Stephen A. Douglas by Allen Johnson

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To nine-tenths of his devoted followers, he was still "Judge" Douglas.
It was odd that the title, so quickly earned and so briefly worn,
should have stuck so persistently to him. In legal attainments he fell
far short of many of his colleagues in the Senate. Had he but chosen
to apply himself, he might have been a conspicuous leader of the
American bar; but law was ever to him the servant of politics, and he
never cared to make the servant greater than his lord. That he would
have developed judicial qualities, may well be doubted; advocate he
was and advocate he remained, to the end of his days. So it was that
when a legal question arose, with far-reaching implications for
American politics, the lawyer and politician, rather than the judge,
laid hold upon the points of political significance.

The inauguration of James Buchanan and the Dred Scott decision of the
Supreme Court, two days later, marked a turning point in the career of
Judge Douglas. Of this he was of course unaware. He accepted the
advent of his successful rival with composure, and the opinion of the
Court, with comparative indifference. In a speech before the Grand
Jury of the United States District Court at Springfield, three months
later, he referred publicly for the first time to the Dred Scott case.
Senator, and not Judge, Douglas was much in evidence. He swallowed the
opinion of the majority of the court without wincing--the _obiter
dictum_ and all. Nay, more, he praised the Court for passing, like
honest and conscientious judges, from the technicalities of the case
to the real merits of the questions involved. The material,
controlling points of the case were: first, that a negro descended
from slave parents could not be a citizen of the United States;
second, that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional and void
from the beginning, and thus could not extinguish a master's right to
his slave in any Territory. "While the right continues in full force
under ... the Constitution," he added, "and cannot be divested or
alienated by an act of Congress, it necessarily remains a barren and
worthless right, unless sustained, protected, and enforced by
appropriate police regulations and local legislation, prescribing
adequate remedies for its violation. These regulations and remedies
must necessarily depend entirely upon the will and wishes of the
people of the Territory, as they can only be prescribed by the local
legislatures." Hence the triumphant conclusion that "the great
principle of popular sovereignty and self-government is sustained and
firmly established by the authority of this decision."[620]

There were acute legal minds who thought that they detected a false
note in this paean. Was this a necessary implication from the Dred
Scott decision? Was it the intention of the Court to leave the
principle of popular sovereignty standing upright? Was not the
decision rather fatal to the great doctrine--the shibboleth of the
Democratic party?

On this occasion Douglas had nothing to add to his exposition of the
Dred Scott case, further than to point out the happy escape of white
supremacy from African equality. And here he struck the note which put
him out of accord with those Northern constituents with whom he was
otherwise in complete harmony. "When you confer upon the African race
the privileges of citizenship, and put them on an equality with white
men at the polls, in the jury box, on the bench, in the Executive
chair, and in the councils of the nation, upon what principle will you
deny their equality at the festive board and in the domestic circle?"
In the following year, he received his answer in the homely words of
Abraham Lincoln: "I do not understand that because I do not want a
negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife."

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 592: Sheahan, Douglas, pp. 442-443; Iglehart, History of the
Douglas Estate in Chicago.]

[Footnote 593: Letter in Chicago _Times_, August 30, 1857.]

[Footnote 594: _Globe_, 29 Cong., 1 Sess., pp. 749-750.]

[Footnote 595: _Globe_, 32 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 870.]

[Footnote 596: _Ibid._, 31 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 75.]

[Footnote 597: _Globe_, 31 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 266.]

[Footnote 598: _Ibid._, 32 Cong., 1 Sess., pp. 350-351.]

[Footnote 599: _Ibid._, p. 769.]

[Footnote 600: _Globe_, 32 Cong., 1 Sess., App., p. 951.]

[Footnote 601: _Ibid._, p. 952.]

[Footnote 602: Letter to Governor Matteson, January 2, 1854, in
Sheahan, Douglas, pp. 358 ff.]

[Footnote 603: MS. Letter, Douglas to C.H. Lanphier, November 11,
1853.]

[Footnote 604: _Globe_, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 953.]

[Footnote 605: _Globe_, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 953.]

[Footnote 606: _Ibid._, p. 1050.]

[Footnote 607: Chicago _Times_, January 27, 1858.]

[Footnote 608: _Globe_, 31 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 132.]

