Stephen A. Douglas by Allen Johnson

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If Douglas misjudged the temper of his colleagues, he at least gauged
correctly the drift of public sentiment in Illinois and the Northwest.
Of fifty-six Democratic newspapers in Illinois, but one ventured to
condone the Lecompton fraud.[643] Mass meetings in various cities of
the Northwest expressed confidence in the course of Senator Douglas.

He now occupied a unique position at the capital. Visitors were quite
as eager to see the man who had headed the revolt as to greet the
chief executive.[644] His residence, where Mrs. Douglas dispensed a
gracious hospitality, was fairly besieged with callers.[645]
Washington society was never gayer than during this memorable
winter.[646] None entertained more lavishly than Senator and Mrs.
Douglas. Whatever unpopularity he incurred at the Capitol, she more
than offset by her charming and gracious personality. Acknowledged as
the reigning queen of the circle in which she moved, Mrs. Douglas
displayed a social initiative that seconded admirably the independent,
self-reliant attitude of her husband. When Adele Cutts Douglas chose
to close the shutters of her house at noon, and hold a reception by
artificial light every Saturday afternoon, society followed her lead.
There were no more brilliant affairs in Washington than these
afternoon receptions and hops at the Douglas residence in Minnesota
Block.[647] In contrast to these functions dominated by a thoroughly
charming personality, the formal precision of the receptions at the
White House was somewhat chilling and forbidding. President Buchanan,
bachelor, with his handsome but somewhat self-contained niece, was not
equal to this social rivalry.[648] Moreover, the cares of office
permitted the perplexed, wearied, and timid executive no respite day
or night.

Events in Kansas gave heart to those who were fighting Lecomptonism.
At the election appointed by the convention, the "constitution with
slavery" was adopted by a large majority, the free-State people
refusing to vote; but the legislature, now in the control of the
free-State party, had already provided for a fair vote on the whole
constitution. On this second vote the majority was overwhelmingly
against the constitution. Information from various sources
corroborated the deductions which unprejudiced observers drew from the
voting. It was as clear as day that the people of Kansas did not
regard the Lecompton constitution as a fair expression of their
will.[649]

Ignoring the light which made the path of duty plain, President
Buchanan sent the Lecompton constitution to Congress with a message
recommending the admission of Kansas.[650] To his mind, the Lecompton
convention was legally constituted and had exercised its powers
faithfully. The organic act did not bind the convention to submit to
the people more than the question of slavery. Meantime the Supreme
Court had handed down its famous decision in the Dred Scott case.
Fortified by this dictum, the President told Congress that slavery
existed in Kansas by virtue of the Constitution of the United States.
"Kansas is, at this moment, as much a slave State as Georgia or South
Carolina"! Slavery, then, could be prohibited only by constitutional
provision; and those who desired to do away with slavery would most
speedily compass their ends, if they admitted Kansas at once under
this constitution.

The President's message with the Lecompton constitution was referred
to the Committee on Territories and gave rise to three reports:
Senator Green of Missouri presented the majority report, recommending
the admission of Kansas under this constitution; Senators Collamer and
Wade united on a minority report, leaving Douglas to draft another
expressing his dissent on other grounds.[651] Taken all in all, this
must be regarded as the most satisfactory and convincing of all
Douglas's committee reports. It is strong because it is permeated by
a desire for justice, and reinforced at every point by a consummate
marshalling of evidence. Barely in his career had his conspicuous
qualities as a special pleader been put so unreservedly at the service
of simple justice. He planted himself firmly, at the outset, upon the
incontrovertible fact that there was no satisfactory evidence that the
Lecompton constitution was the act and deed of the people of
Kansas.[652]

It had been argued that, because the Lecompton convention had been
duly constituted, with full power to ordain a constitution and
establish a government, consequently the proceedings of the convention
must be presumed to embody the popular will. Douglas immediately
challenged this assumption. The convention had no more power than the
territorial legislature could confer. By no fair construction of the
Kansas-Nebraska Act could it be assumed that the people of the
Territory were authorized, "at their own will and pleasure, to resolve
themselves into a sovereign power, and to abrogate and annul the
organic act and territorial government established by Congress, and to
ordain a constitution and State government upon their ruins, without
the consent of Congress." Surely, then, a convention which the
territorial legislature called into being could not abrogate or impair
the authority of that territorial government established by Congress.
Hence, he concluded, the Lecompton constitution, formed without the
consent of Congress, must be considered as a memorial or petition,
which Congress may accept or reject. The convention was the creature
of the territorial legislature. "Such being the case, whenever the
legislature ascertained that the convention whose existence depended
upon its will, had devised a scheme to force a constitution upon the
people without their consent, and without any authority from Congress,
... it became their imperative duty to interpose and exert the
authority conferred upon them by Congress in the organic act, and
arrest and prevent the consummation of the scheme before it had gone
into operation."[653] This was an unanswerable argument.

