Chapter VII: Stephen A. Douglas (2)

"Now, my friends, if we will only act conscientiously upon this great principle of popular sovereignty, it guarantees to each State and Territory the right to do as it pleases on all things local and domestic; instead of Congress interfering, we will continue at peace one with another. This doctrine of Mr. Lincoln of uniformity among the institutions of the different States is a new doctrine never dreamed of by Washington, Madison, or the framers of the Government. Mr. Lincoln and his party set themselves up as wiser than the founders of the Government, which has flourished for seventy years under the principle of popular sovereignty, recognizing the right of each State to do as it pleased. Under that principle, we have grown from a nation of three or four millions to one of thirty millions of people. We have crossed the mountains and filled up the whole Northwest, turning the prairies into a garden, and building up churches and schools, thus spreading civilization and Christianity where before there was nothing but barbarism. Under that principle we have become from a feeble nation the most powerful upon the face of the earth, and if we only adhere to that principle we can go forward increasing in territory, in power, in strength, and in glory, until the Republic of America shall be the North Star that shall guide the friends of freedom throughout the civilized world. I believe that his new doctrine preached by Mr. Lincoln will dissolve the Union if it succeeds; trying to array all the Northern States in one body against the Southern; to excite a sectional war between the free States and the slave States in order that one or the other may be driven to the wall."

Mr. Lincoln said in reply:

"I think and will try to show, that the repeal of the Missouri Compromise is wrong--wrong in its direct effect, letting slavery into Kansas and Nebraska; wrong in its prospective principle, allowing it to spread to every other part of the wide world where men can be found inclined to take it. This declared indifference, but as I must think covert zeal for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our Republic of an example of its just influence in the world--enables the enemies of free institutions with plausibility to taunt us as hypocrites. I have no prejudices against the Southern people; they are just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did now exist amongst us we would not instantly give it up. This I believe of the masses North and South. When the Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery than we, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the same. I surely will not blame them for what I should not know how to do myself. If all earthly powers were given me, I should not know what to do as to the existing institution."

Declaring that he did not advocate freeing the negroes, and making them our political and social equals, but suggesting that gradual systems of emancipation might be adopted by the States, he added, "But for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the South. But all this to my judgment furnishes no more excuse for permitting slavery to go into our free territory than it would for reviving the African slave trade by law."

He then added:

"I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. But I hold that notwithstanding all this there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects--certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral and intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal, and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man."

Referring to the quotation from his Springfield speech of the words, "A house divided against itself cannot stand," he said:

"Does the Judge say it can stand? If he does, then there is a question of veracity, not between him and me, but between the Judge and an authority of somewhat higher character. I leave it to you to say whether, in the history of our Government, the institution of slavery has not only failed to be a bond of union, but on the contrary been an apple of discord and an element of division in the house. If so, then I have a right to say that in regard to this question the Union is a house divided against itself; and when the Judge reminds me that I have often said to him that the institution of slavery has existed for eighty years in some States and yet it does not exist in some others, I agree to that fact, and I account for it by looking at the position in which our fathers originally placed it--restricting it from the new Territories where it had not gone, and legislating to cut off its source by abrogation of the slave trade, thus putting the seal of legislation against its spread, the public mind did rest in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. Now, I believe if we could arrest its spread and place it where Washington and Jefferson and Madison placed it, it would be in the course of ultimate extinction, and the public mind would--as for eighty years past --believe that it was in the course of ultimate extinction."

Referring further to his Springfield speech, he declared that he had no thought of doing anything to bring about a war between the free and slave States; that he had no thought in the world that he was doing anything to bring about social and political equality of the black and white races.

Pursuing this line of argument, he insisted that the first step in the conspiracy, the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, followed soon by the Dred Scott Decision--the latter fitting perfectly into the niche left by the former--"in such a case, we feel it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin, Roger and James, all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn before the first blow was struck."

In closing, Douglas, after indignant denial of the charge of conspiracy, said:

"I have lived twenty-five years in Illinois; I have served you with all the fidelity and ability which I possess, and Mr. Lincoln is at liberty to attack my public action, my votes, and my conduct, but when he dares to attack my moral integrity by a charge of conspiracy between myself, Chief Justice Taney, and the Supreme Court and two Presidents of the United States, I will repel it."

