[BEGUN   IN    THE    NOVEMBER    NUMBER.] 
ABRAHAM    LINCOLN  :    A    HISTORY.* 
BY   JOHN    G.    NICOLAY    AND    JOHN    HAY,    PRIVATE    SECRETARIES    TO    THE    PRESIDENT. 
THE     ATTACK     ON     SUMNER,     AND     THE     DRED     SCOTT     CASE. 
CONGRESSIONAL    RUFFIANISM. 
HE  official  reports  show 
that  the  proceedings  of  the 
American  Congress,  while 
in  the  main  conducted  with 
becoming  propriety  and 
decorum,  have  occasion- 
ally been  dishonored  by 
angry  personal  altercations 
and  scenes  of  ruffianly  violence.  These  dis- 
orders increased  as  the  great  political  strug- 
gle over  the  slavery  question  grew  in  intensity, 
and  they  reached  their  culmination  in  a  series 
of  startling  incidents. 
Charles  Sumner,  one  of  the  Senators  from 
the  State  of  Massachusetts,  had  become  con- 
spicuous, in  the  prevailing  political  agitation, 
for  his  aggressive  and  radical  antislavery 
speeches  in  the  Senate  and  elsewhere.  The 
slavery  issue  had  brought  him  into  politics; 
he  had  been  elected  to  the  United  States  Sen- 
ate by  the  coalition  of  a  small  number  of 
Free-soilers  with  the  Democrats  in  the  Massa- 
chusetts legislature.  This  question,  therefore, 
became  the  dominant  principle  and  the  key- 
note of  his  public  career.  He  was  a  man  of 
profound  culture,  of  considerable  erudition  in 
the  law,  of  high  literary  ability,  and  he  had 
attained  an  enviable  social  eminence.  Though 
of  large  physical  frame  and  strength,  the 
combative  quality  was  almost  totally  lacking 
in  his  organization,  a  lack,  however,  which 
was  fully  compensated  by  a  moral  fearless- 
ness that  led  him  to  give  free  utterance  to  his 
convictions. 
In  this  spirit  he  joined  unreservedly  in  the 
exciting  Senate  debates,  provoked  by  the  rival 
applications  from  Kansas  for  her  admission  as 
a  State.  On  the  19th  and  20th  of  May,  1856, 
he  delivered  an  elaborate  speech  in  the  Sen- 
ate, occupying  two  days.  It  was  one  of  his 
greatest  efforts,  and  had  been  prepared  with 
his  usual  industry.  In  character  it  was  a 
philippic  rather  than  an  argument,  strong, 
direct,  and  aggressive,  in  which  classical  il- 
lustration and  acrimonious  accusation  were 
blended  with  great  effect.  It  described  what 
he  called  "  the  crime  against  Kansas  " ;  and 
the  excuses  for  the  crime 'he  denominated  the 
apology  tyrannical,  the  apology  imbecile,  the 
apology  absurd,  and  the  apology  infamous. 
"  Tyranny,  imbecility,  absurdity,  and  infamy," 
he  continued,  u  all  unite  to  dance,  like  the 
weird  sisters,  about  this  crime."  In  the  course 
of  this  speech  he  alluded,  among  others,  to 
Senator  Butler  of  South  Carolina,  and  in  reply 
to  some  severe  strictures  by  that  Senator  dur- 
ing preceding  debates  indulged  in  caustic  per- 
sonal criticism  upon  his  course  and  utterance, 
as  well  as  upon  the  State  of  South  Carolina, 
which  he  represented. 
"With  regret,"  said  Sumner,  "I  come  again  upon 
the  Senator  from  South  Carolina  [Mr.  Butler],  who, 
omnipresent  in  this  debate,  overflowed  with  rage  at 
the  simple  suggestion  that  Kansas  had  applied  for  ad- 
mission as  a  State ;  and  with  incoherent  phrases  dis- 
charged the  loose  expectoration  of  his  speech,  now 
upon  her  representative  and  then  upon  her  people. 
There  was  no  extravagance  of  the  ancient  parliament- 
ary debate  which  he  did  not  repeat;  nor  was  there 
any  possible  deviation  from  truth  which  he  did  not 
make,  with  so  much  of  passion,  I  am  glad  to  add,  as 
to  save  him  from  the  suspicion  of  intentional  aberra- 
tion. But  the  Senator  touches  nothing  which  he  does 
not  disfigure  —  with  error,  sometimes  of  principle, 
sometimes  of  fact.  He  shows  an  incapacity  of  accu- 
racy, whether  in  stating  the  Constitution  or  in  stating 
the  law,  whether  in  details  of  statistics  or  the  diver- 
sions of  scholarship.  He  cannot  open  his  mouth  but 
out  there  flies  a  blunder." 
Butler  was  not  present  in  the  Senate  on 
either  day :  what  he  might  have  said  or  done, 
had  he  been  there,  can  only  be  conjectured. 
The  immediate  replies  from  Douglas  and 
others  were  very  bitter.  Among  pro-slavery 
members  of  both  Houses  there  was  an 
under-current  of  revengeful  murmurs.  It  is 
possible  that  this  hostile  manifestation  may 
have  decided  a  young  member  of  the  House, 
Preston  S.  Brooks,  a  nephew  of  Senator  But- 
ler, to  undertake  retaliation  by  violence.  Ac- 
quainting Edmundson,  another  member,  with 
his  design,  he  waited  on  two  different  occa- 
sions at  the  western  entrance  to  the  Capitol 
grounds  to  encounter  Mr.  Sumner,  but  with- 
out meeting  him. 
