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Stephen A. Douglas by Allen Johnson

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Such was the situation in Kansas, when Douglas reached Washington in
February, after a protracted illness.[548] The President had already
discussed the Kansas imbroglio in a special message; but the
Democratic majority in the Senate showed some reluctance to follow the
lead of the administration. From the Democrats in the House not much
could be expected, because of the strength of the Republicans. The
party awaited its leader. Upon his appearance, all matters relating to
Kansas were referred to the Committee on Territories. The situation
called for unusual qualities of leadership. How would the author of
the Kansas-Nebraska Act face the palpable breakdown of his policy?

With his customary dispatch, Douglas reported on the 12th of
March.[549] The majority report consumed two hours in the reading;
Senator Collamer stated the position of the minority in half the
time.[550] Evidently the chairman was aware where the burden of proof
lay. Douglas took substantially the same ground as that taken by the
President in his special message, but he discussed the issues boldly
in his own vigorous way. No one doubted that he had reached his
conclusions independently.

The report began with a constitutional argument in defense of the
Kansas-Nebraska Act. As a contribution to the development of the
doctrine of popular sovereignty, the opening paragraphs deserve more
than passing notice. The distinct advance in Douglas's thought
consisted in this: that he explicitly refused to derive the power to
organize Territories from that provision of the Constitution which
gave Congress "power to dispose of and make all needful rules and
regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to
the United States." The word "territory" here was used in its
geographical sense to designate the public domain, not to indicate a
political community. Rather was the power to be derived from the
authority of Congress to adopt necessary and proper means to admit new
States into the Union. But beyond the necessary and proper
organization of a territorial government with reference to ultimate
statehood, Congress might not go. Clearly, then, Congress might not
impose conditions and restrictions upon a Territory which would
prevent its entering the Union on an equality with the other States.
From the formation of the Union, each State had been left free to
decide the question of slavery for itself. Congress, therefore, might
not decide the question for prospective States. Recognizing this, the
framers of the Kansas-Nebraska Act had relegated the discussion of the
slavery question to the people, who were to form a territorial
government under cover of the organic act.[551]

This was an ingenious argument. It was in accord with the utterances
of some of the weightiest intellects in our constitutional history.
But it was not in accord with precedent. There was hardly a
territorial act that had emerged from Douglas's committee room, which
had not imposed restrictions not binding on the older Commonwealths.

Having given thus a constitutional sanction to the principle of the
Kansas-Nebraska Act, the report unhesitatingly denounced that "vast
moneyed corporation," created for the purpose of controlling the
domestic institutions of a distinct political community fifteen
hundred miles away.[552] This was as flagrant an act of intervention
as though France or England had interfered for a similar purpose in
Cuba, for "in respect to everything which affects its domestic policy
and internal concerns, each State stands in the relation of a foreign
power to every other State." The obvious retort to this extraordinary
assertion was, that Kansas was only a Territory, and not a State.
Douglas then made this "mammoth moneyed corporation" the scapegoat for
all that had happened in Kansas. The Missouri Blue Lodges were
defensive organizations, called into existence by the fear that the
"abolitionizing" of Kansas was the prelude to a warfare upon slavery
in Missouri. The violence and bloodshed in Kansas were "the natural
and inevitable consequences of such extraordinary systems of
emigration."[553]

Such _ex post facto_ assertions did not mend matters in Kansas,
however much they may have relieved the author of the report. It
remained to deal with the existing situation. The report took the
ground that the legislature of Kansas was a legal body and had been so
recognized by Governor Reeder. Neither the alleged irregularity of the
elections, nor other objections, could diminish its legislative
authority. Pro-tests against the election returns had been filed in
only seven out of eighteen districts. Ten out of thirteen councilmen,
and seventeen out of twenty-six representatives, held their seats by
virtue of the governor's certificate. Even if it were assumed that the
second elections in the seven districts were wrongly invalidated by
the legislature, its action was still the action of a lawful
legislature, possessing in either house a quorum of duly certificated
members. This was a lawyer's plea. Technically it was unanswerable.

