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Stephen A. Douglas by Allen Johnson

A >> Allen Johnson >> Stephen A. Douglas




On the 16th of June, the Republicans of Illinois threw advice to the
winds and adopted the unusual course of naming Lincoln as "the first
and only choice of the Republicans of Illinois for the United States
Senate." It was an act of immense political significance. Not only did
it put in jeopardy the political life of Douglas, but it ended for all
time to come any coalition between his following and the Republican
party.

The subsequent fame of Lincoln has irradiated every phase of his early
career. To his contemporaries in the year 1858, he was a lawyer of
recognized ability, an astute politician, and a frank aspirant for
national honors. Those who imagine him to have been an unambitious
soul, upon whom honors were thrust, fail to understand the Lincoln
whom Herndon, his partner, knew. Lincoln was a seasoned politician. He
had been identified with the old Whig organization; he had repeatedly
represented the Springfield district in the State legislature; and he
had served one term without distinction in Congress. Upon the passage
of the Kansas-Nebraska Act he had taken an active part in fusing the
opposing elements into the Republican party. His services to the new
party made him a candidate for the senatorship in 1855, and received
recognition in the national Republican convention of 1856, when he was
second on the list of those for whom the convention balloted for
Vice-president. He was not unknown to Republicans of the Northwest,
though he was not in any sense a national figure. Few men had a keener
insight into political conditions in Illinois. None knew better the
ins and outs of political campaigning in Illinois.

Withal, Lincoln was rated as a man of integrity. He had strong
convictions and the courage of his convictions. His generous instincts
made him hate slavery, while his antecedents prevented him from loving
the negro. His anti-slavery sentiments were held strongly in check by
his sound sense of justice. He had the temperament of a humanitarian
with the intellect of a lawyer. While not combative by nature, he
possessed the characteristic American trait of measuring himself by
the attainments of others. He was solicitous to match himself with
other men so as to prove himself at least their peer. Possessed of a
cause that enlisted the service of his heart as well as his head,
Lincoln was a strong advocate at the bar and a formidable opponent on
the stump. Douglas bore true witness to Lincoln's powers when he said,
on hearing of his nomination, "I shall have my hands full. He is the
strong man of his party--full of wit, facts, dates--and the best stump
speaker, with his droll ways and dry jokes, in the West. He is as
honest as he is shrewd; and if I beat him, my victory will be hardly
won."[681]

The nomination of Lincoln was so little a matter of surprise to him
and his friends, that at the close of the convention he was able to
address the delegates in a carefully prepared speech. Wishing to sound
a dominant note for the campaign, he began with these memorable words:

"If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we
could better judge what to do and how to do it. We are now far into
the fifth year, since a policy was initiated with the avowed object,
and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under
the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased,
but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease, until
a crisis shall have been reached and passed. 'A house divided against
itself cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot endure
permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be
dissolved--I do not expect the house to fall--but I do expect it will
cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.
Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it,
and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is
in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it
forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as
well as new--North as well as South."[682]

All evidence, continued Lincoln, pointed to a design to make slavery
national. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, the popular indorsement of
Buchanan, and the Dred Scott decision, were so many parts of a plot.
Only one part was lacking; _viz._ another decision declaring it
unconstitutional for a State to exclude slavery. Then the fabric would
be complete for which Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James had each
wrought his separate piece with artful cunning. It was impossible not
to believe that these Democratic leaders had labored in concert. To
those who had urged that Douglas should be supported, Lincoln had only
this to say: Douglas could not oppose the advance of slavery, for he
did not care whether slavery was voted up or down. His avowed purpose
was to make the people care nothing about slavery. The Republican
cause must not be intrusted to its adventitious allies, but to its
undoubted friends.

