]

This contest ended, the anti-slavery sentiment evaporated. The "Black
Laws" continued in force. Little or no interest was manifested in the
fate of indentured black servants, who were to all intents and
purposes as much slaves as their southern kindred. The leaven of
Abolitionism worked slowly in Illinois society. By an almost unanimous
vote, the General Assembly adopted joint resolutions in 1837 which
condemned Abolitionism as "more productive of evil than of moral and
political good." There were then not a half-dozen anti-slavery
societies in the State, and these soon learned to confine their labors
to central and northern Illinois, abandoning Egypt as hopelessly
inaccessible to the light.[312]

The issues raised by the Mexican War and the prospective acquisition
of new territory, materially changed the temper of northern Illinois.
Moreover, in the later forties a tide of immigration from the
northeastern States, augmented by Germans who came in increasing
numbers after the European agitation of 1848, was filling the
northernmost counties with men and women who held positive convictions
on the question of slavery extension. These transplanted New
Englanders were outspoken advocates of the Wilmot Proviso. When they
were asked to vote upon that article of the Constitution of 1848 which
proposed to prevent the immigration of free negroes, the fourteen
northern counties voted no, only to find themselves outvoted two to
one.[313] A new factor had appeared in Illinois politics.

Many and diverse circumstances contributed to the growth of
sectionalism in Illinois. The disruptive forces, however, may be
easily overestimated. The unifying forces in Illinois society were
just as varied, and in the long run more potent. As in the nation at
large so in Illinois, religious, educational, and social organizations
did much to resist the strain of countervailing forces. But no
organization proved in the end so enduring and effective as the
political party. Illinois had by 1840 two well-developed party
organizations, which enveloped the people of the State, as on a large
scale they embraced the nation. These parties came to have an
enduring, institutional character. Men were born Democrats and Whigs.
Southern and Northern Whigs, Northern and Southern Democrats there
were, of course; but the necessity of harmony for effective action
tended to subordinate individual and group interests to the larger
good of the whole. Parties continued to be organized on national
lines, after the churches had been rent in twain by sectional forces.
Of the two party organizations in Illinois, the Democratic party was
numerically the larger, and in point of discipline, the more
efficient. It was older; it had been the first to adopt the system of
State and district nominating conventions; it had the advantage of
prestige and of the possession of office. The Democratic party could
"point with pride" to an unbroken series of victories in State and
presidential elections. By successful gerrymanders it had secured the
lion's share of congressional districts. Above all it had intelligent
leadership. The retirement of Senator Breese left Stephen A. Douglas
the undisputed leader of the party.

The dual party system in Illinois, as well as in the nation, was
seriously threatened by the appearance of a third political
organization with hostility to slavery as its cohesive force. The
Liberty party polled its first vote in Illinois in the campaign of
1840, when its candidate for the presidency received 160 votes.[314]
Four years later its total vote in Illinois was 3,469, a notable
increase.[315] The distribution of these votes, however, is more
noteworthy than their number, for in no county did the vote amount to
more than thirty per cent of the total poll of all parties. The
heaviest Liberty vote was in the northern counties. The votes cast in
the central and southern parts of the State were indicative, for the
most part, of a Quaker or New England element in the population.[316]
As yet the older parties had no reason to fear for their prestige; but
in 1848 the Liberty party gave place to the Free-Soil party, which
developed unexpected strength in the presidential vote. It rallied
anti-slavery elements by its cry of "Free Soil, Free Speech, Free
Labor, and Free Men!" and for the first time broke the serried ranks
of the older parties. Van Buren, the candidate of the Free-Soilers,
received a vote of 15,774, concentrated in the northeastern counties,
but reaching formidable proportions in the counties of the northwest
and west.[317] Of the older organizations, the Whig party seemed less
affected, Taylor having received 53,047 votes, an increase of 7,519
over the Whig vote of 1844. The Democratic candidate, Cass, received
only 56,300, an absolute decrease of 1,620. This was both an absolute
and a relative decline, for the total voting population had increased
by 24,459. Presumptive evidence points to a wholesale desertion of the
party by men of strong anti-slavery convictions. Whither they had
gone--whether into the ranks of Whigs or Free-Soilers,--concerned
Democratic leaders less than the palpable fact that they had gone
somewhere.

