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Stephen A. Douglas by Allen Johnson

A >> Allen Johnson >> Stephen A. Douglas




The nomination of Lincoln rather than Seward, at the Republican
convention in Chicago, was a bitter disappointment to those who felt
that the latter was the real leader of the party of moral ideas, and
that the rail-splitter was simply an "available" candidate.[843] But
Douglas, with keener insight into the character of Lincoln, said to a
group of Republicans at the Capitol, "Gentlemen, you have nominated a
very able and a very honest man."[844] For the candidate of the new
Constitutional Union party, which had rallied the politically
unattached of various opinions in a convention at Baltimore, Douglas
had no such words of praise, though he recognized John Bell as a
Unionist above suspicion and as an estimable gentleman.

These nominations rendered it still less prudent for Northern
Democrats to accept a candidate with stronger Southern leanings than
Douglas. No Northern Democrat could carry the Northern States on a
Southern platform; and no Southern Democrat would accept a nomination
on the Douglas platform. Unless some middle ground could be
found,--and the debates in the Senate had disclosed none,--the
Democrats of the North were bound to adhere to Douglas as their first
and only choice in the Baltimore convention.

When the delegates reassembled in Baltimore, the factional quarrel had
lost none of its bitterness. Almost immediately the convention fell
foul of a complicated problem of organization. Some of the original
delegates, who had withdrawn at Charleston, desired to be re-admitted.
From some States there were contesting delegations, notably from
Louisiana and Alabama, where the Douglas men had rallied in force.
Those anti-Douglas delegates who were still members of the convention,
made every effort to re-admit the delegations hostile to him. The
action of the convention turned upon the vote of the New York
delegation, which would be cast solidly either for or against the
admission of the contesting delegations. For three days the fate of
Douglas was in the hands of these thirty-five New Yorkers, in whom the
disposition to bargain was not wanting.[845] It was at this juncture
that Douglas wrote to Dean Richmond, the _Deus ex machina_ in the
delegation,[846] "If my enemies are determined to divide and destroy
the Democratic party, and perhaps the country, rather than see me
elected, and if the unity of the party can be preserved, and its
ascendancy perpetuated by dropping my name and uniting upon some
reliable non-intervention and Union-loving Democrat, I beseech you, in
consultation with my friends, to pursue that course which will save
the country, without regard to my individual interests. I mean all
this letter implies. Consult freely and act boldly for the
right."[847]

It was precisely the "if's" in this letter that gave the New Yorkers
most concern. Where was the candidate who possessed these
qualifications and who would be acceptable to the South? On the fifth
day of the convention, the contesting Douglas delegations were
admitted. The die was cast. A portion of the Virginia delegation then
withdrew, and their example was followed by nearly all the delegates
from North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and Maryland. If the first
withdrawal at Charleston presaged the secession of the cotton States
from the Union, this pointed to the eventual secession of the border
States.

On June 23d, the convention proceeded to ballot. Douglas received
173-1/2 votes; Guthrie 10; and Breckinridge 5; scattering 3. On the
second ballot, Douglas received all but thirteen votes; whereupon it
was moved and carried unanimously with a tremendous shout that
Douglas, having received "two-thirds of all votes given in this
convention," should be the nominee of the party.[848] Colonel
Richardson then begged leave to have the Secretary read a letter from
Senator Douglas. He had carried it in his pocket for three days, but
the course of the bolters, he said, had prevented him from using
it.[849] The letter was of the same tenor as that written to Dean
Richmond. There is little likelihood that an earlier acquaintance with
its contents would have changed the course of events, since so long
as the platform stood unaltered, the choice of Douglas was a logical
and practical necessity. Douglas and the platform were one and
inseparable.