In the prolonged debate upon the admission of Kansas, Douglas took
part only as some taunt or challenge brought him to his feet. While
the bill for the admission of Minnesota, also reported by the
Committee on Territories, was under fire, Senator Brown of Mississippi
elicited from Douglas the significant concession, that he did not deem
an enabling act absolutely essential, so long as the constitution
clearly embodied the will of the people. Neither did he think a
submission of the constitution always essential; it was, however, a
fair way of ascertaining the popular will, when that will was
disputed." Satisfy me that the constitution adopted by the people of
Minnesota is their will, and I am prepared to adopt it. Satisfy me
that the constitution adopted, or said to be adopted, by the people of
Kansas, is their will, and I am prepared to take it.... I will never
apply one rule to a free State and another to a slave-holding
State."[654] Nevertheless, even his Democratic colleagues continued to
believe that slavery had something to do with his opposition. In the
classic phraseology of Toombs, "there was a 'nigger' in it."

The opposition of Douglas began to cause no little uneasiness. Brown
paid tribute to his influence, when he declared that if the Senator
from Illinois had stood with the administration, "there would not have
been a ripple on the surface." "Sir, the Senator from Illinois gives
life, he gives vitality, he gives energy, he lends the aid of his
mighty genius and his powerful will to the Opposition on this
question."[655] But Douglas paid a fearful price for this power. Every
possible ounce of pressure was brought to bear upon him. The party
press was set upon him. His friends were turned out of office. The
whole executive patronage was wielded mercilessly against his
political following. The Washington _Union_ held him up to execration
as a traitor, renegade, and deserter.[656] "We cannot affect
indifference at the treachery of Senator Douglas," said a Richmond
paper. "He was a politician of considerable promise. Association with
Southern gentlemen had smoothed down the rugged vulgarities of his
early education, and he had come to be quite a decent and well-behaved
person."[657] To political denunciation was now to be added the sting
of mean and contemptible personalities.

Small wonder that even the vigorous health of "the Little Giant"
succumbed to these assaults. For a fortnight he was confined to his
bed, rising only by sheer force of will to make a final plea for
sanity, before his party took its suicidal plunge. He spoke on the 22d
of March under exceptional conditions. In the expectation that he
would speak in the forenoon, people thronged the galleries at an
early hour, and refused to give up their seats, even when it was
announced that the Senator from Illinois would not address the Senate
until seven o 'clock in the evening. When the hour came, crowds still
held possession of the galleries, so that not even standing room was
available. The door-keepers wrestled in vain with an impatient throng
without, until by motion of Senator Gwin, ladies were admitted to the
floor of the chamber. Even then, Douglas was obliged to pause several
times, for the confusion around the doors to subside.[658] He spoke
with manifest difficulty, but he was more defiant than ever. His
speech was at once a protest and a personal vindication. Denial of the
right of the administration to force the Lecompton constitution upon
the people of Kansas, went hand in hand with a defense of his own
Democracy. Sentences culled here and there suggest not unfairly the
stinging rebukes and defiant challenges that accentuated the none too
coherent course of his speech:

"I am told that this Lecompton constitution is a party test,
a party measure; that no man is a Democrat who does not
sanction it ... Sir, who made it a party test? Who made it a
party measure?... Who has interpolated this Lecompton
constitution into the party platform?... Oh! but we are told
it is an Administration measure. Because it is an
Administration measure, does it therefore follow that it is
a party measure?" ... "I do not recognize the right of the
President or his Cabinet ... to tell me my duty in the
Senate Chamber." "Am I to be told that I must obey the
Executive and betray my State, or else be branded as a
traitor to the party, and hunted down by all the newspapers
that share the patronage of the government, and every man
who holds a petty office in any part of my State to have the
question put to him, 'Are you Douglas's enemy? if not, your
head comes off.'" "I intend to perform my duty in
accordance with my own convictions. Neither the frowns of
power nor the influence of patronage will change my action,
or drive me from my principles. I stand firmly, immovably
upon those great principles of self-government and state
sovereignty upon which the campaign was fought and the
election won.... If, standing firmly by my principles, I
shall be driven into private life, it is a fate that has no
terrors for me. I prefer private life, preserving my own
self-respect and manhood, to abject and servile submission
to executive will. If the alternative be private life or
servile obedience to executive will, I am prepared to
retire. Official position has no charms for me when deprived
of that freedom of thought and action which becomes a
gentleman and a senator.'"[659]