Having taken this position, Douglas very properly refused to pass
judgment on the laws of the legislature. By the very terms of the
Kansas-Nebraska Act, Congress had confided the power to enact local
laws to the people of the Territories. If the validity of these laws
should be doubted, it was for the courts of justice and not for
Congress to decide the question.[554]

Throughout the report, the question was not once raised, whether the
legislature really reflected the sentiment of a majority of the
settlers of Kansas. Douglas assumed that it was truly representative.
This attitude is not surprising, when one recalls his predilections
and the conflict of evidence on essential points in the controversy.
Nevertheless, this attitude was unfortunate, for it made him unfair
toward the free-State settlers, with whom by temper and training he
had far more in common than with the Missouri emigrants. Could he have
cut himself loose from his bias, he would have recognized the
free-State men as the really trustworthy builders of a Commonwealth.
But having taken his stand on the legality of the territorial
legislature, he persisted in regarding the free-State movement as a
seditious combination to subvert the territorial government
established by Congress. To the free-State men he would not accord any
inherent, sovereign right to annul the laws and resist the authority
of the territorial government.[555] The right of self-government was
derived only from the Constitution through the organic act passed by
Congress. And then he used that expression which was used with telling
effect against the theory of popular sovereignty: "The sovereignty of
a Territory remains in abeyance, suspended in the United States, in
trust for the people, until they shall be admitted into the Union as a
State."[556] If this was true, then popular sovereignty after all
meant nothing more than local self-government, the measure of which
was to be determined by Congress. If Congress left slavery to local
determination, it was only for expediency's sake, and not by reason of
any constitutional obligation.

Douglas found a vindication of his Kansas-Nebraska Act in the peaceful
history of Nebraska, "to which the emigrant aid societies did not
extend their operations, and into which the stream of emigration was
permitted to flow in its usual and natural channels."[557] He fixed
the ultimate responsibility for the disorders in Kansas upon those who
opposed the principle of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and who, "failing to
accomplish their purpose in the halls of Congress, and under the
authority of the Constitution, immediately resorted in their
respective States to unusual and extraordinary means to control the
political destinies and shape the domestic institutions of Kansas, in
defiance of the wishes and regardless of the rights of the people of
that Territory as guaranteed by their organic law."[558]

A practical recommendation accompanied the report. It was proposed to
authorize the territorial legislature to provide for a constitutional
convention to frame a State constitution, as soon as a census should
indicate that there were ninety-three thousand four hundred and twenty
inhabitants.[559] This bill was in substantial accord with the
President's recommendations.

The minority report was equally positive as to the cause of the
trouble in Kansas and the proper remedy. "Repeal the act of 1854,
organize Kansas anew as a free Territory and all will be put right."
But if Congress was bent on continuing the experiment, then the
Territory must be reorganized with proper safeguards against illegal
voting. The only alternative was to admit the Territory as a State
with its free constitution.

The issue could not have been more sharply drawn. Popular sovereignty
as applied in the Kansas-Nebraska Act was put upon the defensive.
Republican senators made haste to press their advantage. Sumner
declared that the true issue was smothered in the majority report, but
stood forth as a pillar of fire in the report of the minority.
Trumbull forced the attack, while Douglas was absent, without waiting
for the printing of the reports. It needed only this apparent
discourtesy to bring Douglas into the arena. An unseemly wrangle
between the Illinois senators followed, in the course of which Douglas
challenged his colleague to resign and stand with him for re-election
before the next session of the legislature.[560] Trumbull wisely
declined to accept the risk.

On the 20th of March, Douglas addressed the Senate in reply to
Trumbull.[561] Nothing that he said shed any new light on the
controversy. He had not changed his angle of vision. He had only the
old arguments with which to combat the assertion that "Kansas had been
conquered and a legislature imposed by violence." But the speech
differed from the report, just as living speech must differ from the
printed page. Every assertion was pointed by his vigorous intonations;
every argument was accentuated by his forceful personality. The report
was a lawyer's brief; the speech was the flexible utterance of an
accomplished debater, bent upon a personal as well as an argumentative
victory.

Even hostile critics were forced to yield to a certain admiration for
"the Little Giant." The author of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ watched him from
her seat in the Senate gallery, with intense interest; and though
writing for readers, who like herself hated the man for his supposed
servility to the South, she said with unwonted objectivity, "This
Douglas is the very ideal of vitality. Short, broad, and thick-set,
every inch of him has its own alertness and motion. He has a good head
and face, thick black hair, heavy black brows and a keen eye. His
figure would be an unfortunate one were it not for the animation which
constantly pervades it; as it is, it rather gives poignancy to his
peculiar appearance; he has a small, handsome hand, moreover, and a
graceful as well as forcible mode of using it.... He has two
requisites of a debater--a melodious voice and a clear, sharply
defined enunciation.... His forte in debating is his power of
mystifying the point. With the most off-hand assured airs in the
world, and a certain appearance of honest superiority, like one who
has a regard for you and wishes to set you right on one or two little
matters, he proceeds to set up some point which is _not_ that in
question, but only a family connection of it, and this point he
attacks with the very best of logic and language; he charges upon it
horse and foot, runs it down, tramples it in the dust, and then turns
upon you with--'Sir, there is your argument! Did not I tell you so?
You see it is all stuff;' and if you have allowed yourself to be so
dazzled by his quickness as to forget that the routed point is not,
after all, the one in question, you suppose all is over with it.
Moreover, he contrives to mingle up so many stinging allusions to so
many piquant personalities that by the time he has done his
mystification a dozen others are ready and burning to spring on their
feet to repel some direct or indirect attack, all equally wide of the
point."[562]