On  the  22dof  May,  two  days  after  the  speech, 
Brooks  entered  the  Senate  Chamber  on  the 
same  errand.  The  session  had  been  short,  and 
after  adjournment  Sumner  remained  at  his 
desk,  engaged  in  writing.  The  sessions  were  at 
that  time  held  in  the  old  Senate  Chamber, 
Copyright  by  J.  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  18S6-7.    All  rights  reserved.
—  f 
ABRAHAM  LIXCOLN: 
FLAN     OK     SFNATE     CHAMBER,    1ST    SESSION    34TH     CONGRESS. 
S     oner's  desk.    15.  Where  Brooks  sat.   X.  Where  Sumner  fell. 
now  occupied  by  the  Supreme  Court.  The  seats 
were  arranged  in  semicircles,  with  a  railing  to 
separate  them  from  a  narrow  lobby  or  open 
-pace  next  the  wall;  a  broad  aisle  ran  from  the 
main  door  to  the  desk  of  the  presiding  officer. 
Mr.  Sumner's  seat  was  in  the  outside  row  next 
to  the  railing,  at  the  second  desk  to  the  right 
from  the  entrance  and  the  main  aisle.  Occu- 
pied with  his  work,  Mr.  Sumner  did  not  notice 
Mr.  Brooks  sitting  across  the  aisle  to  his  left, 
and  where  in  conversation  with  a  friend  he  was 
manifesting  his  impatience  that  a  lady  seated 
near  Mr.  Sumner  did  not  take  her  departure 
from  the  chamber.  Almost  at  that  moment 
she  probably  arose  and  went  out,  for  quickly 
afterwards  Brooks  got  up  and  advanced  to  the 
front  of  Sumner's  desk.  The  fact  attracted  the 
attention  of  Brooks's  friend;  he  was  astonished, 
amid  the  bitterness  of  party  feeling,  to  see  a 
South  Carolina  Representative  talk  to  a  Massa- 
chusetts Senator.  His  astonishment  was  quick- 
ly (  orrected.  Leaning  upon  the  desk  and  ad- 
<lrc— ii)Lr  Sumner  with  a  rapid  sentence  or  two, 
to  the  effect  that  he  had  read  his  speech,  that 
it  was  a  libel  upon  his  absent  relative,  and  that 
he  had  come  to  punish  him  for  it,  Brooks  be- 
striking  him  on  the  head  with  a  gutta- 
per<  ha  walking-cane,  of  the  ordinary  length 
and  about  an  inch  in  diameter. 
Surprised,  blinded,  and  stunned  by  the  blows, 
Sumner's  first  instinct  was  to  grapple  with  his 
:iant.  This  effort, however,  was  futile  ;  the 
desk  wa^  between  them,  and  being  by  his 
sitting  posture  partially  under  it,  .Sumner 
was  prevented  from  rising  fully  to  his  feet 
until  he  had  by  main  strength,  in  his  strug- 
gles, wrenched  it  from  its  fastenings  on  the 
floor.  In  his  attempt  to  follow  Brooks  they 
became  turned,  and  from  between  the  desks 
moved  out  into  the  main  aisle.  By  this  time, 
through  the  repetition  of  the  heavy  blows,  and 
loss  of  blood,  Sumner  became  unconscious. 
Brooks,  seizing  him  by  the  coat-collar,  con- 
tinued his  murderous  attack  till  Sumner,  reel- 
ing in  utter  helplessness,  sank  upon  the  floor 
beside  the  desk  nearest  the  aisle,  one  row 
nearer  the  center  of  the  chamber  than  his 
own.  The  witnesses  variously  estimated  the 
number  of  blows  given  at  from  ten  to  thirty. 
Two  principal  wounds,  two  inches  long  and 
an  inch  deep,  had  been  cut  on  the  back  of 
Sumner's  head ;  and  near  the  end  of  the  at- 
tack, Brooks's  cane  was  shivered  to  splinters. 
There  were  perhaps  ten  or  fifteen  persons 
in  the  chamber,  and  after  the  first  momentary 
pause  of  astonishment  half  a  dozen  started 
to  interfere.  Before  they  reached  the  spot, 
however,  Mr.  Keitt,  another  South  Carolina 
member  of  Congress,  came  rushing  down 
the  main  aisle,  brandishing  his  cane,  and 
with  imprecations  warning  lookers-on  to 
"  let  them  alone."  Among  those  hastening 
to  the  rescue,  Mr.  Morgan  arrived  first,  just 
in  time  to  catch  and  sustain  the  Senator  as 
he  fell.  Another  bystander,  who  had  run 
around  outside  the  railing,  seized  Brooks  by 
the  arm  about  the  same  instant;  and  the 
wounded  man  was  borne  to  an  adjoining 
room,  where  he  was  cared  for  by  a  hastily 
summoned  physician. 