On the following day, the Senate passed the bill for the admission of
Kansas under the Lecompton constitution, having rejected the amendment
of Crittenden to submit that constitution to a vote of the people of
Kansas. A similar amendment, however, was carried in the House. As
neither chamber would recede from its position, a conference committee
was appointed to break the deadlock.[660] It was from this committee,
controlled by Lecomptonites, that the famous English bill emanated.
Stated briefly, the substance of this compromise measure--for such it
was intended to be--was as follows: Congress was to offer to Kansas a
conditional grant of public lands; if this land ordinance should be
accepted by a popular vote, Kansas was to be admitted to the Union
with the Lecompton constitution by proclamation of the President; if
it should be rejected, Kansas was not to be admitted until the
Territory had a population equal to the unit of representation
required for the House of Representatives.

Taken all in all, the bill was as great a concession as could be
expected from the administration. Not all were willing to say that the
bill provided for a vote on the constitution, but Northern adherents
could point to the vote on the land ordinance as an indirect vote upon
the constitution. It is not quite true to say that the land grant was
a bribe to the voters of Kansas. As a matter of fact, the amount of
land granted was only equal to that usually offered to the
Territories, and it was considerably less than the area specified in
the Lecompton constitution. Moreover, even if the land ordinance were
defeated in order to reject the constitution, the Territory was pretty
sure to secure as large a grant at some future time. It was rather in
the alternative held out, that the English bill was unsatisfactory to
those who loved fair play. Still, under the bill, the people of
Kansas, by an act of self-denial, could defeat the Lecompton
constitution. To that extent, the supporters of the administration
yielded to the importunities of the champion of popular sovereignty.

Under these circumstances it would not be strange if Douglas
"wavered."[661] Here was an opportunity to close the rift between
himself and the administration, to heal party dissensions, perhaps to
save the integrity of the Democratic party and the Union. And the
price which he would have to pay was small. He could assume, plausibly
enough,--as he had done many times before in his career,--that the
bill granted all that he had ever asked. He was morally sure that the
people of Kansas would reject the land grant to rid themselves of the
Lecompton fraud. Why hesitate then as to means, when the desired end
was in clear view?

Douglas found himself subjected to a new pressure, harder even to
resist than any he had yet felt. Some of his staunch supporters in the
anti-Lecompton struggle went over to the administration, covering
their retreat by just such excuses as have been suggested. Was he
wiser and more conscientious than they? A refusal to accept the
proffered olive branch now meant,--he knew it well,--the
irreconcilable enmity of the Buchanan faction. And he was not asked to
recant, but only to accept what he had always deemed the very essence
of statesmanship, a compromise. His Republican allies promptly evinced
their distrust. They fully expected him to join his former associates.
From them he could expect no sympathy in such a dilemma.[662] His
political ambitions, no doubt, added to his perplexity. They were
bound up in the fate of the party, the integrity of which was now
menaced by his revolt. On the other hand, he was fully conscious that
his Illinois constituency approved of his opposition to Lecomptonism
and would regard a retreat across this improvised political bridge as
both inglorious and treacherous. Agitated by conflicting emotions,
Douglas made a decision which probably cost him more anguish than any
he ever made; and when all has been said to the contrary, love of fair
play would seem to have been his governing motive.[663]