Douglas paid dearly for some of these personal shots. He had never
forgiven Sumner for his share in "the Appeal of the Independent
Democrats." He lost no opportunity to attribute unworthy motives to
this man, whose radical views on slavery he never could comprehend.
More than once he insinuated that the Senator from Massachusetts and
other Black Republicans were fabricating testimony relating to Kansas
for political purposes. When Sumner, many weeks later, rose to address
the Senate on "the Crime against Kansas," he labored under the double
weight of personal wrongs and the wrongs of a people. The veteran Cass
pronounced his speech "the most un-American and unpatriotic that ever
grated on the ears of the members of this high body."[563] Even
Sumner's friends listened to him with surprise and regret. Of Douglas
he had this to say:

"As the Senator from South Carolina is the Don Quixote, the Senator
from Illinois is the squire of slavery, its very Sancho Panza, ready
to do all its humiliating offices. This Senator in his labored
address, vindicating his labored report--piling one mass of elaborate
error upon another mass--constrained himself, as you will remember, to
unfamiliar decencies of speech.... I will not stop to repel the
imputations which he cast upon myself.... Standing on this floor, the
Senator issued his rescript, requiring submission to the Usurped Power
of Kansas; and this was accompanied by a manner--all his own--such as
befits the tyrannical threat.... He is bold. He shrinks from nothing.
Like Danton, he may cry, _'l'audace! l'audace! tonjours l'audace!'_
but even his audacity cannot compass this work. The Senator copies the
British officer, who, with boastful swagger, said that with the hilt
of his sword he would cram the 'stamps' down the throats of the
American people, and he will meet a similar failure."[564]

The retort of Douglas was not calculated to turn away wrath. He called
attention to the fact that these gross insults were not uttered in the
heat of indignation, but "conned over, written with cool, deliberate
malignity, repeated from night to night in order to catch the
appropriate grace." He ridiculed the excessive self-esteem of Sumner
in words that moved the Senate to laughter; and then completed his
vindictive assault by charging Sumner with perfidy. Had he not sworn
to obey the Constitution, and then, forsooth, refused to support the
enforcement of the Fugitive Slave law?[565]

Sumner replied in a passion, "Let the Senator remember hereafter 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.... No person
with the upright form of a 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 refer, is not a proper model for an American Senator. Will the
Senator from Illinois take notice?" And upon Douglas's unworthy
retort that he certainly would not imitate the Senator in that
capacity, Stunner said insultingly, "Mr. President, again the Senator
has switched his tongue, and again he fills the Senate with its
offensive odor."[566]

Two days later Brooks made his assault on Sumner in the Senate
chamber. Sumner's recollection was, that on recovering consciousness,
he recognized among those about him, but offering no assistance,
Senators Douglas and Toombs, and between them, his assailant.[567] It
was easy for ill-disposed persons to draw unfortunate inferences from
this sick-bed testimony. Douglas felt that an explanation was expected
from him. In a frank, explicit statement he told his colleagues that
he was in the reception room of the Senate when the assault occurred.
Hearing what was happening, he rose immediately to his feet to enter
the chamber and put an end to the affray. But, on second thought, he
realized that his motives would be misconstrued if he entered the
hall. When the affair was over, he went in with the crowd. He was not
near Brooks at any time, and he was not with Senator Toombs, except
perhaps as he passed him on leaving the chamber. He did not know that
any attack upon Mr. Sumner was purposed "then or at any other time,
here or at any other place."[568] Still, it is to be regretted that
Douglas did not act on his first, manly instincts and do all that lay
in his power to end this brutal assault, regardless of possible
misconstructions.