Meantime the bolters completed their destructive work by organizing a
separate convention in Baltimore, by adopting the report of the
majority in the Charleston convention as their platform, and by
nominating John C. Breckinridge as their candidate for the presidency.
Lane of Oregon was named for the second place on the ticket for much
the same reason that Fitzpatrick of Alabama, and subsequently Herschel
V. Johnson of Georgia, was put upon the Douglas ticket. Both factions
desired to demonstrate that they were national Democrats, with
adherents in all sections. In his letter of acceptance Douglas rang
the changes on the sectional character of the doctrine of intervention
either for or against slavery. "If the power and duty of Federal
interference is to be conceded, two hostile sectional parties must be
the inevitable result--the one inflaming the passions and ambitions of
the North, the other of the South."[850] Indeed, his best,--his
only,--chance of success lay in his power to appeal to conservative,
Union-loving men, North and South. This was the secret purpose of his
frequent references to Clay and Webster, who were invoked as
supporters of "the essential, living principle of 1850"; _i.e._ his
own doctrine of non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the
Territories. But the Constitutional Union party was quite as likely to
attract the remnant of the old Whig party of Clay and Webster.

Douglas began his campaign in excellent spirits. His only regret was
that he had been placed in a position where he had to look on and see
a fight without taking a hand in it.[851] The New York _Times_, whose
editor followed the campaign of Douglas with the keenest interest,
without indorsing him, frankly conceded that popular sovereignty had a
very strong hold upon the instinct of nine-tenths of the American
people.[852] Douglas wrote to his Illinois confidant in high spirits
after the ratification meeting in New York.[853] Conceding South
Carolina and possibly Mississippi to Breckinridge, and the border
slave States to Bell, he expressed the firm conviction that he would
carry the rest of the Southern States and enough free States to be
elected by the people. Richardson had just returned from New England,
equally confident that Douglas would carry Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode
Island, and Connecticut. If the election should go to the House of
Representatives, Douglas calculated that Lincoln, Bell, and he would
be the three candidates. In any event, he was sure that Breckinridge
and Lane had "no show." He enjoined his friends everywhere to treat
the Bell and Everett men in a friendly way and to cultivate good
relations with them, "for they are Union men." But, he added, "we can
have no partnership with the Bolters." "Now organize and rally in
Illinois and the Northwest. The chances in our favor are immense in
the East. Organize the State!"

Buoyed up by these sanguine expectations, Douglas undertook a tour
through New England, not to make stump speeches, he declared, but to
visit and enhearten his followers. Yet at every point on the way to
Boston, he was greeted with enthusiasm; and whenever time permitted he
responded with brief allusions to the political situation. As the
guest of Harvard University, at the alumni dinner, he was called upon
to speak--not, to be sure, as a candidate for the presidency, but as
one high in the councils of the nation, and as a generous contributor
to the founding of an educational institution in Chicago.[854] A visit
to Bunker Hill suggested the great principle for which our
Revolutionary fathers fought and for which all good Democrats were now
contending.[855] At Springfield, too, he harked back to the Revolution
and to the beginnings of the great struggle for control of domestic
concerns.[856]

Along the route from Boston to Saratoga, he was given ovations, and
his diffidence about making stump speeches lessened perceptibly.[857]
At Troy, he made a political speech in his own vigorous style,
remarking apologetically that if he did not return home soon, he would
"get to making stump speeches before he knew it."[858] Passing through
Vermont, he visited the grave of his father and the scenes of his
childhood; and here and there, as he told the people of Concord with a
twinkle in his eye, he spoke "a little just for exercise." Providence
recalled the memory of Roger Williams and the principles for which he
suffered--principles so nearly akin to those for which Democrats
to-day were laboring. By this time the true nature of this pilgrimage
was apparent to everybody. It was the first time in our history that a
presidential candidate had taken the stump in his own behalf. There
was bitter criticism on the part of those who regretted the departure
from decorous precedent.[859] When Douglas reached Newport for a brief
sojourn, the expectation was generally entertained that he would
continue in retirement for the remainder of the campaign.

Except for this anomaly of a candidate canvassing in his own behalf,
the campaign was devoid of exciting incidents. The personal canvass of
Douglas was indeed almost the only thing that kept the campaign from
being dull and spiritless.[860] Republican politicians were somewhat
at a loss to understand why he should manoeuvre in a section devoted
beyond question to Lincoln. Indeed, a man far less keen than Douglas
would have taken note of the popular current in New England. Why,
then, this expenditure of time and effort! In all probability Douglas
gauged the situation correctly. He is said to have conceded frankly
that Lincoln would be elected.[861] His contest was less with
Republicans and Constitutional Unionists now, than with the followers
of Breckinridge. He hoped to effect a reorganization of the Democratic
party by crushing the disunion elements within it. With this end in
view he could not permit the organization to go to pieces in the
North. A listless campaign on his part would not only give the
election to Lincoln, but leave his own followers to wander leaderless
into other organizations. For the sake of discipline and future
success, he rallied Northern Democrats for a battle that was already
lost.[862]