At Freeport, Mr. Lincoln, in opening the discussion, at once declared his readiness to answer the interrogatories propounded. He said:

"I do not now, nor ever did, stand in favor of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law; I do not now, nor ever did, stand pledged against the admission of any more slave States into the Union; I do not stand pledged against the admission of a new State into the Union with such a Constitution as the people of that State may see fit to make; I do not stand to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia; I do not stand pledged to the prohibition of the slave trade between the different States; I am impliedly, if not expressly, pledged to a belief in the right and duty of Congress to prohibit slavery in all the United States Territories."

Waiving the form of the interrogatory, as to being pledged, he said:

"As to the first one in regard to the Fugitive Slave Law, I have never hesitated to say, and I do not now hesitate to say, that I think under the Constitution of the United States the people of the Southern States are entitled to a Congressional Fugitive Slave Law. Having said that, I have had nothing to say in regard to the existing Fugitive Slave Law further than that I think it should have been framed so as to be free from some of the objections that pertain to it without lessening its efficiency. In regard to whether I am pledged to the admission of any more slave States into the Union, I would be exceedingly glad to know that there would never be another slave State admitted into the Union; but I must add that if slavery shall be kept out of the Territories during the Territorial existence of any one given Territory, and then the people shall, having a fair chance and a clear field when they come to adopt the Constitution, do such an extraordinary thing as to adopt a slavery Constitution uninfluenced by the actual presence of the institution among them, I see no alternative, if we own the country, but to admit them into the Union. I should be exceedingly glad to see slavery abolished in the District of Columbia. I believe that Congress possesses Constitutional power to abolish it. Yet, as a member of Congress, I should not be in favor of endeavoring to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia unless it would be upon these conditions: First, that the abolition should be gradual; second, that it should be on a vote of the majority of qualified voters in the district; third, that compensation should be made unwilling owners. With these conditions, I confess I should be exceedingly glad to see Congress abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and in the language of Henry Clay, 'Sweep from our Capital that foul blot upon our nation.'"

These carefully prepared answers will never cease to be of profound interest to the student of human affairs. They indicate unmistakably the conservative tendency of Mr. Lincoln, and his position at the time as to the legal status of the institution of slavery. But "courage mounteth with occasion." Five years later, and from the hand that penned the answers given came the great proclamation emancipating a race. The hour had struck--and slavery perished. The compromises upon which it rested were, in the mighty upheaval, but as the stubble before the flame.

Recurring to the Freeport debates, Mr. Lincoln propounded to his opponent four interrogatories as follows:

"First, if the people of Kansas shall by means entirely unobjectionable in all other respects adopt a State Constitution and ask admission into the Union under it before they have the requisite number of inhabitants according to the bill--some ninety-three thousand-- will you vote to admit them? Second, can the people of a United States Territory in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a State Constitution? Third, if the Supreme Court of the United States shall decide that States cannot exclude slavery from their limits, are you in favor of acquiescing in, adopting, and following such decision as a rule of political action? Fourth, are you in favor of acquiring additional territory in disregard of how such acquisition may affect the nation on the slavery question?"

The questions propounded reached the marrow of the controversy, and were yet to have a much wider field for discussion. This was especially true of the second of the series. Upon this widely divergent--irreconcilable--views were entertained by Northern and Southern Democrats. The evidence of this is to be found in the respective national platforms upon which Douglas and Mr. Breckenridge were two years later rival candidates of a divided party. The second interrogatory of Mr. Lincoln clearly emphasized this conflict of opinion as it existed at the time of the debates. It is but just, however, to Douglas--of whom little that is kindly has in late years been spoken--to say that there was nothing in the question to cause him surprise or embarrassment. It would be passing strange if during the protracted debates with Senators representing extreme and antagonistic views, a matter so vital as the interpretation of the Kansas-Nebraska Act--as indicated by the interrogatory--had never been under discussion. Conclusive evidence on this point is to be found in the speech delivered by Senator Douglas at Bloomington, July 16, forty-two days before the Freeport debate, in which he said:

"I tell you, my friends, it is impossible under our institutions to force slavery on an unwilling people. If this principle of popular sovereignty, asserted in the Nebraska Bill, be fairly carried out by letting the people decide the question for themselves by a fair vote, at a fair election, and with honest returns, slavery will never exist one day or one hour in any Territory against the unfriendly legislation of an unfriendly people. Hence if the people of a Territory want slavery they will encourage it by passing affirmatory laws, and the necessary police regulations; if they do not want it, they will withhold that legislation, and by withholding it slavery is as dead as if it were prohibited by a Constitutional prohibition. 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 in its practical operation, it matters not how the Dred Scott case may be decided with reference to the Territories. My own opinion on that point is well known. It is shown by my vote and speeches in Congress."