When Douglas rose to address the Senate on the English bill, April
29th, he betrayed some of the emotion under which he had made his
decision. He confessed an "anxious desire" to find such provisions as
would permit him to support the bill; but he was painfully forced to
declare that he could not find the principle for which he had
contended, fairly carried out. He was unable to reconcile popular
sovereignty with the proposed intervention of Congress in the English
bill. "It is intervention with inducements to control the result. It
is intervention with a bounty on the one side and a penalty on the
other."[664] He frankly admitted that he did not believe there was
enough in the bounty nor enough in the penalty to influence materially
the vote of the people of Kansas; but it involved "the principle of
freedom of election and--the great principle of self-government upon
which our institutions rest." And upon this principle he took his
stand. "With all the anxiety that I have had," said he with deep
feeling, "to be able to arrive at a conclusion in harmony with the
overwhelming majority of my political friends in Congress, I could not
bring my judgment or conscience to the conclusion that this was a
fair, impartial, and equal application of the principle."[665]

As though to make reconciliation with the administration impossible,
Douglas went on to express his distrust of the provision of the bill
for a board of supervisors of elections. Instead of a board of four,
two of whom should represent the Territory and two the Federal
government, as the Crittenden bill had provided, five were to
constitute the board, of whom three were to be United States
officials. "Does not this change," asked Douglas significantly, "give
ground for apprehension that you may have the Oxford, the Shawnee, and
the Delaware Crossing and Kickapoo frauds re-enacted at this
election?"[666] The most suspicions Republican could hardly have dealt
an unkinder thrust.

There could be no manner of doubt as to the outcome of the English
bill in the Senate. Douglas, Stuart, and Broderick were the only
Democrats to oppose its passage, Pugh having joined the majority. The
bill passed the House also, nine of Douglas's associates in the
anti-Lecompton fight going over to the administration.[667] Douglas
accepted this defection with philosophic equanimity, indulging in no
vindictive feelings.[668] Had he not himself felt misgivings as to his
own course?

By midsummer the people of Kansas had recorded nearly ten thousand
votes against the land ordinance and the Lecompton constitution. The
administration had failed to make Kansas a slave State. Yet the
Supreme Court had countenanced the view that Kansas was legally a
slave Territory. What, then, became of the great fundamental principle
of popular sovereignty? This was the question which Douglas was now
called upon to answer.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 621: Report of the Covode Committee, pp. 105-106; Cutts,
Constitutional and Party Questions, p. 111; Speech of Douglas at
Milwaukee, Wis., October 14, 1860, Chicago _Times and Herald_, October
17, 1860.]

[Footnote 622: Spring, Kansas, p. 213; Rhodes, History of the United
States, II, p. 274.]

[Footnote 623: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, pp. 277-278.]

[Footnote 624: _Ibid._, pp. 278-279; Spring, Kansas, p. 223.]

[Footnote 625: See Article VII, of the Kansas constitution, Senate
Reports, No. 82, 35 Cong., 1 Sess.]

[Footnote 626: Schedule Section 14.]

[Footnote 627: Covode Report, p. 111.]

[Footnote 628: Chicago _Times_, November 19, 1857.]

[Footnote 629: Chicago _Times_, November 20 and 21, 1857.]

[Footnote 630: Speech at Milwaukee, October 14, 1860, Chicago _Times
and Herald_, October 17, 1860.]

[Footnote 631: New York _Tribune_, December 3, 1857.]

[Footnote 632: _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 5.]

[Footnote 633: Chicago _Times_, December 19, 1857.]

[Footnote 634: _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 17.]

[Footnote 635: _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., pp. 17-18.]

[Footnote 636: "I spoke rapidly, without preparation," he afterward
said. _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 47.]

[Footnote 637: _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 18.]

[Footnote 638: New York _Tribune_, December 9, 1857.]

[Footnote 639: New York _Tribune_, December 10, 1857.]

[Footnote 640: _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., pp. 21-22.]

[Footnote 641: _Globe_, 5 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 120.]

[Footnote 642: _Ibid._, p. 137.]

[Footnote 643: Chicago _Times_, December 24, 1857.]

[Footnote 644: _Ibid._, December 23, 1857.]

[Footnote 645: Correspondent to Cleveland _Plaindealer_, quoted in
Chicago _Times_, January 29, 1858.]

[Footnote 646: Mrs. Jefferson Davis to Mrs. Pierce, MS. Letter, April
4, 1858.]

[Footnote 647: Mrs. Roger Pryor, Reminiscences of Peace and War, pp.
69-70.]

[Footnote 648: _Ibid._, Chapter 4.]

[Footnote 649: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, p. 289.]

[Footnote 650: Message of February 2, 1858.]

[Footnote 651: Senate Report No. 82, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., February 18,
1858.]

[Footnote 652: Minority Report, p. 52.]