Among  Mr.  Sumner's  friends  the  event  cre- 
ated a  certain  degree  of  consternation.  The 
language  which  provoked  the  assault,  what- 
ever might  be  thought  of  its  offensive  character, 
was  strictly  parliamentary ,  uninterrupted  either 
by  the  chair  or  by  any  member.  The  assault 
itself  was  so  desperate  and  brutal  that  it 
implied  a  vindictiveness  deeper  than  mere 
personal  revenge.  This  spirit  of  bullying,  this 
resort  to  violence,  had  recently  become  alarm- 
ingly frequent  among  members  of  Congress, 
especially  as  it  all  came  from  the  pro-slavery 
party.  Since  the  beginning  of  the  current  ses- 
sion, a  pro- slavery  member  from  Virginia  had 
assaulted  the  editor  of  a  Washington  newspa- 
per; another  pro-slavery  member,  from  Arkan- 
sas, had  violently  attacked  Horace  Greeley  on 
the  street;  a  third  pro-slavery  member,  from 
California,  had  shot  an  unoffending  waiter  at 
Willard's  Hotel.  Was  this  fourth  instance  the 
prelude  of  an  intention  to  curb  or  stifle  free 
congressional  debate?  It  is  probable  that 
this  question  was  seriously  considered  at  the 
little  caucus  of  Republican  Senators  held  that 
night  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Seward.  The  Re- 
publicans had  only  a  slender  minority  in  the 
Senate,  and  a  plurality  in  the  House;  they 
could  do  nothing  but  resolve  on  a  course  of 
parliamentary  inquiry,  and  agree  on  an  atti- 
tude of  defense. 
Sumner's  colleague,  Mr.  Wilson,  made  a 
very  brief  announcement  of  the  occurrence 
to  the  Senate  on  the  following  day,  and  it  at 
once  became  apparent  that  the  transaction 
would  assume  an  almost  strictly  party  char-
A   HISTORY. 
actor.  As  no  Democratic  Senator  proposed  an 
inquiry,  Mr.  Seward  moved  for  a  committee 
of  investigation ;  upon  which  Mason  of  Vir- 
ginia proposed  that  the  committee  should  be 
elected  by  ballot.  The  result  was  that  no  Re- 
publican was  chosen  upon  it ;  and  the  com- 
mittee reached  the  conclusion  that  it  had  no 
tenancing  the  assault,  and  of  the  act  of  Keitt 
in  his  personal  interference.  Hut  the  necessary 
two-thirds  vote  for  the  expulsion  of  Brooks 
could  not  be  obtained;  a  vote  of  censure  was 
therefore  passed  by  a  large  majority.  The  dis- 
cussion of  the  report  and  resolutions  occupied 
the  House  several  days,  and  whatever  effort 
CHARLES    SUMNER. 
power  in  the  premises,  except  to  report  the 
occurrence  to  the  House.  In  the  House  the 
usual  committee  from  the  three  parties  was 
raised,  resulting  in  two  reports.  The  minor- 
ity, sustained  by  the  vote  of  sixty  members, 
pleaded  a  want  of  jurisdiction.  The  majority 
recommended  the  expulsion  of  Brooks,  and 
expressed  disapprobation  by  the  House  of  the 
course  of  his  colleague  Edmundson  in  coun- 
Vol.  XXXTV.—  30. 
members  made  to  disguise  their  motives,  their 
actions,  either  of  condemnation  or  of  excuse, 
arose  in  the  main  clearly  enough  from  their 
party  relations.  Under  the  forms  of  parlia- 
mentary debate,  the  South  and  the  North 
were  breathing  mutual  recrimination  and  de- 
fiance. 
The  public  of  both  sections  took  up  the  af- 
fair with  equal  party  zeal.    From  the  North
206 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 
PRESTON     S.    BROOKS. 
came  resolutions  of  legislatures,  outbursts  of 
indignation  in  meetings  and  addresses,  and 
the  denunciation  of  Brooks  and  his  deed  in 
the  newspapers.  In  the  South  the  exactly  op- 
posite sentiment  predominated.  Brooks  was 
defended  and  eulogized,  and  presented  with 
canes  and  pitchers  as  testimonials  to  his 
valor.  When  the  resolution  of  censure  had 
been  passed,  he  at  once  resigned  his  seat  in 
the  House,  and,  going  home  to  his  constitu- 
ents, was  immediately  reelected.  Within  three 
weeks  he  reappeared  at  the  bar  of  the  House, 
with  a  new  commission  from  his  governor, 
and  was  sworn  in  and  continued  his  service 
as  before.  The  somewhat  arrogant  address 
which  preceded  his  resignation  contained 
the  remarkable  intimation  that  much  more 
serious  results  might  have  grown  out  of  the 
incident.  "No  act  of  mine,"  he  said,  "  on 
my  personal  account  shall  inaugurate  revolu- 
tion; but  when  you,  Mr.  Speaker,  return  to 
your  own  home,  and  hear  the  people  of  the 
great  North  —  and  they 
are  a  great  people  — 
speak  of  me  as  a  bad  man, 
you  will  do  me  the  justice 
to  say  that  a  blow  struck 
by  me  at  this  time  would 
be  followed  by  a  revolu- 
tion, and  this  I  know." 
Under  the  state  of  pub- 
lic sentiment  then  prevail- 
ing at  the  South,  it  would 
have  been  strange  if  the  ex- 
traordinary event  and  the 
following  debate  had  not 
provoked  other  similar 
affairs.  Mr.  Sumner's  col- 
league, Senator  Wilson  of 
Massachusetts,  in  his 
speech  characterized  the 
assault  as  "brutal,  mur- 
derous, and  cowardly." 