Disgraceful as these scenes in Congress were, they were less ominous
than events which were passing in Kansas. Clashes between pro-slavery
and free-State settlers had all but resulted in civil war in the
preceding fall. An unusually severe winter had followed, which not
only cooled the passions of all for a while, but convinced many a
slave-holder of the futility of introducing African slaves into a
climate, where on occasion the mercury would freeze in the
thermometer. In the spring hostilities were resumed. Under cover of
executing certain writs in Lawrence, Sheriff Jones and a posse of
ruffians took revenge upon that stronghold of the Emigrant Aid
Society, by destroying the newspaper offices, burning some public
buildings, and pillaging the town. Three days after the sack of
Lawrence, and just two days after the assault upon Sumner in the
Senate, John Brown and his sons executed the decree of Almighty God,
by slaying in cold blood five pro-slavery settlers on the
Pottawatomie. Civil war had begun in Kansas.[569]

If remedial measures for Kansas were needed at the beginning of
Congress, much more were they needed now. The bill reported by Douglas
for the eventual admission of Kansas had commended itself neither to
the leaders, nor to the rank and file, of the party. There was a
general disposition to await the outcome of the national party
conventions, before legislating for Kansas. Douglas made repeated
efforts to expedite his bill, but his failure to secure the Democratic
nomination seemed to weaken his leadership. Pressure from without
finally spurred the Democratic members of Congress to action. The
enthusiasm of the Republicans in convention and their confident
expectation of carrying many States at the North, warned the
Democrats that they must make some effort to allay the disturbances in
Kansas. The initiative was taken by Senator Toombs, who drafted a bill
conceding far more to Northern sentiment than any yet proposed. It
provided that, after a census had been taken, delegates to a
constitutional convention should be chosen on the date of the
presidential election in November. Five competent persons, appointed
by the President with the consent of the Senate, were to supervise the
census and the subsequent registration of voters. The convention thus
chosen was to assemble in December to frame a State constitution and
government.[570]

The Toombs bill, with several others, and with numerous amendments,
was referred to the Committee on Territories. Frequent conferences
followed at Douglas's residence, in which the recognized leaders of
the party participated.[571] It was decided to support the Toombs bill
in a slightly amended form and to make a party measure of it.[572]
Prudence warned against attempting to elect Buchanan on a policy of
merely negative resistance to the Topeka movement.[573] The Republican
members of Congress were to be forced to make a show of hands on a
measure which promised substantial relief to the people of Kansas.

In his report of June 30th, Douglas discussed the various measures
that had been proposed by Whigs and Republicans, but found the Toombs
bill best adapted to "insure a fair and impartial decision of the
questions at issue in Kansas, in accordance with the wishes of the
_bona fide_ inhabitants." A single paragraph from this report ought to
have convinced those who subsequently doubted the sincerity of
Douglas's course, that he was partner to no plots against the free
expression of public opinion in the Territory. "In the opinion of your
committee, whenever a constitution shall be formed in any Territory,
preparatory to its admission into the Union as a State, justice, the
genius of our institutions, the whole theory of our republican system
imperatively demand that the voice of the people shall be fairly
expressed, and their will embodied in that fundamental law, without
fraud or violence, or intimidation, or any other improper or unlawful
influence, and subject to no other restrictions than those imposed by
the Constitution of the United States."[574]

The Toombs bill caused Republicans grave misgivings, even while they
conceded its ostensible liberality. Could an administration that had
condoned the frauds already practiced in Kansas be trusted to appoint
disinterested commissioners? Would a census of the present population
give a majority in the proposed convention to the free-State party in
Kansas? Everyone knew that many free-State people had been driven away
by the disorders. Douglas endeavored to reassure his opponents on
these points; but his words carried no weight on the other side of the
chamber. No better evidence of his good faith in the matter, however,
could have been asked than he offered, by an amendment which extended
the right of voting at the elections to all who had been _bona fide_
residents and voters, but who had absented themselves from the
Territory, provided they should return before October 1st.[575] If,
as Republicans asserted, many more free-State settlers than
pro-slavery squatters had been driven out, then here was a fair
concession. But what they wanted was not merely an equal chance for
freedom in Kansas, but precedence. To this end they were ready even to
admit Kansas under the Topeka constitution, which, by the most
favorable construction, was the work of a faction.[576]

It was afterwards alleged that Douglas had wittingly suppressed a
clause in the original Toombs bill, which provided for a submission of
the constitution to a popular vote. The circumstances were such as to
make the charge plausible, and Douglas, in his endeavor to clear
himself, made hasty and unqualified statements which were manifestly
incorrect. In his own bill for the admission of Kansas, Douglas
referred explicitly to "the election for the adoption of the
Constitution."[577] The wording of the clause indicates that he
regarded the popular ratification of the constitution to be a matter
of course. The original Toombs bill had also referred explicitly to a
ratification of the constitution by the people;[578] but when it was
reported from Douglas's committee in an amended form, it had been
stripped of this provision. Trumbull noted at the time that this
amended bill made no provision for the submission of the constitution
to the vote of the people and deplored the omission, though he
supposed, as did most men, that such a ratification would be
necessary.[579] Subsequently he accused Douglas not only of having
intentionally omitted the referendum clause, but of having prevented a
popular vote, by adding the clause, "and until the complete execution
of this Act, no other election shall be held in said Territory."[580]