[Footnote 609: Mrs. Pryor, Reminiscences of Peace and War, p. 68;
Villard, Memoirs, I, p. 92.]

[Footnote 610: Letter of Mrs. Lippincott ("Grace Greenwood") to the
writer.]

[Footnote 611: Conversation with Stephen A. Douglas, Esq., of
Chicago.]

[Footnote 612: The marriage took place November 20, 1856.]

[Footnote 613: See Philadelphia _Press_, June 8, 1861.]

[Footnote 614: Letter of J.H. Roberts, Esq., of Chicago to the writer;
also letter of Mrs. Lippincott to the writer.]

[Footnote 615: See Philadelphia _Press_, November 17, 1860.]

[Footnote 616: For a copy of this letter, I am indebted to J.H.
Roberts, Esq., of Chicago.]

[Footnote 617: Conversation with Henry Greenbaum, Esq., of Chicago.]

[Footnote 618: Major G.M. McConnell in the Transactions of the
Illinois Historical Society, 1900; see also Forney, Anecdotes of
Public Men, I, p. 147.]

[Footnote 619: Schuyler Colfax in the South Bend _Register,_ June,
1861; Forney in his Eulogy, 1861; Greeley, Recollections of a Busy
Life, p. 359.]

[Footnote 620: The New York _Times_, June 23, 1857, published this
speech of June 12th, in full.]

CHAPTER XV

THE REVOLT OF DOUGLAS

Had anyone prophesied at the close of the year 1856, that within a
twelvemonth Douglas would be denounced as a traitor to Democracy, he
would have been thought mad. That Douglas of all men should break with
his party under any circumstances was almost unthinkable. His whole
public career had been inseparably connected with his party. To be
sure, he had never gone so far as to say "my party right or wrong";
but that was because he had never felt obliged to make a moral choice.
He was always convinced that his party was right. Within the
circumference of party, he had always found ample freedom of movement.
He had never lacked the courage of his convictions, but hitherto his
convictions had never collided with the dominant opinion of Democracy.
He undoubtedly believed profoundly in the mission of his party, as an
organization standing above all for popular government and the
preservation of the Union. No ordinary circumstances would justify him
in weakening the influence or impairing the organization of the
Democratic party. Paradoxical as it may seem, his partisanship was
dictated by a profound patriotism. He believed the maintenance of the
Union to be dependent upon the integrity of his party. So thinking and
feeling he entered upon the most memorable controversy of his career.

When President Buchanan asked Robert J. Walker of Mississippi to
become governor of Kansas, the choice met with the hearty approval of
Douglas. Not all the President's appointments had been acceptable to
the Senator from Illinois. But here was one that he could indorse
unreservedly. He used all his influence to persuade Walker to accept
the uncoveted mission. With great reluctance Walker consented, but
only upon the most explicit understanding with the administration as
to the policy to be followed in Kansas. It was well understood on both
sides that a true construction of the Kansas-Nebraska Act required the
submission to popular vote of any constitution which the prospective
convention might adopt. This was emphatically the view of Douglas,
whom Governor Walker took pains to consult on his way through
Chicago.[621]

The call for an election of delegates to a constitutional convention
had already been issued, when Walker reached Kansas. The free-State
people were incensed because the appointment of delegates had been
made on the basis of a defective census and registration; and even the
assurance of the governor, in his inaugural, that the constitution
would be submitted to a popular vote, failed to overcome their
distrust. They therefore took no part in the election of delegates.
This course was unfortunate, for it gave the control of the convention
wholly into the hands of the pro-slavery party, with consequences that
were far-reaching for Kansas and the nation.[622] But by October the
free-State party had abandoned its policy of abstention from
territorial politics, so far as to participate in the election of a
new territorial legislature. The result was a decisive free-State
victory. The next legislature would have an ample majority of
free-State men in both chambers. It was with the discomfiting
knowledge, then, that they represented only a minority of the
community that the delegates of the constitutional convention began
their labors.[623] It was clear to the dullest intelligence that any
pro-slavery constitution would be voted down, if it were submitted
fairly to the people of Kansas. Gloom settled down upon the hopes of
the pro-slavery party.