Well assured that Lincoln would be elected, Douglas determined to go
South and prepare the minds of the people for the inevitable.[863] The
language of Southern leaders had grown steadily more menacing as the
probability of Republican success increased. It was now proclaimed
from the house-tops that the cotton States would secede, if Lincoln
were elected. Republicans might set these threats down as Southern
gasconade, but Douglas knew the animus of the secessionists better
than they.[864] This determination of Douglas was warmly applauded
where it was understood.[865] Indeed, that purpose was dictated now
alike by politics and patriotism.

On August 25th, Douglas spoke at Norfolk, Virginia. In the course of
his address, an elector on the Breckinridge ticket interrupted him
with two questions. Though taken somewhat by surprise, Douglas with
unerring sagacity detected the purpose of his interrogator and
answered circumstantially.[866] "First, If Abraham Lincoln be elected
President of the United States, will the Southern States be justified
in seceding from the Union?" "To this I emphatically answer no. The
election of a man to the presidency by the American people in
conformity with the Constitution of the United States _would not
justify any attempt at dissolving this glorious confederacy_."
"Second, If they secede from the Union upon the inauguration of
Abraham Lincoln, before an overt act against their constitutional
rights, will you advise or vindicate resistance to the decision!" "I
answer emphatically, that it is the duty of the President of the
United States and of all others in authority under him, to enforce the
laws of the United States, passed by Congress and as the Courts
expound them; and I, as in duty bound by my oath of fidelity to the
Constitution, _would do all in my power to aid the government of the
United States in maintaining the supremacy of the laws against all
resistance to them, come from whatever quarter it might_.... I hold
that the Constitution has a remedy for every grievance that may arise
within the limits of the Union.... The mere inauguration of a
President of the United States, whose political opinions were, in my
judgment, hostile to the Constitution and safety of the Union, without
an overt act on his part, without striking a blow at our institutions
or our rights, is not such a grievance as would justify revolution or
secession." But for the disunionists at the South, Douglas went on to
say, "I would have beaten Lincoln in every State but Vermont and
Massachusetts. As it is I think I will beat him in almost all of them
yet."[867] And now these disunionists come forward and ask aid in
dissolving the Union. "I tell them 'no--never on earth!'"

Widely quoted, this bold defiance of disunion made a profound
impression through the South. At Raleigh, North Carolina, Douglas
entered into collusion with a friend, in order to have the questions
repeated.[868] And again he stated his attitude in unequivocal
language. "I am in favor of executing, in good faith, every clause and
provision of the Constitution, and of protecting every right under it,
and then hanging every man who takes up arms against it. Yes, my
friends, I would hang every man higher than Haman who would attempt to
resist by force the execution of any provision of the Constitution
which our fathers made and bequeathed to us."[869]

He touched many hearts when he reminded his hearers that in the great
Northwest, Northerners and Southerners met and married, bequeathing
the choice gifts of both sections to their children. "When their
children grow up, the child of the same parents has a grandfather in
North Carolina and another in Vermont, and that child does not like to
hear either of those States abused.... He will never consent that this
Union shall be dissolved so that he will be compelled to obtain a
passport and get it _vised_ to enter a foreign land to visit the
graves of his ancestors. You cannot sever this Union unless you cut
the heart strings that bind father to son, daughter to mother, and
brother to sister, in all our new States and territories." And the
heart of the speaker went out to his kindred and his boys, who were
almost within hearing of his voice. "I love my children," he
exclaimed, "but I do not desire to see them survive this Union."