For  this  language  Brooks 
sent  him  a  challenge.  Wil- 
son wrote  a  reply  declin- 
ing the  encounter,  but  in 
the  same  letter  announc- 
ing that  "  I  religiously 
believe  in  the  right  of  self- 
defense,  in  its  broadest 
sense." 
One  of  the  sharpest  de- 
nunciations of  the  assault 
was  made  by  Burlingame, 
a  Massachusetts  Repre- 
sentative. "  I  denounce 
it,"  he  said,  "  in  the  name 
of  the  Constitution  it  vio- 
lates. I  denounce  it  in  the 
name  of  the  sovereignty 
of  Massachusetts,  which  was  stricken  down 
by  the  blow.  I  denounce  it  in  the  name 
of  humanity.  I  denounce  it  in  the  name  of 
civilization,  which  it  outraged.  I  denounce  it 
in  the  name  of  that  fair  play  which  bullies  and 
prize-fighters  respect."  For  this,  after  some 
efforts  had  been  made  by  mutual  friends  to 
patch  up  an  amicable  understanding,  Brooks 
sent  him  also  a  challenge.  Mr.  Burlingame 
accepted  the  challenge,  and  his  second  desig- 
nated Clifton  House  in  Canada  as  the  ren- 
dezvous and  rifles  as  weapons.  Burlingame 
at  once  started  on  the  journey ;  but  Brooks 
declined  to  go,  on  the  excuse  that  his  life 
would  not  be  safe  on  such  a  trip  through  the 
North. 
Broadened  into  national  significance  by  all 
these  attendant  circumstances,  the  Sumner 
assault  became  a  leading  event  in  the  great 
slavery  contest  which  was  being  fought  out 
between  the  South  and  the  North.  It  might 
well  rank  as  one  of  the  episodes  of  the  civil
A    HISTORY. 
war  then  raging  in  Kansas,  out  of  which  it 
had  in  reality  grown,  and  with  which  it  was 
intertwined  in  motive,  act,  and  comment.  In 
result  the  incident  was  extremely  damag- 
ing to  the  South,  for  it  tended,  much  more 
than  any  single  Border- Ruffian  crime  in  Kan- 
sas, to  unite  hesitating  and  wavering  opinion 
in  the  North  against  the  alarming  flood  of 
lawlessness  and  violence,  which  as  a  rule 
found  its  origin  and  its  defense  in  the  ranks 
of  the  pro-slavery  party.  Certainly  no  phase 
of  the  transaction  was  received  by  the  North 
with  such  popular  favor  as  some  of  the  bolder 
avowals  by  Northern  Representatives  of  their 
readiness  to  fight,  and  especially  by  Burlin- 
game's  actual  acceptance  of  the  challenge  of 
Brooks. 
Readers  of  a  later  generation  will  naturally 
wish  to  know  what  further  befell  Senator  Sum- 
ner. The  shock  of  the  attack,  and  the  serious 
wounds  he  received,  produced  a  spinal  mal- 
ady, from  which  he  rallied  with  great  difficulty, 
and  only  after  severe  medical  treatment  and 
years  of  enforced  abstinence  from  work.  As 
the  constituents  of  Brooks  sent  him  back  to 
the  House,  so  also  the  legislature  of  Massa- 
chusetts, in  January,  1857,  with  but  a  few  dis- 
senting votes,  reelected  Sumner  to  a  new  sen- 
HENRY    WILSON. 
(FROM    A    PHOTOGRAPH     BY    HOYT. ) 
ANSON  BURLINGAME.    (FROM  A  PHOTOGRAPH  BY  WILLIAM  SHAW.) 
atorial  term,  beginning  the  4th  of  March.  He 
came  to  Washington  and  was  sworn  in,  but 
within  a  few  days  sailed  for  Europe,  and  dur- 
ing the  greater  part  of  the  long  interim  between 
that  time  and  the  succeeding  presidential  cam- 
paign his  seat  in  the  Senate  stood  vacant. 
It  was  on  the  4th  of  June,  i860,  that 
he  again  raised  his  voice  in  debate. 
Some  changes  had  occurred ;  both 
Butler  and  Brooks  were  dead;*  the 
Senate  was  assembled  in  its  new  hall 
in  the  north  wing  of  the  Capitol  exten- 
sion. But  in  the  main  the  personnel 
and  the  spirit  of  the  pro-slavery  party 
still  confronted  him.  "  Time  has  passed," 
he  said,  "but  the  question  remains." 
A  little  more  than  four  years  before,  he 
had  essayed  to  describe  "  The  Crime 
against  Kansas";  now,  in  an  address 
free  from  offensive  personalities  but 
more  unsparing  in  rhetoric  and  stronger 
in  historical  arraignment,  he  delineated 
what  he  named  the  "Barbarism  of 
Slavery."  Picturing  to  ourselves  the 
orator,  the  circumstances, and  the  theme, 
we  can  comprehend  the  exaltation  with 
which  he  exclaimed  in  his  exordium  : 
"  Slavery  must  be  resisted  not  only  on  polit- 
ical grounds,  but  on  all  other  grounds,  whether 
social,  economical,  or  moral.  Ours  is  no  holi- 
day contest ;  nor  is  it  any  strife  of  rival  fac- 
tions —  of  White  and  Red  Roses  ;  of  theatric 
Neri  and  Bianchi ;  but  it  is  a  solemn  battle 
between  Right  and  Wrong,  between  Good  and 
Evil.  .  .  .  Grander  debate  has  not  occurred 
in  our  history,  rarely  in  any  history  ;  nor  can 
this  debate  close  or  subside  except  with  the 
triumph  of  Freedom." 
