Stephen A. Douglas by Allen Johnson

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[Footnote 823: _Ibid._, p. 8.]

[Footnote 824: _Ibid._, p. 36.]

[Footnote 825: Especially in securing votes from the delegations of
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where the influence of the
administration was strong. Halstead, Political Conventions of 1860,
pp. 25-28.]

[Footnote 826: Halstead, Political Conventions of 1860, p. 36.]

[Footnote 827: Stanwood, History of the Presidency, pp. 283-288.]

[Footnote 828: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, p. 446.]

[Footnote 829: _Ibid._, p. 448.]

[Footnote 830: Halstead, Political Conventions of 1860, p. 49.]

[Footnote 831: _Ibid._, p. 50.]

[Footnote 832: _Ibid._, pp. 74-75.]

[Footnote 833: Proceedings of the National Democratic Convention, pp.
46-53.]

[Footnote 834: Halstead, Political Conventions of 1860, p. 78.]

[Footnote 835: _Globe_, 36 Cong., 1 Sess., App., p. 313.]

[Footnote 836: _Ibid._, p. 316.]

[Footnote 837: _Globe_, 36 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 2120.]

[Footnote 838: _Globe_, 36 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 2155.]

[Footnote 839: _Ibid._, p. 2156.]

[Footnote 840: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, p. 456.]

[Footnote 841: _Globe_, 36 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 2344.]

[Footnote 842: See Wise, Life of Henry A. Wise, pp. 264-265.]

[Footnote 843: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, p. 472.]

[Footnote 844: _Ibid._, p. 472.]

[Footnote 845: Halstead, Political Conventions of 1860, pp. 227-228.]

[Footnote 846: _Ibid._, pp. 194-195.]

[Footnote 847: The letter was written at Washington, June 22d, at 9:30
a.m.]

[Footnote 848: Stanwood, History of the Presidency, p. 286; Halstead,
Political Conventions of 1860, p. 211.]

[Footnote 849: Halstead, p. 216.]

[Footnote 850: Flint, Douglas, pp. 213-215.]

[Footnote 851: New York _Times_, July 3, 1860.]

[Footnote 852: _Ibid._, June 26.]

[Footnote 853: MS. letter, Douglas to C.H. Lanphier, July 5, 1860. He
wrote in a similar vein to a friend in Missouri, July 4, 1860.]

[Footnote 854: New York _Times_, July 20, 1860.]

[Footnote 855: _Ibid._, July 21.]

[Footnote 856: _Ibid._, July 21.]

[Footnote 857: _Ibid._, July 24.]

[Footnote 858: _Ibid._, July 28.]

[Footnote 859: New York _Times_, July. 24.]

[Footnote 860: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, pp. 482-483.]

[Footnote 861: Wilson, Slave Power in America, II, p. 699.]

[Footnote 862: This was the view of a well-informed correspondent of
the New York _Times_, August 10, 14, 16, 1860. From this point of
view, Douglas's tour through Maine in August takes on special
significance.]

[Footnote 863: Wilson, Slave Power in America, II, 699.]

[Footnote 864: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, pp. 487,
489.]

[Footnote 865: New York _Times_, August 16, 1860.]

[Footnote 866: _Ibid._, August 29, 1860.]

[Footnote 867: This can hardly be regarded as a sober opinion.
Clingman had become convinced by conversation with Douglas that he was
not making the canvass in his own behalf, but in order to weaken and
divide the South, so as to aid Lincoln. Clingman, Speeches and
Writings, p. 513.]

[Footnote 868: Clingman, Speeches and Writings, p. 513.]

[Footnote 869: North Carolina _Standard_, September 5, 1860.]

[Footnote 870: Correspondent to New York _Times_, September 5, 1860.]

[Footnote 871: _Ibid._, September 7, 1860.]

[Footnote 872: New York _Tribune_, September 10, 1860. Greeley did
Douglas an injustice when he accused him of courting votes by favoring
a protective tariff in Pennsylvania. The misapprehension was doubtless
due to a garbled associated press dispatch.]

[Footnote 873: Clingman, Speeches and Writings, p. 513.]

[Footnote 874: New York _Times_, September 27, 1860.]

[Footnote 875: New York _Times_, September 13, 1860.]

[Footnote 876: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 877: His movements were still followed by the New York
_Times_, which printed his list of appointments.]

[Footnote 878: Chicago _Times_ and _Herald_, October 9, 1860.]

[Footnote 879: Chicago _Times and Herald_, October 6, 1860.]

[Footnote 880: Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America,
II, p. 700; see also Forney's Eulogy of Douglas, 1861.]