At Richmond, Douglas received an ovation which recalled the days when
Clay was the idol of the Whigs;[870] but as he journeyed northward he
felt more and more the hostility of Breckinridge men, and marked the
disposition of many of his own supporters to strike an alliance with
them. Unhesitatingly he threw the weight of his personal influence
against fusion. At Baltimore, he averred that while Breckinridge was
not a disunionist, every disunionist was a Breckinridge man.[871] And
at Reading, he said, "For one, I can never fuse, and never will fuse
with a man who tells me that the Democratic creed is a dogma, contrary
to reason and to the Constitution.... I have fought twenty-seven
pitched battles, since I entered public life, and never yet traded
with nominations or surrendered to treachery."[872] With equal
pertinacity he refused to countenance any attempts at fusion in North
Carolina.[873] Even more explicitly he declared against fusion in a
speech at Erie: "No Democrat can, without dishonor, and a forfeiture
of self-respect and principle, fuse with anybody who is in favor of
intervention, either for or against slavery.... As Democrats we can
never fuse either with Northern Abolitionists or Southern Bolters and
Secessionists."[874]

In spite of these protests and admonitions, Douglas men in several of
the doubtful States entered into more or less definite agreement with
the supporters of Breckinridge. The pressure put upon him in New York
by those to whom he was indebted for his nomination, was almost too
strong to be resisted. Yet he withstood all entreaties, even to
maintain a discreet silence and let events take their course. Hostile
newspapers expressed his sentiments when they represented him as
opposed to fusion, "all the way from Maine to California."[875]
"Douglas either must have lost his craft as a politician," commented
Raymond, in the editorial columns of the _Times_, "or be credited with
steadfast convictions."[876]

Adverse comment on Douglas's personal canvass had now ceased. Wise men
recognized that he was preparing the public mind for a crisis, as no
one else could. He set his face westward, speaking at numerous
points.[877] Continuous speaking had now begun to tell upon him. At
Cincinnati, he was so hoarse that he could not address the crowds
which had gathered to greet him, but he persisted in speaking on the
following day at Indianapolis. He paused in Chicago only long enough
to give a public address, and then passed on into Iowa.[878] Among his
own people he unbosomed himself as he had not done before in all these
weeks of incessant public speaking. "I am no alarmist. I believe that
this country is in more danger now than at any other moment since I
have known anything of public life. It is not personal ambition that
has induced me to take the stump this year. I say to you who know me,
that the presidency has no charms for me. I do not believe that it is
my interest as an ambitious man, to be President this year if I could.
But I do love this Union. There is no sacrifice on earth that I would
not make to preserve it."[879]

While Douglas was in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, he received a dispatch from
his friend, Forney, announcing that the Republicans had carried
Pennsylvania in the October State election. Similar intelligence came
from Indiana. The outcome in November was thus clearly foreshadowed.
Recognizing the inevitable, Douglas turned to his Secretary with the
laconic words, "Mr. Lincoln is the next President. We must try to save
the Union. I will go South."[880] He at once made appointments to
speak in Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia, as soon as he should have
met his Western engagements. His friends marvelled at his powers of
endurance. For weeks he had been speaking from hotel balconies, from
the platform of railroad coaches, and in halls to monster
mass-meetings.[881] Not infrequently he spoke twice and thrice a day,
for days together. It was often said that he possessed the
constitution of the United States; and he caught up the jest with
delight, remarking that he believed he had. Small wonder if much that
he said was trivial and unworthy of his attention;[882] in and through
all his utterance, nevertheless, coursed the passionate current of his
love for the Union, transfiguring all that was paltry and commonplace.
From Iowa he passed into Wisconsin and Michigan, finally entering
upon his Southern mission at St. Louis, October 19th. "I am not here
to-night," he told his auditors, with a shade of weariness in his
voice, "to ask your votes for the presidency. I am not one of those
who believe that I have any more personal interest in the presidency
than any other good citizen in America. I am here to make an appeal to
you in behalf of the Union and the peace of the country."[883]

It was a courageous little party that left St. Louis for Memphis and
the South. Mrs. Douglas was still with her husband, determined to
share all the hardships that fell to his lot; and besides her, there
was only James B. Sheridan, Douglas's devoted secretary and
stenographer. The Southern press had threatened Douglas with personal
violence, if he should dare to invade the South with his political
heresies.[884] But Luther bound for Worms was not more indifferent to
personal danger than this modern intransigeant. His conduct earned the
hearty admiration of even Republican journals, for no one could now
believe that he courted the South in his own behalf. Nor was there any
foolish bravado in this adventure. He was thoroughly sobered by the
imminence of disunion. When he read, in a newspaper devoted to his
interests, that it was "the deep-seated fixed determination on the
part of the leading Southern States to go out of the Union, peaceably
and quietly," he knew that these words were no cheap rhetoric, for
they were penned by a man of Northern birth and antecedents.[885]