[Footnote 653: Minority Report, p. 64.]

[Footnote 654: _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 502.]

[Footnote 655: _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., pp. 572-573.]

[Footnote 656: Washington _Union_, February 26, 1858.]

[Footnote 657: Richmond _South_, quoted in Chicago _Times_, December
18, 1857.]

[Footnote 658: Sheahan, Douglas, p. 328; _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess.,
App., pp. 193-194.]

[Footnote 659: _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., App., pp. 194-201,
_passim._]

[Footnote 660: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, pp. 297-299.]

[Footnote 661: Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, II, p. 563.]

[Footnote 662: Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, II, pp.
566-567.]

[Footnote 663: This cannot, of course, be demonstrated, but it accords
with his subsequent conduct.]

[Footnote 664: _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 1869.]

[Footnote 665: _Ibid._, p. 1870.]

[Footnote 666: _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 1870.]

[Footnote 667: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, p. 300.]

[Footnote 668: Cox, Three Decades of Federal Legislation, p. 58.]

CHAPTER XVI

THE JOINT DEBATES WITH LINCOLN

National politics made strange bed-fellows in the winter of 1857-8.
Douglas consorting with Republicans and flouting the administration,
was a rare spectacle. There was a moment in this odd alliance when it
seemed likely to become more than a temporary fusion of interests. The
need of concerted action brought about frequent conferences, in which
the distrust of men like Wilson and Colfax was, in a measure,
dispelled by the engaging frankness of their quondam opponent.[669]
Douglas intimated that in all probability he could not act with his
party in future.[670] He assured Wilson that he was in the fight to
stay--in his own words, "he had checked his baggage and taken a
through ticket."[671] There was an odd disposition, too, on the part
of some Republicans to indorse popular sovereignty, now that it seemed
likely to exclude slavery from the Territories.[672] There was even a
rumor afloat that the editor of the New York _Tribune_ favored Douglas
for the presidency.[673] On at least two occasions, Greeley was in
conference with Senator Douglas at the latter's residence. To the
gossiping public this was evidence enough that the rumor was correct.
And it may well be that Douglas dallied with the hope that a great
Constitutional Union party might be formed.[674] But he could hardly
have received much encouragement from the Republicans, with whom he
was consorting, for so far from losing their political identity, they
calculated upon bringing him eventually within the Republican
fold.[675]

A Constitutional Union party, embracing Northern and Southern
Unionists of Whig or Democratic antecedents, might have supplied the
gap left by the old Whig party. That such a party would have exercised
a profound nationalizing influence can scarcely be doubted. Events
might have put Douglas at the head of such a party. But, in truth,
such an outcome of the political chaos which then reigned, was a
remote possibility.

The matter of immediate concern to Douglas was the probable attitude
of his allies toward his re-election to the Senate. There was a wide
divergence among Republican leaders; but active politicians like
Greeley and Wilson, who were not above fighting the devil with his own
weapons, counselled their Illinois brethren not to oppose his
return.[676] There was no surer way to disrupt the Democratic party.
In spite of these admonitions, the Republicans of Illinois were bent
upon defeating Douglas. He had been too uncompromising and bitter an
opponent of Trumbull and other "Black Republicans" to win their
confidence by a few months of conflict against Lecomptonism. "I see
his tracks all over our State," wrote the editor of the Chicago
_Tribune_, "they point only in one direction; not a single toe is
turned toward the Republican camp. Watch him, use him, but do not
trust him--not an inch."[677] Moreover, a little coterie of
Springfield politicians had a candidate of their own for United States
senator in the person of Abraham Lincoln.[678]

The action of the Democratic State convention in April closed the door
to any reconciliation with the Buchanan administration. Douglas
received an unqualified indorsement. The Cincinnati platform was
declared to be "the only authoritative exposition of Democratic
doctrine." No power on earth except a similar national convention had
a right "to change or interpolate that platform, or to prescribe new
or different tests." By sound party doctrine the Lecompton
constitution ought to be "submitted to the direct vote of the actual
inhabitants of Kansas at a fair election."[679] Could any words have
been more explicit? The administration responded by a merciless
proscription of Douglas office-holders and by unremitting efforts to
create an opposition ticket. Under pressure from Washington,
conventions were held to nominate candidates for the various State
offices, with the undisguised purpose of dividing the Democratic vote
for senator.[680]

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