When the document which embodied the labors of the convention was made
public, the free-State party awoke from its late complacence to find
itself tricked by a desperate game. The constitution was not to be
submitted to a full and fair vote; but only the article relating to
slavery. The people of Kansas were to vote for the "Constitution with
slavery" or for the "Constitution with no slavery." By either
alternative the constitution would be adopted. But should the
constitution with no slavery be ratified, a clause of the schedule
still guaranteed "the right of property in slaves now in this
Territory."[624] The choice offered to an opponent of slavery in
Kansas was between a constitution sanctioning and safeguarding all
forms of slave property,[625] and a constitution which guaranteed the
full possession of slaves then in the Territory, with no assurances
as to the status of the natural increase of these slaves. Viewed in
the most charitable light, this was a gambler's device for securing
the stakes by hook or crook. Still further to guard existing property
rights in slaves, it was provided that if the constitution should be
amended after 1864, no alteration should be made to affect "the rights
of property in the ownership of slaves."[626]

The news from Lecompton stirred Douglas profoundly. In a peculiar
sense he stood sponsor for justice to bleeding Kansas, not only
because he had advocated in abstract terms the perfect freedom of the
people to form their domestic institutions in their own way, but
because he had become personally responsible for the conduct of the
leader of the Lecompton party. John Calhoun, president of the
convention, had been appointed surveyor general of the Territory upon
his recommendation. Governor Walker had retained Calhoun in that
office because of Douglas's assurance that Calhoun would support the
policy of submission.[627] Moreover, Governor Walker had gone to his
post with the assurance that the leaders of the administration would
support this course.

Was it likely that the pro-slavery party in Kansas would take this
desperate course, without assurance of some sort from Washington?
There were persistent rumors that President Buchanan approved the
Lecompton constitution,[628] but Douglas was loth to give credence to
them. The press of Illinois and of the Northwest voiced public
sentiment in condemning the work of the Lecomptonites.[629] Douglas
was soon on his way to Washington, determined to know the President's
mind; his own was made up.

The interview between President Buchanan and Douglas, as recounted by
the latter, takes on a dramatic aspect.[630] Douglas found his worst
fears realized. The President was clearly under the influence of an
aggressive group of Southern statesmen, who were bent upon making
Kansas a slave State under the Lecompton constitution. Laboring under
intense feeling, Douglas then threw down the gauntlet: he would oppose
the policy of the administration publicly to the bitter end. "Mr.
Douglas," said the President rising to his feet excitedly, "I desire
you to remember that no Democrat ever yet differed from an
administration of his own choice without being crushed. Beware of the
fate of Tallmadge and Rives." "Mr. President" rejoined Douglas also
rising, "I wish you to remember that General Jackson is dead."

The Chicago _Times_, reporting the interview, intimated that there had
been a want of agreement, but no lack of courtesy or regard on either
side. Douglas was not yet ready to issue an ultimatum. The situation
might be remedied. On the night following this memorable encounter,
Douglas was serenaded by friends and responded with a brief speech,
but he did not allude to the Kansas question.[631] It was generally
expected that he would show his hand on Monday, the opening day of
Congress. The President's message did not reach Congress, however,
until Tuesday. Immediately upon its reading, Douglas offered the usual
motion to print the message, adding, as he took his seat, that he
totally dissented from "that portion of the message which may fairly
be construed as approving of the proceedings of the Lecompton
convention." At an early date he would state the reasons for his
dissent.[632]

On the following day, December 9th, Douglas took the irrevocable step.
For three hours he held the Senate and the audience in the galleries
in rapt attention, while with more than his wonted gravity and
earnestness he denounced the Lecompton constitution.[633] He began
with a conciliatory reference to the President's message. He was happy
to find, after a more careful examination, that the President had
refrained from making any recommendation as to the course which
Congress should pursue with regard to the constitution. And so, he
added adroitly, the Kansas question is not to be treated as an
administration measure. He shared the disappointment of the President
that the constitution had not been submitted fully and freely to the
people of Kansas; but the President, he conceived, had made a
fundamental error in supposing that the Nebraska Act provided for the
disposition of the slavery question apart from other local matters.
The direct opposite was true. The main object of the Act was to remove
an odious restriction by which the people had been prevented from
deciding the slavery question for themselves, like all other local and
domestic concerns. If the President was right in thinking that by the
terms of the Nebraska bill the slavery question must be submitted to
the people, then every other clause of the constitution should be
submitted to them. To do less would be to reduce popular sovereignty
to a farce.