A welcome that was truly royal awaited Douglas in Chicago. On his way
thither, he was met by a delegation which took him a willing captive
and conducted him on a special train to his destination. Along the
route there was every sign of popular enthusiasm. He entered the city
amid the booming of cannon; he was conveyed to his hotel in a
carriage drawn by six horses, under military escort; banners with
flattering inscriptions fluttered above his head; from balconies and
windows he heard the shouts of thousands.[683]

Even more flattering if possible was the immense crowd that thronged
around the Tremont House in the early evening to hear his promised
speech. Not only the area in front of the hotel, but the adjoining
streets were crowded. Illuminations and fireworks cast a lurid light
on the faces which were upturned to greet the "Defender of Popular
Sovereignty," as he appeared upon the balcony. A man of far less
vanity would have been moved by the scene. Just behind the speaker but
within the house, Lincoln was an attentive listener.[684] The presence
of his rival put Douglas on his mettle. He took in good part a rather
discourteous interruption by Lincoln, and referred to him in generous
terms, as "a kind, amiable, and intelligent gentleman, a good citizen,
and an honorable opponent."[685]

The address was in a somewhat egotistical vein--pardonably egotistical,
considering the extraordinary circumstances. Douglas could not refrain
from referring to his career since he had confronted that excited crowd
in Chicago eight years before, in defense of the compromise measures.
To his mind the events of those eight years had amply vindicated the
great principle of popular sovereignty. Knowing that he was in a
Republican stronghold, he dwelt with particular complacency upon the
manful way in which the Republican party had come to the support of
that principle, in the recent anti-Lecompton fight. It was this
fundamental right of self-government that he had championed through
good and ill report, all these years. It was this, and this alone,
which had governed his action in regard to the Lecompton fraud. It was
not because the Lecompton constitution was a slave constitution, but
because it was not the act and deed of the people of Kansas that he had
condemned it. "Whenever," said he, "you put a limitation upon the right
of a people to decide what laws they want, you have destroyed the
fundamental principle of self-government."

With Lincoln's house-divided-against-itself proposition, he took issue
unqualifiedly. "Mr. Lincoln asserts, as a fundamental principle of
this government, that there must be uniformity in the local laws and
domestic institutions of each and all the States of the Union, and he
therefore invites all the non-slaveholding States to band together,
organize as one body, and make war upon slavery in Kentucky, upon
slavery in Virginia, upon slavery in the Carolinas, upon slavery in
all of the slave-holding States in this Union, and to persevere in
that war until it shall be exterminated. He then notifies the
slave-holding States to stand together as a unit and make an
aggressive war upon the free States of this Union with a view of
establishing slavery in them all; of forcing it upon Illinois, of
forcing it upon New York, upon New England, and upon every other free
State, and that they shall keep up the warfare until it has been
formally established in them all. In other words, Mr. Lincoln
advocates boldly and clearly a war of sections, a war of the North
against the South, of the free States against the slave States--a war
of extermination--to be continued relentlessly until the one or the
other shall be subdued, and all the States shall either become free or
become slave."[686]

But such uniformity in local institutions would be possible only by
blotting out State Sovereignty, by merging all the States in one
consolidated empire, and by vesting Congress with plenary power to
make all the police regulations, domestic and local laws, uniform
throughout the Republic. The framers of our government knew well
enough that differences in soil, in products, and in interests,
required different local and domestic regulations in each locality;
and they organized the Federal government on this fundamental
assumption.[687]

With Lincoln's other proposition Douglas also took issue. He refused
to enter upon any crusade against the Supreme Court. "I do not choose,
therefore, to go into any argument with Mr. Lincoln in reviewing the
various decisions which the Supreme Court has made, either upon the
Dred Scott case, or any other. I have no idea of appealing from the
decision of the Supreme Court upon a constitutional question to the
decision of a tumultuous town meeting."[688]

Neither could Douglas agree with his opponent in objecting to the
decision of the Supreme Court because it deprived the negro of the
rights, privileges, and immunities of citizenship, which pertained
only to the white race. Our government was founded on a white basis.
"It was made by the white man, for the benefit of the white man, to be
administered by white men." To be sure, a negro, an Indian, or any
other man of inferior race should be permitted to enjoy all the
rights, privileges, and immunities consistent with the safety of
society; but each State should decide for itself the nature and extent
of these rights.