The history of this Southern tour has never been written. It was the
firm belief of Douglas that at least one attempt was made to wreck his
train. At Montgomery, while addressing a public gathering, he was made
the target for nameless missiles.[886] Yet none of these adventures
were permitted to find their way into the Northern press. And only his
intimates learned of them from his own lips after his return.

The news of Mr. Lincoln's election overtook Douglas in Mobile. He was
in the office of the Mobile _Register_, one of the few newspapers
which had held to him and his cause through thick and thin. It now
became a question what policy the paper should pursue. The editor
asked his associate to read aloud an article which he had just
written, advocating a State convention to deliberate upon the course
of Alabama in the approaching crisis. Douglas opposed its publication;
but he was assured that the only way to manage the secession movement
was to appear to go with it, and by electing men opposed to disunion,
to control the convention. With his wonted sagacity, Douglas remarked
that if they could not prevent the calling of a convention, they could
hardly hope to control its action. But the editors determined to
publish the article, "and Douglas returned to his hotel more hopeless
than I had ever seen him before," wrote Sheridan.[887]

On his return to the North, Douglas spoke twice, at New Orleans and at
Vicksburg, urging acquiescence in the result of the election.[888] He
put the case most cogently in a letter to the business men of New
Orleans, which was widely published. No one deplored the election of an
Abolitionist as President more than he. Still, he could not find any
just cause for dissolving the Federal Union in the mere election of any
man to the presidency, in accordance with the Constitution. Those who
apprehended that the new President would carry out the aggressive
policy of his party, failed to observe that his party was in a
minority. Even his appointments to office would have to be confirmed by
a hostile Senate. Any invasion of constitutional rights would be
resented in the North, as well as in the South. In short, the election
of Mr. Lincoln could only serve as a pretext for those who purposed to
break up the Union and to form a Southern Confederacy.[889]

On the face of the election returns, Douglas made a sorry showing; he
had won the electoral vote of but a single State, Missouri, though
three of the seven electoral votes of New Jersey fell to him as the
result of fusion. Yet as the popular vote in the several States was
ascertained, defeat wore the guise of a great personal triumph. Leader
of a forlorn hope, he had yet received the suffrages of 1,376,957
citizens, only 489,495 less votes than Lincoln had polled. Of these
163,525 came from the South, while Lincoln received only 26,430, all
from the border slave States. As compared with the vote of
Breckinridge and Bell at the South, Douglas's vote was insignificant;
but at the North, he ran far ahead of the combined vote of both.[890]
It goes without saying that had Douglas secured the full Democratic
vote in the free States, he would have pressed Lincoln hard in many
quarters. From the national standpoint, the most significant aspect of
the popular vote was the failure of Breckinridge to secure a majority
in the slave States.[891] Union sentiment was still stronger than the
secessionists had boasted. The next most significant fact in the
history of the election was this: Abraham Lincoln had been elected to
the presidency by the vote of a section which had given over a million
votes to his rival, the leader of a faction of a disorganized party.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 810: Flint, Douglas, pp. 205-207.]

[Footnote 811: _Ibid._, pp. 207-209.]

[Footnote 812: _Globe_, 36 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 421.]

[Footnote 813: _Ibid._, pp. 424-425.]

[Footnote 814: _Ibid._, p. 553.]

[Footnote 815: _Globe_, 36 Cong., 1 Sess., pp. 554-555.]

[Footnote 816: _Ibid._, p. 559.]

[Footnote 817: _Globe_, 36 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 658. For the final
version, see p. 935.]

[Footnote 818: Halstead, Political Conventions of 1860, p. 59.]

[Footnote 819: _Ibid._, p. 29.]

[Footnote 820: _Ibid._, p. 5.]

[Footnote 821: _Ibid._, pp. 9 and 20.]

[Footnote 822: Halstead, Political Conventions of 1860, pp. 12-13.]

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