But Douglas could not maintain this conciliatory attitude. His sense
of justice was too deeply outraged. He recalled facts which every
well-informed person knew. "I know that men, high in authority and in
the confidence of the territorial and National Government, canvassed
every part of Kansas during the election of delegates, and each one of
them pledged himself to the people that no snap judgment was to be
taken. Up to the time of the meeting of the convention, in October
last, the pretense was kept up, the profession was openly made, and
believed by me, and I thought believed by them, that the convention
intended to submit a constitution to the people, and not to attempt to
put a government in operation without such submission."[634] How was
this pledge redeemed? All men, forsooth, must vote for the
constitution, whether they like it or not, in order to be permitted to
vote for or against slavery! This would be like an election under the
First Consul, when, so his enemies averred, Napoleon addressed his
troops with the words: "Now, my soldiers, you are to go to the
election and vote freely just as you please. If you vote for Napoleon,
all is well; vote against him, and you are to be instantly shot." That
was a fair election! "This election," said Douglas with bitter irony,
"is to be _equally fair!_ All men in favor of the constitution may
vote for it--all men against it shall not vote at all! Why not let
them vote against it? I have asked a very large number of the
gentlemen who framed the constitution ... and I have received the same
answer from every one of them.... They say if they allowed a negative
vote the constitution would have been voted down by an overwhelming
majority, and hence the fellows shall not be allowed to vote at all."

"Will you force it on them against their will," he demanded, "simply
because they would have voted it down if you had consulted them? If
you will, are you going to force it upon them under the plea of
leaving them perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic
institutions in their own way? Is that the mode in which I am called
upon to carry out the principle of self-government and popular
sovereignty in the Territories?" It is no answer, he argued, that the
constitution is unobjectionable. "You have no right to force an
unexceptionable constitution on a people." The pro-slavery clause was
not the offense in the constitution, to his mind. "If Kansas wants a
slave-State constitution she has a right to it, if she wants a
free-State constitution she has a right to it. It is none of my
business which way the slavery clause is decided. I care not whether
it is voted up or down." The whole affair looked to him "like a system
of trickery and jugglery to defeat the fair expression of the will of
the people."[635]

The vehemence of his utterance had now carried Douglas perhaps farther
than he had meant to go.[636] He paused to plead for a fair policy
which would redeem party pledges:

"Ignore Lecompton, ignore Topeka; treat both those party
movements as irregular and void; pass a fair bill--the one
that we framed ourselves when we were acting as a unit; have
a fair election--and you will have peace in the Democratic
party, and peace throughout the country, in ninety days. The
people want a fair vote. They never will be satisfied
without it. They never should be satisfied without a fair
vote on their Constitution....

"Frame any other bill that secures a fair, honest vote, to
men of all parties, and carries out the pledge that the
people shall be left free to decide on their domestic
institutions for themselves, and I will go with you with
pleasure, and with all the energy I may possess. But if this
Constitution is to be forced down our throats, in violation
of the fundamental principle of free government, under a
mode of submission that is a mockery and insult, I will
resist it to the last. I have no fear of any party
associations being severed. I should regret any social or
political estrangement, even temporarily; but if it must be,
if I can not act with you and preserve my faith and my
honor, I will stand on the great principle of popular
sovereignty, which declares the right of all people to be
left perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic
institutions in their own way. I will follow that principle
wherever its logical consequences may take me, and I will
endeavor to defend it against assault from any and all
quarters. No mortal man shall be responsible for my action
but myself. By my action I will compromit no man."[637]

The speech made a profound impression. No one could mistake its
import. The correspondent of the New York _Tribune_ was right in
thinking that it "marked an important era in our political
history."[638] Douglas had broken with the dominant pro-slavery
faction of his party. How far he would carry his party with him,
remained to be seen. But that a battle royal was imminent, was
believed on all sides. "The struggle of Douglas with the slave-power
will be a magnificent spectacle to witness," wrote one who had
hitherto evinced little admiration for the author of the
Kansas-Nebraska Act.[639]