On the next evening, Republican Chicago greeted its protagonist with
much the same demonstrations, as he took his place on the balcony from
which Douglas had spoken. Lincoln found the flaw in Douglas's armor at
the outset. "Popular sovereignty! Everlasting popular sovereignty!
What is popular sovereignty"? How could there be such a thing in the
original sense, now that the Supreme Court had decided that the people
in their territorial status might not prohibit slavery? And as for the
right of the people to frame a constitution, who had ever disputed
that right? But Lincoln, evidently troubled by Douglas's vehement
deductions from the house-divided-against-itself proposition, soon
fell back upon the defensive, where he was at a great disadvantage. He
was forced to explain that he did not favor a war by the North upon
the South for the extinction of slavery; nor a war by the South upon
the North for the nationalization of slavery. "I only said what I
expected would take place. I made a prediction only,--it may have been
a foolish one, perhaps. I did not even say that I desired that slavery
should be put in course of ultimate extinction. I do say so now,
however."[689] He _believed_ that slavery had endured, because until
the Nebraska Act the public mind had rested in the conviction that
slavery would ultimately disappear. In affirming that the opponents of
slavery would arrest its further extension, he only meant to say that
they would put it where the fathers originally placed it. He was not
in favor of interfering with slavery where it existed in the States.
As to the charge that he was inviting people to resist the Dred Scott
decision, Lincoln responded rather weakly--again laying himself open
to attack--"We mean to do what we can to have the court decide the
other way."[690]

Lincoln also betrayed his fear lest Douglas should draw Republican
votes. Knowing the strong anti-slavery sentiment of the region, he
asked when Douglas had shown anything but indifference on the subject
of slavery. Away with this quibbling about inferior races! "Let us
discard all these things and unite as one people throughout this land,
until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created
equal."[691]

From Chicago Douglas journeyed like a conquering hero to Bloomington.
At every station crowds gathered to see his gaily decorated train and
to catch a glimpse of the famous senator. A platform car bearing a
twelve-pound gun was attached to the train and everywhere "popular
sovereignty," as the cannon was dubbed, heralded his arrival.[692] On
the evening of July 16th he addressed a large gathering in the open
air; and again he had among his auditors, Abraham Lincoln, who was hot
upon his trail.[693] The county and district in which Bloomington was
situated had once been strongly Whig; but was now as strongly
Republican. With the local conditions in mind, Douglas made an artful
plea for support. He gratefully acknowledged the aid of the
Republicans in the recent anti-Lecompton fight, and of that worthy
successor of the immortal Clay, John J. Crittenden of Kentucky. After
all, was it not a common principle for which they had been contending?
"My friends," said Douglas with engaging ingenuousness, "when I am
battling for a great principle, I want aid and support from whatever
quarter I can get it." Pity, then, that Republican politicians, in
order to defeat him, should form an alliance with Lecompton men and
thus betray the cause![694]

Douglas called attention to Lincoln's explanation of his
house-divided-against-itself argument. It still seemed to him to
invite a war of sections. Mr. Lincoln had said that he had no wish to
see the people _enter into_ the Southern States and interfere with
slavery: for his part, he was equally opposed to a sectional agitation
to control the institutions of other States.[695] Again, Mr. Lincoln
had said that he proposed, so far as in him lay, to secure a reversal
of the Dred Scott decision. How, asked Douglas, will he accomplish
this? There can be but one way: elect a Republican President who will
pack the bench with Republican justices. Would a court so constituted
command respect?[696]

As to the effect of the Dred Scott decision upon slavery in the
Territories, Douglas had only this to say: "With or without that
decision, slavery will go just where the people want it, and not one
inch further." "Hence, if the people of a Territory want slavery, they
will encourage it by passing affirmatory laws, and the necessary
police regulations, patrol laws, and slave code; if they do not want
it they will withhold that legislation, and by withholding it slavery
is as dead as if it was prohibited by a constitutional prohibition,
especially if, in addition, their legislation is unfriendly, as it
would be if they were opposed to it. They could pass such local laws
and police regulations as would drive slavery out in one day, or one
hour, if they were opposed to it, and therefore, so far as the
question of slavery in the Territories is concerned, so far as the
principle of popular sovereignty is concerned, in its practical
operation, it matters not how the Dred Scott case may be decided with
reference to the Territories."[697]

The closing words of the speech approached dangerously near to bathos.
Douglas pictured himself standing beside the deathbed of Clay and
pledging his life to the advocacy of the great principle expressed in
the compromise measures of 1850, and later in the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
Strangely enough he had given the same pledge to "the god-like
Webster."[698] This filial reverence for Clay and Webster, whom
Douglas had fought with all the weapons of partisan warfare, must have
puzzled those Whigs in his audience who were guileless enough to
accept such statements at their face value.