[Footnote 881: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, p. 493.]

[Footnote 882: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 883: Chicago _Times and Herald_, October 24, 1860.]

[Footnote 884: Philadelphia _Press_, October 29, 1860.]

[Footnote 885: Savannah (Ga.) _Express_, quoted by Chicago _Times and
Herald_, October 25, 1860.]

[Footnote 886: There was a bare reference to the Montgomery incident
in the Chicago _Times and Herald_, November 12, 1860.]

[Footnote 887: Wilson, Slave Power in America, II, p. 700.]

[Footnote 888: Chicago _Times and Herald_, November 13, 1860;
Philadelphia _Press_, November 28, 1860.]

[Footnote 889: Chicago _Times and Herald_, November 19, 1860.]

[Footnote 890: Stanwood, History of the Presidency, p. 297.]

[Footnote 891: Douglas and Bell polled 135,057 votes more than
Breckinridge; see Greeley, American Conflict, I, p. 328.]

CHAPTER XIX

THE MERGING OF THE PARTISAN IN THE PATRIOT

On the day after the election, the palmetto and lone star flag was
thrown out to the breeze from the office of the Charleston _Mercury_
and hailed with cheers by the populace. "The tea has been thrown
overboard--the revolution of 1860 has been initiated," said that
ebullient journal next morning.[892] On the 10th of November, the
legislature of South Carolina called a convention of the people to
consider the relations of the Commonwealth "with the Northern States
and the government of the United States." The instantaneous approval
of the people of Charleston, the focus of public opinion in the State,
left no doubt that South Carolina would secede from the Union soon
after the 17th of December, when the convention was to assemble. On
November 23d, Major Robert Anderson, in command of Fort Moultrie in
Charleston harbor, urged the War Department to reinforce his garrison
and to occupy also Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney, saying, "I need
not say how anxious I am--indeed, determined, so far as honor will
permit--to avoid collision with the citizens of South Carolina.
Nothing, however, will be better calculated to prevent bloodshed than
our being found in such an attitude that it would be madness and folly
to attack us." "That there is a settled determination," he continued,
"to leave the Union, and to obtain possession of this work, is
apparent to all."[893] No sane man could doubt that a crisis was
imminent. Unhappily, James Buchanan was still President of the United
States.

To those who greeted Judge Douglas upon his return to Washington, he
seemed to be in excellent health, despite rumors to the contrary.[894]
Demonstrative followers insisted upon hearing his voice immediately
upon his arrival, and he was not unwilling to repeat what he had said
at New Orleans, here within hearing of men of all sections. The burden
of his thought was contained in a single sentence: "Mr. Lincoln,
having been elected, must be inaugurated in obedience to the
Constitution." "Fellow citizens," he said, in his rich, sonorous
voice, sounding the key-note of his subsequent career, "I beseech you,
with reference to former party divisions, to lay aside all political
asperities, all personal prejudices, to indulge in no criminations or
recriminations, but to unite with me, and all Union-loving men, in a
common effort to save the country from the disasters which threaten
it."[895]

In the midst of forebodings which even the most optimistic shared,
Congress reassembled. Feeling was tense in both houses, but it was
more noticeable in the Senate, where, hitherto, political differences
had not been a barrier to social intercourse. Senator Iverson put into
words what all felt: "Look at the spectacle exhibited on this floor.
How is it? There are Republican Northern senators upon that side. Here
are Southern senators on this side. How much social intercourse is
there between us? You sit upon your side, silent and gloomy; we sit
upon ours with knit brows and portentous scowls.... Here are two
hostile bodies on this floor; and it is but a type of the feeling that
exists between the two sections."[896]

Southern senators hastened to lay bare their grievances. However much
they might differ in naming specific, tangible ills, they all agreed
upon the great cause of their apprehension and uneasiness. Davis
voiced the common feeling when he said, "I believe the true cause of
our danger to be that a sectional hostility has been substituted for a
general fraternity."[897] And his colleague confirmed this opinion.
Clingman put the same thought more concretely when he declared that
the South was apprehensive, not because a dangerous man had been
elected to the presidency; but because a President had been elected
who was known to be a dangerous man and who had declared his purpose
to war upon the social system of the South.[898]

With the utmost boldness, Southern senators announced the impending
secession of their States. "We intend," said Iverson of Georgia
speaking for his section, "to go out peaceably if we can, forcibly if
we must.... In this state of feeling, divided as we are by interests,
by a geographical feeling, by everything that makes two people
separate and distinct, I ask why we should remain in the same Union
together?"[899]