*  P.  S.  Brooks  died  January  27th,  1S57  ;  A. 
P.  Butler  died  May  25th,  1857.
a    - 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 
With  this  speech  Sumner  resumes  his  place 
conspicuous  figure  and  an  indefatigable 
energy  in  national  politics  and  legislation,  tire- 
less in  attacking  and  pursuing  slavery  until  its 
final  overthrow. 
1  til     DRED  SCOTT   DECISION. 
Di  ep  and  widespread  as  hitherto  had  been 
the  slaver)  agitation  created  by  the  repeal  of 
the  Missouri  Compromise  and'  by  the  conse- 
quent civil  war  in  Kansas,  an  event  entirely 
unexpected  to  the  public  at  large  now  sud- 
denly doubled  its  intensity.     This  was  the  an- 
suit  they  now  claimed  freedom,  because  during 
the  time  of  residence  with  their  master  at  these 
military  posts  slavery  was  there  prohibited  by 
positive  law ;  namely,  at  Rock  Island  by  the 
ordinance  of  1787,  and  later  by  the  Constitu- 
tion of  Illinois ;  at  Fort  Snelling  by  the  Mis- 
souri Compromise  act  of  1820,  and  sundry 
other  acts  of  Congress  relating  to  Wisconsin 
Territory. 
The  local  court  at  St.  Louis  before  which 
this  action  was  brought  appears  to  have  made 
short  work  of  the  case.  It  had  become  settled 
legal  doctrine  by  Lord  Mansfield's  decision  in 
the  Somersett  case,  rendered  four  years  before 
DRED     SCOTT. 
nouni  ement,  two  days  after  Buchanan's  inau- 
guration, of  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States  in  the  Dred  Scott  case. 
This  celebrated  case  had  arisen  as  follows: 
Two  or  three  years  before  the  Nebraska  Bill 
was  thought  of,  a  suit  was  begun  by  a  negro 
named  I  )red  Scott,  in  a  local  court  at  St.  Louis, 
Missouri,  to  recover  his  and  his  family's  free- 
dom  from  slavery.  He  alleged  that  his  master, 
I  >r  Emerson,  an  army  surgeon,  living  in 
ouri,  had  taken  him  as  his  slave  to  the 
military  post  at  Rock  Island  in  the  State  of 
Illinois,  and  afterwards  to  Fort  Snelling,  situ- 
ated  in  what  was  originally  Upper  Louisiana, 
but  was  at  that  time  part  of  Wisconsin  Terri- 
tory, and  now  forms  part  of  the  State  of  Min- 
nesota. While  at  this  latter  post  Dred  Scott, 
with  his  master's  consent,  married  a  colored 
woman,  also  brought  as  a  slave  from  Missouri, 
and  of  this  marriage  two  children  were  born. 
All  this  happened  between  the  years  1834  and 
1838.  Afterwards  Dr.  Emerson  brought  Dred 
Scott  and  his  family  back  to  Missouri.    In  this 
HARRIET,  WIFE  OF  DRED  SCOTT. 
our  Declaration  of  Independence,  that  "  the 
state  of  slavery  is  of  such  a  nature  that  it  is 
incapable  of  being  introduced  on  any  reasons, 
moral  or  political,  but  only  positive  law.  .  .  . 
It  is  so  odious  that  nothing  can  be  suffered 
to  support  it  but  positive  law."  The  learned 
chief-justice  therefore  ordered  that  Somersett, 
being  claimed  as  a  Virginia  slave  brought  by 
his  master  into  England,  and  attempted  to 
be  carried  away  against  his  will,  should  be 
discharged  from  custody  or  restraint,  because 
there  was  no  positive  law  in  England  to  sup- 
port slavery.  The  doctrine  was  subsequently 
modified  by  another  English  chief-justice, 
Lord  Stowell,  in  1827,  to  the  effect  that  ab- 
sence of  positive  law  to  support  slavery  in 
England  only  operates  to  suspend  the  mas- 
ter's authority,  which  is  revived  if  the  slave 
voluntarily  returns  into  an  English  colony 
where  slavery  does  exist  by  positive  law. 
The  States  of  the  Union  naturally  inherited 
and  retained  the  common  law  of  England,  and 
the  principles  and  maxims  of  English  jurispru-
A    HISTORY. 
ROGER    B.    TANEY,    CHIEF-JUSTICE    U.    S.    SUPREME    COURT. 
dence  not  necessarily  abrogated  by  the  change 
of  government,  and  among  others  this  doctrine 
of  Lord  Mansfield.  Unlike  England,  however, 
where  there  was  no  slavery  and  no  law  for 
or  against  it,  some  of  the  American  States  had 
positive  laws  establishing  slavery,  others  pos- 
itive laws  prohibiting  it.  Lord  Mansfield's  doc- 
trine, therefore,  enlarged  and  strengthened  by 
American  statutes  and  decisions,  had  come  to 
be  substantially  this:  Slavery,  being  contrary 
to  natural  right,  existsonly  by  virtue  of  locallaw; 
if  the  master  takes  his  slave  for  permanent  res- 
idence into  a  jurisdiction  where  slavery  is  pro- 
hibited, the  slave  thereby  acquires  a  right  to 
his  freedom  everywhere.  On  the  other  hand. 