Devoted partisans accompanied Douglas to Springfield, on the following
day. In spite of the frequent downpours of rain and the sultry
atmosphere, their enthusiasm never once flagged. On board the same
train, surrounded by good-natured enemies, was Lincoln, who was also
to speak at the capital.[699] Douglas again found a crowd awaiting
him. He had much the same things to say. Perhaps his arraignment of
Lincoln's policy was somewhat more severe, but he turned the edges of
his thrusts by a courteous reference to his opponent, "with whom he
anticipated no personal collision." For the first time he alluded to
Lincoln's charge of conspiracy, but only to remark casually, "If Mr.
Lincoln deems me a conspirator of that kind, all I have to say is that
I do not think so badly of the President of the United States, and the
Supreme Court of the United States, the highest judicial tribunal on
earth, as to believe that they were capable in their actions and
decision of entering into political intrigues for partisan
purposes."[700]

Meantime Lincoln, addressing a Republican audience, was relating his
recent experiences in the enemy's camp. Believing that he had
discovered the line of attack, he sought to fortify his position. He
did not contemplate the abolition of State legislatures, nor any such
radical policy, any more than the fathers of the Republic did, when
they sought to check the spread of slavery by prohibiting it in the
Territories.[701] He did not propose to resist the Dred Scott decision
except as a rule of political action.[702] Here in Sangamon County, he
was somewhat less insistent upon negro equality. The negro was not the
equal of the white man in all respects, to be sure; "still, in the
right to put into his mouth the bread that his own hands have earned,
he is the equal of every other man, white or black."[703]

As matters stood, Douglas had the advantage of Lincoln, since with his
national prominence and his great popularity, he was always sure of
an audience, and could reply as he chose to the attacks of his
antagonist. Lincoln felt that he must come to close terms with Douglas
and extort from him admissions which would discredit him with
Republicans. With this end in view, Lincoln suggested that they
"divide time, and address the same audiences the present
canvass."[704] It was obviously to Douglas's interest to continue the
campaign as he had begun. He had already mapped out an extensive
itinerary. He therefore replied that he could not agree to such an
arrangement, owing to appointments already made and to the possibility
of a third candidate with whom Lincoln might make common cause. He
intimated, rather unfairly, that Lincoln had purposely waited until he
was already bound by his appointments. However, he would accede to the
proposal so far as to meet Lincoln in a joint discussion in each
congressional district except the second and sixth, in which both had
already spoken.[705]

It was not such a letter as one would expect from a generous opponent.
But politics was no pastime to the writer. He was sparring now in
deadly earnest, for every advantage. Not unnaturally Lincoln resented
the imputation of unfairness; but he agreed to the proposal of seven
joint debates. Douglas then named the times and places; and Lincoln
agreed to the terms, rather grudgingly, for he would have but three
openings and closings to Douglas's four.[706] Still, as he had
followed Douglas in Chicago, he had no reason to complain.

The next three months may be regarded as a prolonged debate,
accentuated by the seven joint discussions. The rival candidates
traversed much the same territory, and addressed much the same
audiences on successive days. At times, chance made them
fellow-passengers on the same train or steamboat. Douglas had already
begun his itinerary, when Lincoln's last note reached him in Piatt
County.[707] He had just spoken at Clinton, in De Witt County, and
again he had found Lincoln in the audience.