No Northern senator had better reason than Douglas to believe that
these were not merely idle threats. The knowledge sobered him. In this
hour of peril, his deep love for the Union welled up within him,
submerging the partisan and the politician. "I trust," he said,
rebuking a Northern senator, "we may lay aside all party grievances,
party feuds, partisan jealousies, and look to our country, and not to
our party, in the consequences of our action. Sir, I am as good a
party man as anyone living, when there are only party issues at stake,
and the fate of political parties to be provided for. But, Sir, if I
know myself, I do not desire to hear the word party, or to listen to
any party appeal, while we are considering and discussing the
questions upon which the fate of the country now hangs."[900]

In this spirit Douglas welcomed from the South the recital of special
grievances. "Give us each charge and each specification.... I hold
that there is no grievance growing out of a nonfulfillment of
constitutional obligations, which cannot be remedied under the
Constitution and within the Union."[901] And when the Personal Liberty
Acts of Northern States were cited as a long-standing grievance, he
heartily denounced them as in direct violation of the letter and the
spirit of the Constitution. At the same time he contended that these
acts existed generally in the States to which few fugitives ever fled,
and that the Fugitive Slave Act was enforced nineteen out of twenty
times. It was the twentieth case that was published abroad through the
press, misleading the South. In fact, the present excitement was, to
his mind, due to the inability of the extremes of North and South to
understand each other. "Those of us that live upon the border, and
have commercial intercourse and social relations across the line, can
live in peace with each other." If the border slave States and the
border free States could arbitrate the question of slavery, the Union
would last forever.[902]

Arbitration and compromise--these were the words with which the
venerable Crittenden of Kentucky, successor to Clay, now endeavored to
rally Union-loving men. He was seconded by his colleague, Senator
Powell, who had already moved the appointment of a special committee
of thirteen, to consider the grievances between the slave-holding and
non-slave-holding States. Douglas put himself unreservedly at the
service of the party of compromise. It seemed, for the moment, as
though the history of the year 1850 were to be repeated. Now, as then,
the initiative was taken by a senator from the border-State of
Kentucky. Again a committee of thirteen was to prepare measures of
adjustment. The composition of the committee was such as to give
promise of a settlement, if any were possible. Seward, Collamer, Wade,
Doolittle, and Grimes, were the Republican members; Douglas, Rice, and
Bigler represented the Democracy of the North. Davis and Toombs
represented the Gulf States; Powell, Crittenden, and Hunter, the
border slave States.[903]

On the 22d of December, the committee took under consideration the
Crittenden resolutions, which proposed six amendments to the
Constitution and four joint resolutions. The crucial point was the
first amendment, which would restore the Missouri Compromise line "in
all the territory of the United States now held, or hereafter
acquired." Could this disposition of the vexing territorial question
have been agreed upon, the other features of the compromise would
probably have commanded assent. But this and all the other proposed
amendments were defeated by the adverse vote of the Republican members
of the committee.[904]

The outcome was disheartening. Douglas had firmly believed that
conciliation, or concession, alone could save the country from civil
war.[905] When the committee first met informally[906] the news was
already in print that the South Carolina convention had passed an
ordinance of secession. Under the stress of this event, and of others
which he apprehended, Douglas had voted for all the Crittenden
amendments and resolutions, regardless of his personal predilections.
"The prospects are gloomy," he wrote privately, "but I do not yet
despair of the Union. _We can never acknowledge the right of a State
to secede and cut us off from the ocean and the world, without our
consent._ But in view of impending civil war with our brethren in
nearly one-half of the States of the Union, I will not consider the
question of force and war until all efforts at peaceful adjustment
have been made and have failed. The fact can no longer be disguised
that many of the Republican leaders desire war and disunion under
pretext of saving the Union. They wish to get rid of the Southern
senators in order to have a majority in the Senate to confirm
Lincoln's appointments; and many of them think they can hold a
permanent Republican ascendancy in the Northern States, but not in
the whole Union. For partisan reasons, therefore, they are anxious to
dissolve the Union, if it can be done without making them responsible
before the people. I am for the Union, and am ready to make any
reasonable sacrifice to save it. No adjustment will restore and
preserve peace _which does not banish the slavery question from
Congress forever_ and place it beyond the reach of Federal
legislation. Mr. Crittenden's proposition to extend the Missouri line
accomplishes this object, and hence I can accept it now for the same
reasons that I proposed it in 1848. I prefer our own plan of
non-intervention and popular sovereignty, however."[907]