At the close of this eventful year, the political situation in
Illinois was without precedent. To offset Democratic losses in the
presidential election, there were, to be sure, the usual Democratic
triumphs in State and district elections. But the composition of the
legislature was peculiar. On the vote for Speaker of the House, the
Democrats showed a handsome majority: there was no sign of a third
party vote. A few days later the following resolution was carried by a
vote which threw the Democratic ranks into confusion: "That our
senators in Congress be instructed, and our representatives requested,
to use all honorable means in their power, to procure the enactment of
such laws by Congress for the government of the countries and
territories of the United States, acquired by the treaty of peace,
friendship, limits, and settlement, with the republic of Mexico,
concluded February 2, A.D. 1848; as shall contain the express
declaration, that there shall be neither slavery, nor involuntary
servitude in said territories, otherwise than for the punishment of
crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."[318]

At least fifteen representatives of what had hitherto been Democratic
constituencies, had combined with the Whigs to embarrass the
Democratic delegation at Washington.[319] Their expectation seems to
have been that they could thus force Senator Douglas to resign his
seat, for he had been an uncompromising opponent of the Wilmot
Proviso. Free-Soilers, Whigs, and Northern Democrats with anti-slavery
leanings had voted for the instructions; only the Democrats from the
southern counties voted solidly to sustain the Illinois delegation in
its opposition to the Proviso.[320] While not a strict sectional vote,
it showed plainly enough the rift in the Democratic party. A
disruptive issue had been raised. For the moment a re-alignment of
parties on geographical lines seemed imminent. This was precisely the
trend in national politics at this moment.

There was a traditional remedy for this sectional malady--compromise.
It was an Illinois senator, himself a slave-owner, who had proposed
the original Missouri proviso. Senator Douglas had repeatedly proposed
to extend the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific, in the same
spirit in which compromise had been offered in 1820, but the essential
conditions for a compromise on this basis were now wanting.

It was precisely at this time, when the Illinois legislature was
instructing him to reverse his attitude toward the Wilmot Proviso,
that Senator Douglas began to change his policy. Believing that the
combination against him in the legislature was largely accidental and
momentary, he refused to resign.[321] Events amply justified his
course; but the crisis was not without its lessons for him. The
futility of a compromise based on an extension of the Missouri
Compromise line was now apparent. Opposition to the extension of
slavery was too strong; and belief in the free status of the acquired
territory too firmly rooted in the minds of his constituents. There
remained the possibility of reintegrating the Democratic party through
the application of the principle of "squatter sovereignty," Was it
possible to offset the anti-slavery sentiment of his Northern
constituents by an insistent appeal to their belief in local
self-government?

The taproot from which squatter sovereignty grew and flourished, was
the instinctive attachment of the Western American to local
government; or to put the matter conversely, his dislike of external
authority. So far back as the era of the Revolution, intense
individualism, bold initiative, strong dislike of authority, elemental
jealousy of the fruits of labor, and passionate attachment to the soil
that has been cleared for a home, are qualities found in varying
intensity among the colonists from New Hampshire to Georgia. Nowhere,
however, were they so marked as along the Western border, where
centrifugal forces were particularly strong and local attachments were
abnormally developed. Under stress of real or fancied wrongs, it was
natural for settlers in these frontier regions to meet for joint
protest, or if the occasion were grave enough, to enter into political
association, to resist encroachment upon what they felt to be their
natural rights. Whenever they felt called upon to justify their
course, they did so in language that repeated, consciously or
unconsciously, the theory of the social contract, with which the
political thought of the age was surcharged. In these frontier
communities was born the political habit that manifested itself on
successive frontiers of American advance across the continent, and
that finally in the course of the slavery controversy found apt
expression in the doctrine of squatter sovereignty.[322]

None of the Territories carved out of the original Northwest had shown
greater eagerness for separate government than Illinois. The isolation
of the original settlements grouped along the Mississippi, their
remoteness from the seat of territorial government on the Wabash, and
the consequent difficulty of obtaining legal protection and efficient
government, predisposed the people of Illinois to demand a territorial
government of their own, long before Congress listened to their
memorials. Bitter controversy and even bloodshed attended their
efforts.[323]

A generation later a similar contest occurred for the separation of
the fourteen northern counties from the State. When Congress changed
the northern boundary of Illinois, it had deviated from the express
provisions of the Ordinance of 1787, which had drawn the line through
the southern bend of Lake Michigan. This departure from the Magna
Charta of the Northwest furnished the would-be secessionists with a
pretext. But an editorial in the _Northwestern Gazette and Galena
Advertiser_, January 20, 1842, naively disclosed their real motive.
Illinois was overwhelmed with debt, while Wisconsin was "young,
vigorous, and free from debt." "Look at the district as it is now,"
wrote the editor fervidly, "the _fag end_ of the State of
Illinois--its interest wholly disregarded in State legislation--in
short, treated as a mere _province_--taxed; laid under tribute in the
form of taxation for the benefit of the South and Middle." The right
of the people to determine by vote whether the counties should be
annexed to Illinois, was accepted without question. A meeting of
citizens in Jo Daviess County resolved, that "until the Ordinance of
1787 was altered by common consent, the free inhabitants of the region
had, in common with the free inhabitants of the Territory of
Wisconsin, an absolute, vested, indefeasible right to form a permanent
constitution and State government."[324] This was the burden of many
memorials of similar origin.