Douglas kept himself well in hand throughout his speech. His manner
was at times defiant, but his language was restrained. At no time did
he disclose the pain which his rupture with the administration cost
him, except in his closing words. What he had to expect from the
friends of the administration was immediately manifest. Senator Bigler
of Pennsylvania sprang to the defense of the President. In an
irritating tone he intimated that Douglas himself had changed his
position on the question of submission, alluding to certain private
conferences at Douglas's house; but as though bound by a pledge of
secrecy, Bigler refrained from making the charge in so many words.
Douglas, thoroughly aroused, at once absolved, him from any pledges,
and demanded to know when they had agreed not to submit the
constitution to the people. The reply of Bigler was still allusive and
evasive. "Does he mean to say," insisted Douglas excitedly, "that I
ever was, privately or publicly, in my own house or any other, in
favor of a constitution without its being submitted to the people?" "I
have made no such allegation," was the reply. "You have allowed it to
be inferred," exclaimed Douglas in exasperated tones.[640] And then
Green reminded him, that in his famous report of January 4, 1854, he
had proposed to leave the slavery question to the decision of the
people "by their appropriate representatives chosen by them for that
purpose," with no suggestion of a second, popular vote. Truly, his
most insidious foes were now those of his own political household.

Anti-slavery men welcomed this revolt of Douglas without crediting him
with any but self-seeking motives. They could not bring themselves to
believe other than ill of the man who had advocated the repeal of the
Missouri Compromise. Republicans accepted his aid in their struggle
against the Lecompton fraud, but for the most part continued to regard
him with distrust. Indeed, Douglas made no effort to placate them. He
professed to care nothing for the cause of the slave which was nearest
their hearts. Hostile critics, then, were quick to point out the
probable motives from which he acted. His senatorial term was drawing
to a close. He was of course desirous of a re-election. But his
nominee for governor had been defeated at the last election, and the
State had been only with difficulty carried for the national
candidates of the party. The lesson was plain: the people of Illinois
did not approve the Kansas policy of Senator Douglas. Hence the
weathercock obeyed the wind.

In all this there was a modicum of truth. Douglas would not have been
the power that he was, had he not kept in touch with his constituency.
But a sense of honor, a desire for consistency, and an abiding faith
in the justice of his great principle, impelled him in the same
direction. These were thoroughly honorable motives, even if he
professed an indifference as to the fate of the negro. He had pledged
his word of honor to his constituents that the people of Kansas should
have a fair chance to pronounce upon their constitution. Nothing short
of this would have been consistent with popular sovereignty as he had
expounded it again and again. And Douglas was personally a man of
honor. Yet when all has been said, one cannot but regret that the
sense of fair play, which was strong in him, did not assert itself in
the early stages of the Kansas conflict and smother that lawyer's
instinct to defend, a client by the technicalities of the law. Could
he only have sought absolute justice for the people of Kansas in the
winter of 1856, the purity of his motives would not have been
questioned in the winter of 1858.

Even those colleagues of Douglas who doubted his motives, could not
but admire his courage. It did, indeed, require something more than
audacity to head a revolt against the administration. No man knew
better the thorny road that he must now travel. No man loved his party
more. No man knew better the hazard to the Union that must follow a
rupture in the Democratic party. But if Douglas nursed the hope that
Democratic senators would follow his lead, he was sadly disappointed.
Three only came to his support--Broderick of California, Pugh of Ohio,
and Stuart of Michigan,--while the lists of the administration were
full. Green, Bigler, Fitch, in turn were set upon him.

Douglas bitterly resented any attempt to read him out of the party by
making the Lecompton constitution the touchstone of genuine Democracy;
yet each day made it clearer that the administration had just that end
in view. Douglas complained of a tyranny not consistent with free
Democratic action. One might differ with the President on every
subject but Kansas, without incurring suspicion. Every pensioned
letter writer, he complained, had been intimating for the last two
weeks that he had deserted the Democratic party and gone over to the
Black Republicans. He demanded to know who authorized these
tales.[641] Senator Fitch warned him solemnly that the Democratic
party was the only political link in the chain which now bound the
States together. "None ... will hold that man guiltless, who abandons
it upon a question having in it so little of practical importance ...
and by seeking its destruction, thereby admits his not unwillingness
that a similar fate should be visited on the Union, perhaps, to
subserve his selfish purpose."[642] These attacks roused Douglas to
vehement defiance. More emphatically than ever, he declared the
Lecompton constitution "a trick, a fraud upon the rights of the
people."

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