The propositions which Douglas laid before the committee proved to be
even less acceptable than the Crittenden amendments. Only a single,
insignificant provision relating to the colonizing of free negroes in
distant lands, commended itself to a majority of the committee.[908]
All hope of an agreement had now vanished. Sad at heart, Douglas voted
to report the inability of the committee to agree upon any general
plan of adjustment.[909] Yet he did not abandon all hope; he was not
yet ready to admit that the dread alternative must be accepted. He
joined with Crittenden in replying to a dispatch from the South: "We
have hopes that the rights of the South, and of every State and
section, may be protected within the Union. Don't give up the ship.
Don't despair of the Republic."[910] And when Crittenden proposed to
the Senate that the people at large should be allowed to express their
approval, or disapproval, of his amendments by a vote, Douglas
cordially indorsed the suggested referendum in a speech of great
power.

There was dross mingled with the gold in this speech of January 3d.
Not all his auditors by any means were ready to admit that the attempt
of the Federal government to control the slavery question in the
Territories, regardless of the wishes of the inhabitants, was the real
cause of Southern discontent. Nor were all willing to concede that
"whenever Congress had refrained from such interference, harmony and
fraternal feeling had been restored."[911] The history of Kansas was
still too recent. Yet from these premises, Douglas drew the conclusion
"that the slavery question should be banished forever from the Halls
of Congress and the arena of Federal politics by an irrepealable
constitutional provision."[912]

The immediate occasion for revolution in the South was no doubt the
outcome of the presidential election; but that it furnished a just
cause for the dissolution of the Union, he would not for an instant
admit. No doubt Mr. Lincoln's public utterances had given some ground
for apprehension. No one had more vigorously denounced these
dangerous, revolutionary doctrines than he; but neither Mr. Lincoln
nor his party would have the power to injure the South, if the
Southern States remained in the Union and maintained full delegations
in Congress. "Besides," he added, "I still indulge the hope that when
Mr. Lincoln shall assume the high responsibilities which will soon
devolve upon him, he will be fully impressed with the necessity of
sinking the politician in the statesman, the partisan in the patriot,
and regard the obligations which he owes to his country as paramount
to those of his party."[913]

No one brought the fearful alternatives into view, with such
inexorable logic, as Douglas in this same speech. While he denounced
secession as "wrong, unlawful, unconstitutional, and criminal," he was
bound to recognize the fact of secession. "South Carolina had no right
to secede; _but she has done it_. The rights of the Federal government
remain, but possession is lost. How can possession be regained, by
arms or by a peaceable adjustment of the matters in controversy? _Are
we prepared for war?_ I do not mean that kind of preparation which
consists of armies and navies, and supplies, and munitions of war; but
are we prepared IN OUR HEARTS for war with our own brethren and
kindred? I confess I am not."[914]

These were not mere words for oratorical effect. They were expressions
wrung from a tortured heart, bound by some of the tenderest of human
affections to the people of the South. Buried in the land of her birth
rested the mother of his two boys, whom he had loved tenderly and
truly. There in the Southland were her kindred, the kindred of his two
boys, and many of his warmest personal friends. The prospect of war
brought no such poignant grief to men whose associations for
generations had been confined to the North.

Returning to the necessity of concession and compromise, he frankly
admitted that he had thrown consistency to the winds. The preservation
of the Union was of more importance than party platforms or individual
records. "I have no hesitation in saying to senators on all sides of
this Chamber, that I am prepared to act on this question with
reference to the present exigencies of the case, as if I had never
given a vote, or uttered a word, or had an opinion upon the
subject."[915]

Nor did he hesitate to throw the responsibility for disagreement in
the Committee of Thirteen upon the Republican members. In the name of
peace he pled for less of party pride and the pride of individual
opinion. "The political party which shall refuse to allow the people
to determine for themselves at the ballot-box the issue between
revolution and war on the one side, and obstinate adherence to a party
platform on the other, will assume a fearful responsibility. A war
upon a political issue, waged by the people of eighteen States against
the people and domestic institutions of fifteen sister-States, is a
fearful and revolting thought."[916] But Republican senators were deaf
to all warnings from so recent a convert to non-partisan politics.

While the Committee of Thirteen was in session, Major Anderson moved
his garrison from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor,
urging repeatedly the need of reinforcements. At the beginning of the
new year, President Buchanan was inspired to form a good resolution.
He resolved that Anderson should not be ordered to return to Moultrie
but should be reinforced. On the 5th of January, the "Star of the
West," with men, arms and ammunition, was dispatched to Charleston
harbor. On the 9th the steamer was fired upon and forced to return
without accomplishing its mission. Then came the news of the secession
of Mississippi. In rapid succession Florida, Alabama, and Georgia
passed ordinances of secession.[917] Louisiana and Texas were sure to
follow the lead of the other cotton States.