The desire of the people of Illinois to control local interests
extended most naturally to the soil which nourished them. That the
Federal Government should without their consent dispose of lands which
they had brought under cultivation, seemed to verge on tyranny. It
mattered not that the settler had taken up lands to which he had no
title in law. The wilderness belonged to him who subdued it.
Therefore land leagues and claim associations figure largely in the
history of the Northwest. Their object was everywhere the same, to
protect the squatter against the chance bidder at a public land sale.

The concessions made by the constitutional convention of 1847, in the
matter of local government, gave great satisfaction to the Northern
element in the State. The new constitution authorized the legislature
to pass a general law, in accordance with which counties might
organize by popular vote under a township system. This mode of
settling a bitter and protracted controversy was thoroughly in accord
with the democratic spirit of northern Illinois. The newspapers of the
northern counties welcomed the inauguration of the township system as
a formal recognition of a familiar principle. Said the _Will County
Telegraph_:[325] "The great principle on which the new system is based
is this: that except as to those things which pertain to State unity
and those which are in their nature common to the whole county, it is
right that each small community should regulate its own local matters
without interference." It was this sentiment to which popular
sovereignty made a cogent appeal.

No man was more sensitive than Senator Douglas to these subtle
influences of popular tradition, custom, and current sentiment. Under
the cumulative impression of the events which have been recorded, his
confidence in popular sovereignty as an integrating force in national
and local politics increased, and his public utterances became more
assured and positive.[326] By the close of the year 1850, he had the
satisfaction of seeing the collapse of the Free-Soil party in
Illinois, and of knowing that the joint resolutions had been repealed
which had so nearly accomplished his overthrow. A political storm had
been weathered. Yet the diverse currents in Illinois society might
again roil local politics. So long as a bitter commercial rivalry
divided northern and southern Illinois, and social differences held
the sections apart, misunderstandings dangerous to party and State
alike would inevitably follow. How could these diverse elements be
fused into a true and enduring union? To this task Douglas set his
hand. The ways and means which he employed, form one of the most
striking episodes in his career.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 294: Reid was afterward Governor of North Carolina and
United States Senator.]

[Footnote 295: For many of the facts relating to Douglas's courtship
and marriage, I am indebted to his son, Judge Robert Martin Douglas,
of North Carolina.]

[Footnote 296: At the death of Colonel Martin, this plantation was
worked by some seventeen slaves, according to his will.]

[Footnote 297: This impression is fully confirmed by the terms of his
will.]

[Footnote 298: He was himself fully conscious of this influence. See
his speech at Raleigh, August 30, 1860.]

[Footnote 299: The facts are so stated in Colonel Martin's will, for a
transcript of which I am indebted to Judge R.M. Douglas.]

[Footnote 300: Extract from the will of Colonel Martin.]

[Footnote 301: This letter, dated August 3, 1850, is in the possession
of Mrs. James W. Patton of Springfield, Illinois.]

[Footnote 302: The characteristics of Illinois as a constituency in
1850 are set forth in greater detail, in an article by the writer in
the _Iowa Journal of History and Politics_, July, 1905.]

[Footnote 303: See Patterson, Early Society in Southern Illinois in
the Fergus Historical Series, No. 14. Also Ford, History of Illinois,
pp. 38, 279-280; and Greene, Sectional forces in the History of
Illinois--in the Publications of Illinois Historical Library, 1903.]

[Footnote 304: Between 1818 and 1840, fifty-seven new counties were
organized, of which fourteen lay in the region given to Illinois by
the shifting of the northern boundary. See Publications of the
Illinois Historical Library, No. 8, pp. 79-80.]

[Footnote 305: Ford, History of Illinois, pp. 280-281.]

[Footnote 306: _Ibid._, p. 280.]

[Footnote 307: See Davidson and Stuve, History of Illinois, Chapter on
"State Policy."]

[Footnote 308: Shaw, Local Government in Illinois, in the Johns
Hopkins University Studies, Vol. I; Newell, Township Government in
Illinois.]