Lord  Stowell's  doctrine  was  similarly  enlarged 
and  strengthened  so  as  to  allow  the  master 
right  of  transit  and  temporary  sojourn  in  free 
States  and  territories  without  suspension  or  for- 
feiture of  his  authority  over  his  slave.  Under 
the  somewhat  complex  American  system  of 
government,  in  which  the  Federal  Union  and 
the  several  States  each  claim  sovereignty  and 
independent  action  within  certain  limitations, 
it  became  the  theory  and  practice  that  toward 
each  other  the  several  States  occupied  the  at- 
titude of  foreign  nations,  which  relation  was 
governed  by  international  law,  and  that  the 
principle  of  comity  alone  controlled  the  recog- 
nition and  enforcement  by  any  State  of  the  law 
of  any  other  State.  Under  this  theory,  the  courts 
of  slave  States  had  generally  accorded  freedom 
to  slaves,  even  when  acquired  by  the  laws  of 
a  free  State,  and  reciprocally  the  courts  of  free 
States  had  enforced  the  master's  right  to  his 
slave  where  that  right  depended  on  the  laws  of 
a  slave  State.  In  this  spirit,  and  conforming  to 
this  established  usage,  the  local  court  of  Mis- 
souri declared  Dred  Scott  and  his  family  free. 
The  claimant, loath  to  lose  these  four  human 
"  chattels,"  carried  the  case  to  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  State  of  Missouri,  where  at  its
210 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
JOHN     MCLEAN,    ASSOCIATE    JUSTICE     U.    S.    SUPREME    COURT. 
March  term,  1852,  it  was  reversed,  and  a 
decree  rendered  that  these  negroes  were  not 
entitled  to  freedom.  Three  judges  formed  the 
court,  and  two  of  them  joined  in  an  opinion 
bearing  internal  evidence  that  it  was  prompted, 
not  by  considerations  of  law  and  justice,  but 
by  a  spirit  of  retaliation  growing  out  of  the  in- 
eradicable antagonism  of  freedom  and  slavery. 
"Every  State,"  says  the  opinion,  "has  the  right  of 
determining  how  far,  in  a  spirit  of  comity,  it  will  re- 
spect the  laws  of  other  States.  Those  laws  have  no 
intrinsic  right  to  be  enforced  beyond  the  limits  of  the 
State  for  which  they  were  enacted.  The  respect  allowed 
them  will  depend  altogether  on  their  conformity  to  the 
polit  y  of  our  institution,.  No  State  is  bound  to  carry 
into  effect  enactments  conceived  in  a  spirit  hostile  to 
that  which  pervades  her  own  laws.  .  .  .  It  is  a  humil- 
iating spectacle  to  see  the  courts  of  a  State  confiscating 
the  property  of  her  own  citizens  by  the  command  of  a 
foreign  law.  .  .  .  Times  now  are  not  as  they  were 
when  the  former  decisions  on  this  subject  were  made. 
Since  then  not  only  individuals  but  States  have  been 
possessed  with  a  dark  and  fell  spirit  in  relation  to 
slavery,  whose  gratification  is  sought  in  the  pursuit  of 
measures  whose  inevitable  consequence  must  be  the 
overthrow  and  destruction  of  our  Government.  Under 
such  circumstances  it  does  not  behoove  the  State  of 
Missouri  to  show  the  least  countenance  to  any  meas- 
ure which  might  gratify  this  spirit.  She  is  willing  to 
assume  her  full  responsibility  for  the  existence  of  slav- 
ery within  her  limits,  nor  does  she  seek  to  share  or 
divide  it  with  others."  * 
To  this  partisan  bravado  the  third  judge 
replied  with  a  dignified  rebuke : 
"As  citizens  of  a  slave-holding  State,"  said  he  in 
his  dissenting  opinion,  "we  have  no  right  to  complain 
of  our  neighbors  of  Illinois,  because  they  introduce 
into  their  State  Constitution  a  prohibition  of  slavery  ; 
nor  has  any  citizen  of  Missouri  who  removes  with  his 
slave  to  Illinois  a  right  to  complain  that  the  funda- 
mental law  of  the  State  to  which  he  removes,  and  in 
which  he  makes  his  residence,  dissolves  the  relation 
between  him  and  his  slave.  It  is  as  much  his  own 
voluntary  act  as  if  he  had  executed  a  deed  of  eman- 
cipation. .  .  .  There  is  with  me  nothing  in  the  law 
relating  to  slavery  which  distinguishes  it  from  the  law 
on  any  other  subject,  or  allows  any  more  accommodation 
to  the  temporary  public  excitements  which  are  gath- 
*  Scott,  J.,  15  Mo.  R.,  pp.  582-6.
A    HISTORY. 
211 
:" 
SAMUEL    NELSON,    ASSOCIATE     JUSTICE     U.    S.    SUPREME     COURT. 
ered  around  it.  .  .  .  In  this  State  it  has  been  recog- 
nized from  the  beginning  of  the  government,  as  a  correct 
position  in  law,  that  a  master  who  takes  his  slave  to  re- 
side in  a  State  or  territory  where  slavery  is  prohibited 
thereby  emancipates  his  slave.  [Citing  cases.]  .  .  . 