Recurring again to the Freeport debate, in reply to the first interrogatory, Douglas declared that in reference to Kansas it was his opinion that if it had population enough to constitute a slave State, it had people enough for a free State; that he would not make Kansas an exceptional case to the other States of the Union; that he held it to be a sound rule of universal application to require a Territory to contain the requisite population for a member of Congress before its admission as a State into the Union; that it having been decided that Kansas has people enough for a slave State, "I hold it has enough for a free State."

As to the third interrogatory, he said that only one man in the United States, an editor of a paper in Washington, had held such view, and that he, Douglas, had at the time denounced it on the floor of the Senate; that Mr. Lincoln cast an imputation upon the Supreme Court by supposing that it would violate the Constitution; that it would be an act of moral treason that no man on the bench could ever descend to. To the fourth--which he said was very "ingeniously and cunningly put"--he answered that, whenever it became necessary in our growth and progress to acquire more territory he was in favor of it without reference to the question of slavery, and when we had acquired it, he would leave the people to do as they pleased, either to make it free, or slave territory as they preferred.

The answer to the second interrogatory--of which much has been written--was given without hesitation. Language could hardly be more clear or effective. He said:

"To the next question propounded to me I answer emphatically, as Mr. Lincoln has heard me answer a hundred times, that in my opinion the people of a Territory can by lawful means exclude slavery from their limits prior to the formation of a State Constitution. It matters not what way the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to the abstract question whether slavery may or may not go into a Territory under the Constitution, the people have the lawful means to introduce it or exclude it, as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist a day, or an hour anywhere, unless it is supported by local police regulations. These police regulations can only be established by the local Legislature, and if the people are opposed to slavery they will elect representatives to that body who will by unfriendly legislation effectually prevent the introduction of it into their midst. If, on the contrary, they are for it, their Legislature will favor its extension. Hence, no matter what the decision of the Supreme Court may be on that abstract question, still the right of the people to make a slave Territory or a free Territory is perfect and complete under the Nebraska Bill."

The trend of thought, the unmeasured achievement of activities looking to human amelioration, during the fifty intervening years, must be taken into the account before uncharitable judgment upon what has been declared the indifference of Douglas to the question of abstract right involved in the memorable discussion. It must be remembered that the world has moved apace, and that a mighty gulf separates us from that eventful period, in which practical statesmen were compelled to deal with institutions as then existing. And not to be forgotten are the words of the great interpreter of the human heart,

"But know thou this, that men are as the time is."

The great debates between Douglas and Lincoln--the like of which we shall not hear again--had ended and passed to the domain of history. To the inquiry, "Which of the participants was the victor?" there can be no absolute answer. Judged by the immediate result, the former; by consequence more remote and far-reaching, the latter. Within three years from the first meeting at Ottawa, Mr. Lincoln --having been elected and inaugurated President--was upon the threshold of mighty events which are now the masterful theme of history; and his great antagonist in the now historic debates had passed from earthly scenes.

It has been said that Douglas was ambitious.

"If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath he answered it."

We may well believe that, with like honorable ambition to the two great popular leaders of different periods--Clay and Blaine --his goal was the Presidency.

In the last three national conventions of his party preceding his death, he was presented by the Illinois delegation to be named for the great office. The last of these--the Charleston convention of 1860--is now historic. It assembled amid intense party passion, and after a turbulent session that seemed the omen of its approaching doom, adjourned to a later day to Baltimore. Senator Douglas there received the almost solid vote of the Northern, and a portion of that of the Border States, but the hostility of the extreme Southern leaders to his candidacy was implacable to the end. What had seemed inevitable from the beginning at length occurred, and the great historical party--which had administered the Government with brief intermissions from the inauguration of Jefferson--was hopelessly rent asunder. This startling event--and what it might portend-- gave pause to thoughtful men of all parties. It was not a mere incident, but an epoch in history. Mr. Blaine, in his "Twenty Years of Congress," says:

"The situation was the cause of solicitude and even grief with thousands to whom the old party was peculiarly endeared. The traditions of Jefferson, of Madison, of Jackson, were devoutly treasured; and the splendid achievements of the American Democracy were recounted with the pride which attaches to an honorable family inheritance. The fact was recalled that the Republic had grown to its imperial dimensions under Democratic statesmanship. It was remembered that Louisiana had been acquired from France, Florida from Spain, the independent Republic of Texas annexed, and California, with its vast dependencies, and its myriad millions of treasure, ceded by Mexico, all under Democratic administrations, and in spite of the resistance of their opponents. That a party whose history was inwoven with the glory of the Republic should now come to its end in a quarrel over the status of the negro in a country where his labor was not wanted, was to many of its members as incomprehensible as it was sorrowful and exasperating. They might have restored the party to harmony, but at the very height of the factional contest, the representatives of both sections were hurried forward to the National Convention of 1860, with principle subordinated to passion, with judgment displaced by a desire for revenge."

The withdrawal from the Baltimore Convention of a large majority of the Southern delegates and a small following, led by Caleb Cushing and Benjamin F. Butler from the North, resulted in the immediate nomination by the requisite two-thirds vote of Senator Douglas as the Presidential candidate. The platform upon the question of slavery was in substance that contended for by the candidate in the debates with Lincoln. The Democratic party divided --Breckenridge receiving the support of the South--Douglas's candidacy was hopeless from the beginning. But his iron will, and courage, that knew no faltering, never appeared to better advantage than during that eventful canvass. Deserted by former political associates, he visited distant States and addressed immense audiences in defence of the platform upon which he had been nominated, and in advocacy of his own election. His speeches in Southern States were of the stormy incidents of a struggle that has scarcely known a parallel. Interrogated by a prominent citizen at Norfolk, Virginia, "If Lincoln be elected President, would the Southern States be justified in seceding from the Union?" Douglas replied, "I emphatically answer, No. The election of a man to the Presidency in conformity with the Constitution of the United States would not justify an attempt to dissolve the Union."

Defeated in his great ambition, broken in health, the sad witness of the unmistakable portents of the coming sectional strife--the few remaining months of his mortal life were enveloped in gloom. Partisan feeling vanished--his deep concern was now only for his country. Standing by the side of his successful rival--whose wondrous career was only opening, as his own was nearing its close --he bowed profound assent to the imperishable utterances of the inaugural address: "I am loath to close. We are not enemies but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection."

Yet later--immediately upon the firing of the fatal shot at Sumter that suddenly summoned millions from peaceful pursuits to arms-- by invitation of the Illinois Legislature Douglas addressed his countrymen for the last time.

Broken with the storms of state, the fires of ambition forever extinguished, standing upon the threshold of the grave, his soul burdened with the calamities that had befallen his country, in tones of deepest pathos he declared:

"If war must come--if the bayonet must be used to maintain the Constitution--I can say before God, my conscience is clear. I have struggled long for a peaceful solution of the trouble. I deprecate war, but if it must come, I am with my country, and for my country, in every contingency, and under all circumstances. At all hazards our Government must be maintained, and the shortest pathway to peace is through the most stupendous preparation for war."

Who that heard the last public utterance that fell from his lips can forget his solemn invocation to all who had followed his political fortunes, until the banner had fallen from his hand,-- to know only their country in its hour of peril?

The ordinary limit of human life unreached; his intellectual strength unabated; his loftiest aspirations unrealized; at the critical moment of his country's sorest need--he passed to the grave. What reflections and regrets may have been his in that hour of awful mystery, we may not know. In the words of another: "What blight and anguish met his agonized eyes, whose lips may tell? what brilliant broken plans, what bitter rending of sweet household ties, what sundering of strong manhood's friendships?"

In the light of what has been discussed, may we not believe that with his days prolonged, he would during the perilous years have been the safe counsellor--the rock--of the great President, in preserving the nation's life, and later in "binding up the nation's wounds."

Worthy of honored and enduring place in history, Stephen A. Douglas --statesman and patriot--lies buried within the great city whose stupendous development is so largely the result of his own wise forecast and endeavor,--by the majestic lake whose waves break near the base of his stately monument and chant his eternal requiem.