[Footnote 309: Harris, Negro Servitude in Illinois, Chapter II.]

[Footnote 310: _Ibid._, Chapter III. See Article VI of the
Constitution.]

[Footnote 311: _Ibid._, Chapter IV. See also Moses, History of
Illinois, Vol. I, p. 324.]

[Footnote 312: Harris, Negro Servitude, pp. 125, 136-357]

[Footnote 313: Journal of the Constitutional Convention of 1847, pp.
453-456.]

[Footnote 314: _Whig Almanac_, 1841.]

[Footnote 315: _Ibid._, 1845.]

[Footnote 316: Smith, Liberty and Free Soil Parties, pp. 326-327.]

[Footnote 317: Smith, Liberty and Free Soil Parties, pp. 328-329.]

[Footnote 318: House Journal, p. 52.]

[Footnote 319: All these fifteen voted for the Democratic candidate
for Speaker of the House.]

[Footnote 320: House Journal, p. 52; Senate Journal, p. 44. See also
Harris, Negro Servitude in Illinois, p. 177.]

[Footnote 321: See Speech in Senate, December 23, 1851.]

[Footnote 322: See the writer's article on "The Genesis of Popular
Sovereignty" in the _Iowa Journal of History and Politics_ for
January, 1905.]

[Footnote 323: Davidson and Stuve, History of Illinois, pp. 241-242.]

[Footnote 324: _Northwestern Gazette_, March 19, 1842.]

[Footnote 325: September 27, 1849.]

[Footnote 326: Compare his utterances on the following dates: January
10, 1849; January 22, 1849; October 23, 1849 at Springfield, Illinois;
February 12, 1850; June 3, 1850.]

CHAPTER IX

MEASURES OF ADJUSTMENT

When Congress assembled in December, 1849, statesmen of the old
school, who could agree in nothing else, were of one mind in this: the
Union was in peril. In the impressive words of Webster, "the
imprisoned winds were let loose. The East, the North, and the stormy
South combined to throw the whole sea into commotion, to toss its
billows to the skies, and disclose its profoundest depths." Clay and
Calhoun were equally apprehensive. Yet there were younger men who
shared none of these fears. To be sure, the political atmosphere of
Washington was electric. The House spent weeks wrangling over the
Speakership, so that when the serious work of legislation began, men
were overwrought and excitable. California with a free constitution
was knocking at the door of the Union. President Taylor gave Congress
to understand that at no distant day the people of New Mexico would
take similar action. And then, as though he were addressing a body of
immortals, he urged Congress to await calmly the action of the people
of the Territories.

Douglas was among those unimpressionable younger men who would not
believe the Union to be in danger. Perhaps by his Southern connections
he knew better than most Northern men, the real temper of the South.
Perhaps he did not give way to the prevailing hysteria, because he was
diverted from the great issues by the pressing, particular interests
of his constituents. At all events, he had this advantage over Clay,
Webster, and Calhoun, that when he did turn his attention to schemes
of compromise, his vision was fresh, keen, and direct. He escaped that
subtle distortion of mental perception from which others were likely
to suffer because of long-sustained attention. To such, Douglas must
have seemed unemotional, unsensitive, and lacking in spiritual
fineness.

Illinois with its North and its South was also facing a crisis. To the
social and political differences that bisected the State, was added a
keen commercial rivalry between the sections. While the State
legislature under northern control was appropriating funds for the
Illinois and Michigan canal, it exhibited far less liberality in
building railroads, which alone could be the arteries of traffic in
southern Illinois. At a time when railroads were extending their lines
westward from the Atlantic seaboard, and reaching out covetously for
the produce of the Mississippi Valley, Illinois held geographically a
commanding position. No roads could reach the great river, north of
the Ohio at least, without crossing her borders. The avenues of
approach were given into her keeping. To those who directed State
policy, it seemed possible to determine the commercial destinies of
the Commonwealth by controlling the farther course of the railroads
which now touched the eastern boundary. Well-directed effort, it was
thought, might utilize these railroads so as to build up great
commercial cities on the eastern shore of the Mississippi. State
policy required that none of these cross-roads should in any event
touch St. Louis, and thus make it, rather than the Illinois towns now
struggling toward commercial greatness, the entrepot between East and
West. With its unrivalled site at the mouth of the Missouri, Alton was
as likely a competitor for the East and West traffic, and for the
Mississippi commerce, as St. Louis. Alton, then, must be made the
terminus of the cross-roads.[327]

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