"  But  the  Supreme  Court  of  Missouri,  so  far  from 
standing  alone  on  this  question,  is  supported  by  the 
decisions  of  other  slave  States,  including  those  in  which 
it  may  be  supposed  there  was  the  least  disposition  to  fa- 
vor emancipation.  [Citing  cases.]  .  .  .  Timesmayhave 
changed,  public  feeling  may  have  changed,  but  princi- 
ples have  not  and  do  not  change ;  and  in  my  judgment 
there  cm  be  no  safe  basis  for  judicial  decision  but  in 
those  principles  which  are  immutable."  * 
These  utterances,  it  must  be  remembered, 
occurred  in  the  year  1852,  when  all  slavery 
agitation  was  supposed  to  have  been  forever 
settled.  They  show  conclusively  that  the  calm 
was    superficial  and  delusive,  and  that   this 
*  Gamble,  J.    15  Mo.  R.,  pp.  589-92. 
t  The  declaration  in  the  case  of  Dred  Scott  vs.  John 
F.  A.  Sandford  was  filed  in  the  clerk's  office  of  the 
Circuit  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the  district  of 
deep-reaching  contest  was  still,  as  before  the 
adjustment  of  1850,  actually  transforming  the 
various  institutions  of  society.  Gradually,  and 
as  yet  unnoticed  by  the  public,  the  motives  dis- 
closed in  these  opinions  were  beginning  to  con- 
trol courts  of  justice,  and  popular  discussion 
and  excitement  were  not  only  shaping  legisla- 
tion, but  changing  the  tenor  of  legal  decisions 
throughout  the  country. 
Notlong  after  the  judgment  by  the  Supreme 
Court  of  Missouri,  Dred  Scott  and  his  family 
were  sold  to  a  man  named  Sandford,  who  was 
a  citizen  of  New  York.  This  circumstance  af- 
forded a  ground  for  bringing  a  similar  action 
in  a  Federal  tribunal,  and  accordingly  Dred 
Scott  once  more  sued  for  freedom,  in  the 
United  States    Circuit    Court  at    St.   Louis. t 
Missouri  on  the  second  day  of  November,  1S53.  The 
trespass  complained  of  is  alleged  to  have  occured 
on  the  first  dav  of  January,  1S53.  [Records  Supreme 
Court  United  States.]
■I  BRA  HAM  LINCOLN: 
BENJAMIN    R.    CURTIS,    ASSOCIATE     JUSTICE     U.    S.    SUPREME    COURT. 
The  case  was  tried  in  May,  1854,  and  a  decree 
rendered  that  they  "  were  negro  slaves,  the 
lawful  property  "  of  Sandford.  As  a  final  ef- 
fort to  obtain  justice,  they  appealed  by  writ 
of  error  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  the  highest  judicial  tribunal  of  the 
nation. 
Before  this  court  of  last  resort  the  case  was 
argued  a  first  time  in  the  spring  of  1856.  The 
«  ountry  had  been  for  two  years  in  a  blaze  of 
political  excitement.  Civil  war  was  raging  in 
Kansas ;  Congress  was  in  a  turmoil  of  parti- 
san discussion;  a  presidential  election  was  im- 
pending, and  the  whole  people  were  anxiously 
rioting  the  varying  phases  of  party  politics. 
But  few  persons  knew  there  was  such  a  thing 
as  the  Dred  Scott  case  on  the  docket  of  the 
*  At  the  first  hearing  Mr.  Montgomery  Blair  argued 
the  case  for  Dred  Scott,  and  Senator  Geyer  of  Mis- 
souri and  ex-Attorney-General  Reverdy  Johnson  of 
Maryland  for  the  claimant.  At  the  second  hearing 
Mr.  Blair  and  Mr.  George  T.  Curtis  of  Boston  argued 
the  case  on  behalf  of  Died  Scott,  and  Mr.  Geyer  and 
Mr.  Johnson  again  made  the  argument  for  the  claim- 
ant. All  of  them  performed  the  service  without  com- 
pensation. 
t"The    court  will  not  decide  the  question   of    the 
Supreme  Court ;  but  those  few 
appreciated  the  importance  of 
the  points  it  involved,  and  sev- 
eral distinguished  lawyers  vol- 
unteered to  take  part  in  the 
argument.*  Two  questions 
were  presented  to  the  court : 
First,  Is  Dred  Scott  a  citizen 
entitled  to  sue  ?  Secondly,  did 
his  residence  at  Rock  Island 
and  at  Fort  Snelling,  under  the 
various  prohibitions  of  slavery 
existing  there,  work  his  free- 
dom ? 
The    Supreme    Court    was 
composed   of    nine    justices ; 
namely,   Chief-Justice  Taney 
and   Associate   Justices    Mc- 
Lean, Wayne,  Catron,  Daniel, 
Nelson,    Grier,    Curtis,    and 
Campbell.    There  was  at  once 
manifested  among  the  judges 
not  only  a  lively  interest  in 
the  questions  presented,  but  a 
wide  difference  of  views  as  to 
the  manner  of  treating  them. 
Consultations  of  the  Supreme 
Court  are  always  shrouded  in 
inviolable    secrecy,    but    the 
opinions  afterwards  published 
indicate    that     the     political 
aspects  of  slavery  which  were 
then  convulsing  the   country 
from  the  very  first  found  a  cer- 
tain sympathy  and  reflection  in 
these  grave  judicial  delibera- 
tions. The  discussions  yet  turned  upon  certain 
merely  technical  rules  to  be  applied  to  the  plead- 
ings under  review ;  and  ostensibly  to  give  time 
for  further  examination,  the  case  was  postponed 
and  a  re-argument  ordered  for  the  next  term. 