Douglas cleared himself from the latter charge, by pointing out that
this clause had been struck out upon his own motion, and replaced by
the clause which read, "all other elections in said Territory are
hereby postponed until such time as said convention shall
appoint."[581] As to the other charge, Douglas said in 1857, that he
knew the Toombs bill was silent on the matter of submission, but he
took the fair construction to be that powers not delegated were
reserved, and that of course the constitution would be submitted to
the people. "That I was a party, either by private conferences at my
house or otherwise, to a plan to force a constitution on the people of
Kansas without submission, is not true."[582]

Still, there was the ugly fact that the Toombs bill had gone to his
committee with the clause, and had emerged shorn of it. Toombs himself
threw some light on the matter by stating that the clause had been
stricken out because there was no provision for a second election, and
therefore no proper safeguards for such a popular vote.[583] The
probability is that Douglas, and in fact most men, deemed it
sufficient at that time to provide a fair opportunity for the
election of a convention.[584] When Trumbull preferred his charges in
detail in the campaign of 1858, Douglas at first flatly denied that
there was a submission clause in the original Toombs bill. Both
Trumbull and Lincoln then convicted Douglas of error, and thus put him
in the light of one who had committed an offense and had sought to
save himself by prevaricating.

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Murder One closing so did we commit this crime?
Articles published by guardian.co.uk Books

Poetry Workshop creature features

For many years my local corner shop displayed a large sign in its window telling local residents to "use us or lose us!" It always looked a rather toothless threat to me. After all, if I didn't use them, what difference would it make to me if they weren't there? And surely a corner shop, one that had been there for years, would have enough customers to survive without recourse to such apocalyptic warning? But it didn't and was soon converted into flats.

This community shop was destroyed not so much by the pressures of the supermarkets or people's commuting patterns, but simply by customer apathy. It's something to think about as crime writers and readers across the world mourn the imminent passing of Maxim Jakubowski's celebrated Charing Cross Road bookshop in London, Murder One.

Apathy is a strange word to connect to a bookstore that thrives on passion. It's noticeable when you walk through the door, when you speak to the friendly, knowledgeable staff, when you look at the shelves and see the vast range of titles on offer. This isn't your regular kind of bookstore: the first time I visited spent a whole lunch break looking up and down, from floor to ceiling from table to table; it was an hour that changed my perception of both crime writing and of bookselling.

Murder One was – and for a few weeks will remain – a shop that took crime seriously. Not in the sense that it intellectualised it, or made unsubstantiated claims for its importance, but in the way that it treated crime writing with the respect it was due. With a genre that has so many off-shoots, branches and sub-genres, it took a shop of Murder One's calibre to show just how diverse, interesting and mentally stimulating crime could be – far more than the guilty pleasure I had, until then, considered it.

Thanks to judicious recommendations, enticing table displays and hours of foraging among the stacks, I discovered writers that I would never have picked up, let alone read. You could always get the latest blockbuster, but delve a little deeper and you'd find books that were not stocked anywhere else, novels that, like the perfect crime, were hidden from public view. The Martin Beck novels by Sjöwall & Wahlöö – probably my favourite sequence of novels in any genre – were introduced to me via Murder One, as were Kem Nunn, Sue Grafton, and Henning Mankell. It's also the staff of Murder One who piqued my interest in the inimitable Fred Vargas, and I can't thank them enough for the introduction.

Inclusive and without snobbery, Murder One amply demonstrated that the best bookshops are places not just of commerce, but of community; places that make feel you belong. It's the kind of store that bibliophiles dream about: well-stocked, well-staffed and shabby enough to lose days browsing within. It's just unfortunate that such shops don't have enough paying customers to keep them afloat, or that these customers visit all too infrequently – something of which I'm certainly guilty.

These kinds of shops are facing a long, bloody battle – and one which, without significant reinforcements, they are likely to lose. As we hear of the travesty of another brilliant independent going down, we'll mourn the loss, wring our hands and damn Amazon and the supermarkets and Waterstone's. Yet perhaps the most important detail we'll probably keep under wraps: the last time we actually spent any money there.

Murder One closing its doors for the final time is undoubtedly a .38 shell for independent bookshops, but whether it's body blow or a warning shot all depends upon us, the consumers. No one, no matter how iconic or established, can exist on fond memories alone: just ask Woolworths. Use these shops now, because it doesn't take a master sleuth to deduce what will happen if we don't.

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