No general ever planned a military campaign with greater regard to the
topography of the enemy's country, than Douglas plotted his campaign
in central Illinois. For it was in the central counties that the
election was to be won or lost. The Republican strength lay in the
upper, northern third of the State; the Democratic strength, in the
southern third. The doubtful area lay between Ottawa on the north and
Belleville on the south; Oquawka on the northwest and Paris on the
east. Only twice did Douglas make any extended tour outside this area:
once to meet his appointment with Lincoln at Freeport; and once to
engage in the third joint debate at Jonesboro.

The first week in August found Douglas speaking at various points
along the Illinois River to enthusiastic crowds. Lincoln followed
closely after, bent upon weakening the force of his opponent's
arguments by lodging an immediate demurrer against them. On the whole,
Douglas drew the larger crowds; but it was observed that Lincoln's
audiences increased as he proceeded northward. Ottawa was the
objective point for both travelers, for there was to be held the first
joint debate on August 21st.

An enormous crowd awaited them. From sunrise to mid-day men, women,
and children had poured into town, in every sort of conveyance. It was
a typical midsummer day in Illinois. The prairie roads were thoroughly
baked by the sun, and the dust rose, like a fine powder, from beneath
the feet of horses and pedestrians, enveloping all in blinding clouds.
A train of seventeen cars had brought ardent supporters of Douglas
from Chicago. The town was gaily decked; the booming of cannon
resounded across the prairie; bands of music added to the excitement
of the occasion. The speakers were escorted to the public square by
two huge processions. So eager was the crowd that it was with much
difficulty, and no little delay, that Lincoln and Douglas, the
committee men, and the reporters, were landed on the platform.[708]

For the first time in the campaign, the rival candidates were placed
side by side. The crowd instinctively took its measure of the two men.
They presented a striking contrast:[709] Lincoln, tall, angular, and
long of limb; Douglas, short, almost dwarfed by comparison,
broad-shouldered and thick-chested. Lincoln was clad in a frock coat
of rusty black, which was evidently not made for his lank, ungainly
body. His sleeves did not reach his wrists by several inches, and his
trousers failed to conceal his huge feet. His long, sinewy neck
emerged from a white collar, drawn over a black tie. Altogether, his
appearance bordered upon the grotesque, and would have provoked mirth
in any other than an Illinois audience, which knew and respected the
man too well to mark his costume. Douglas, on the contrary, presented
a well-groomed figure. He wore a well-fitting suit of broadcloth; his
linen was immaculate; and altogether he had the appearance of a man of
the world whom fortune had favored.

The eyes of the crowd, however, sought rather the faces of the rival
candidates. Lincoln looked down upon them with eyes in which there was
an expression of sadness, not to say melancholy, until he lost himself
in the passion of his utterance. There was not a regular feature in
his face. The deep furrows that seamed his countenance bore
unmistakable witness to a boyhood of grim poverty and grinding toil.
Douglas surveyed the crowd from beneath his shaggy brows, with bold,
penetrating gaze. Every feature of his face bespoke power. The
deep-set eyes; the dark, almost sinister, line between them; the mouth
with its tightly-drawn lips; the deep lines on his somewhat puffy
cheeks--all gave the impression of a masterful nature, accustomed to
bear down opposition. As men observed his massive brow with its mane
of abundant, dark hair; his strong neck; his short, compact body; they
instinctively felt that here was a personality not lightly to be
encountered. He was "the very embodiment of force, combativeness, and
staying power."[710]

When Douglas, by agreement, opened the debate, he was fully conscious
that he was addressing an audience which was in the main hostile to
him. With the instinct of a born stump speaker, he sought first to
find common ground with his hearers. Appealing to the history of
parties, he pointed out the practical agreement of both Whig and
Democratic parties on the slavery question down to 1854. It was when,
in accordance with the Compromise of 1850, he brought in the
Kansas-Nebraska bill, that Lincoln and Trumbull entered into an
agreement to dissolve the old parties in Illinois and to form an
Abolition party under the pseudonym "Republican." The terms of the
alliance were that Lincoln should have Senator Shields' place in the
Senate, and that Trumbull should have Douglas's, when his term should
expire.[711] History, thus interpreted, made not Douglas, but his
opponent, the real agitator in State politics.

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