In spite of these untoward events, the Republican senators remained
obdurate. Their answer to the Crittenden referendum proposition was
the Clark resolution, which read, "The provisions of the Constitution
are ample for the preservation of the Union, and the protection of all
the material interests of the country; it needs to be obeyed rather
than amended."[918] On the 21st of the month, the senators of the
seceding States withdrew; yet Douglas could still say to anxious Union
men at the South, "There is hope of adjustment, and the prospect has
never been better than since we first assembled."[919] And Senator
Crittenden concurred in this view. On what could they have grounded
their hopes?

Douglas still believed in the efficacy of compromise to preserve the
Union. Through many channels he received intelligence from the South,
and he knew well that the leaders of public opinion were not of one
mind. Some, at least, regarded the proposed Southern confederacy as a
means of securing a revision of the Constitution. Men like Benjamin of
Louisiana were still ready to talk confidentially of a final
adjustment.[920] Moreover, there was a persistent rumor that Seward
was inclining to the Crittenden Compromise; and Seward, as the
prospective leader of the incoming administration, would doubtless
carry many Republicans with him. Something, too, might be expected
from the Peace Convention, which was to meet on February 4th, in
Washington.

Meantime Douglas lent his aid to such legislative labors as the
exigencies of the hour permitted. Once again, he found himself acting
with the Republicans to do justice to Kansas, for Kansas was now a
suppliant for admission into the Union with a free constitution. Again
specious excuses were made for denying simple justice. Toward the
obstructionists, his old enemies, Douglas showed no rancor: there was
no time to lose in personalities. "The sooner we close up this
controversy the better, if we intend to wipe out the excited and
irritated feelings that have grown out of it. It will have a tendency
to restore good feelings."[921] But not until the Southern senators
had withdrawn, was Kansas admitted to the Union of the States, which
was then hanging in the balance.

Whenever senators from the slave States could be induced to name
their tangible grievances, and not to dwell merely upon anticipated
injuries, they were wont to cite the Personal Liberty Acts. In spite
of his good intentions, Douglas was drawn into an altercation with
Mason of Virginia, in which he cited an historic case where Virginia
had been the offender. Recovering himself, he said ingenuously, "I
hope we are not to bandy these little cases backwards and forwards for
the purpose of sectional irritation. Let us rather meet the question,
and give the Constitution the true construction, and allow all
criminals to be surrendered according to the law of the State where
the offense was committed."[922]

As evidence of his desire to remove this most tangible of Southern
gravamina, Douglas introduced a supplementary fugitive slave bill on
January 28th.[923] Its notable features were the provision for jury
trial in a Federal court, if after extradition a fugitive should
persist in claiming his freedom; and the provisions for the payment of
damages to the claimant, if he should lose through violence a fugitive
slave to whom he had a valid title. The Federal government in turn
might bring suit against the county where the rescue had occurred, and
the county might reimburse itself by suing the offenders to the full
amount of the damages paid.[924] Had this bill passed, it would have
made good the most obvious defects in the much-defamed legislation of
1850; but the time had long since passed, when such concessions would
satisfy the South.

Douglas had to bear many a gibe for his publicly expressed hopes of
peace. Mason denounced his letter to Virginia gentlemen as a "puny,
pusillanimous attempt to hoodwink" the people of Virginia. But Douglas
replied with an earnest reiteration of his expectations. Yet all
depended, he admitted, on the action of Virginia and the border
States. For this reason he deprecated the uncompromising attitude of
the senator from Virginia, when he said, "We want no concessions."
Equally deplorable, he thought, was the spirit evinced by the senator
from New Hampshire who applauded that regrettable remark. "I never
intend to give up the hope of saving this Union so long as there is a
ray left," he cried.[925] Why try to force slavery to go where
experience has demonstrated that climate is adverse and where the
people do not want it? Why prohibit slavery where the government
cannot make it exist? "Why break up the Union upon an abstraction?"
Let the one side give up its demand for protection and the other for
prohibition; and let them unite upon an amendment to the Constitution
which shall deny to Congress the power to legislate upon slavery
everywhere, except in the matter of fugitive slaves and the African
slave-trade. "Do that, and you will have peace; do that, and the Union
will last forever; do that, and you do not extend slavery one inch,
nor circumscribe it one inch; you do not emancipate a slave, and do
not enslave a free-man."[926]

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