It  may,  however,  be  suspected  that  the  near- 
ness of  the  presidential  election  had  more  to 
do  with  this  postponement  than  did  the  exi- 
gencies of  the  law.  f 
The  presidential  election  came,  and  Mr. 
Buchanan  was  chosen.  Soon  after,  the  court 
again  met  to  begin  its  long  winter  term  ;  and 
about  the  middle  of  December,  1856,  the  Dred 
Scott  case  was  once  more  elaborately  argued. 
Again  occupying  the  attention  of  the  court  for 
four  successive  days,  as  had  also  been  done  in 
the   first  hearing,  the  eminent  counsel,  after 
Missouri  Compromise  line, —  a  majority  of  the  judges 
being  of  opinion  that  it  is  not  necessary  to  do  so. 
(This  is  confidential.)  The  one  engrossing  subject  in 
both  houses  of  Congress  and  with  all  the  members  is 
the  presidency;  and  upon  this  everything  done  and 
omitted,  except  the  most  ordinary  necessities  of  the 
country,  depends."  [Judge  Curtis  to  Mr.  Ticknor, 
April  8th,  1856.  Curtis,  "Life  of  B.  R.  Curtis,"  Vol. 
I.,  p.  180.]
A   HISTORY. 
passing  lightly  over  mere  technical  subtleties, 
discussed  very  fully  what  was  acknowledged 
to  be  the  leading  point  in  the  controversy ; 
namely,  whether  Congress  had  power  under 
the  Constitution  to  prohibit  slavery  in  the  Fed- 
eral territories,  as  it  had  done  by  the  Missouri 
Compromise  act  and  various  other  laws.  It  was 
precisely  the  policy,  or  impolicy,  of  this  and 
similar  prohibitions  which  formed  the  bone  of 
contention  in  party  politics.  The  question  of 
their  constitutional  validity  was  certain  to  take 
even  a  higher  rank  in  public  interest. 
When  after  the  second  argument  the  judges 
took  up  the  case  in  conference  for  decision 
the  majority  held  that  the  judgment  of  the 
Missouri  Federal  tribunal  should  simply  be 
affirmed  on  its  merits.  In  conformity  to  this 
view,  Mr.  Justice  Nelson  was  instructed  to  pre- 
pare an  opinion  to  be  read  as  the  judgment  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  Such 
a  paper  was  thereupon  duly  written  by  him,  of 
the  following  import :  It  was  a  question,  he 
thought,  whether  a  temporary  residence  in  a 
free  State  or  territory  could  work  the  emanci- 
pation of  a  slave.  It  was  the  exclusive  province 
of  each  State,  by  its  legislature  or  courts  of  jus- 
tice, to  determine  this  question  for  itself.  This 
determined,  the  Federal  courts  are  bound  to 
follow  the  State's  decision.  The  Supreme  Court 
of  Missouri  had  decided  Dred  Scott  to  be  a 
slave.  In  two  cases  tried  since,  the  same  judg- 
ment had  been  given.  Though  former  decisions 
had  been  otherwise,  this  must  now  be  admitted 
as  "  the  settled  law  of  the  State,"  which,  he 
said,  "  is  conclusive  of  the  case  in  this  court." 
This  very  narrow  treatment  of  the  points 
at  issue,  having  to  do  with  the  mere  lifeless 
machinery  of  the  law,  was  strikingly  criticised 
in  the  dissenting  opinion  afterwards  read  by 
Mr.  Justice  McLean,  whose  reply,  by  way 
of  anticipation,  may  properly  be  quoted  here. 
He  denied  that  it  was  exclusively  a  Missouri 
question. 
"  It  involves  a  right  claimed  under  an  act  of  Con- 
gress and  the  Constitution  of  Illinois,  and  which 
cannot  be  decided  without  the  consideration  and  con- 
struction of  those  laws.    .    .    . 
"  Rights  sanctioned  for  twenty-eight  years  ought 
not  and  cannot  be  repudiated,  with  any  semblance  of 
justice,  by  one  or  two  decisions,  influenced,  as  de- 
clared, by  a  determination  to  counteract  the  excitement 
against  slavery  in  the  free  States.  .  .  .  Having  the 
same  rights  of  sovereignty  as  the  State  of  Missouri  in 
adopting  a  constitution,  I  can  perceive  no  reason  why 
the  institutions  of  Illinois  should  not  receive  the  same 
consideration  as  those  of  Missouri.  .  .  .  The  Mis- 
souri court  disregards  the  express  provisions  of  an 
act  of  Congress  and  the  Constitution  of  a  sovereign 
State,  both  of  which  laws  for  twenty-eight  years  it  had 
not  only  regarded,  but  carried  into  effect.  If  a  State 
court  may  do  this,  on  a  question  involving  the  liberty  of 
a  human  being,  what  protection  do  the  laws  afford?  " 
Had  the  majority  of  the  judges  carried  out 
their  original  intention,  and  announced  their 
Vol.  XXXIV.— 31. 
decision  in  the  form  in  which  Mr.  Justice  Nel- 
son under  their  instruction  wrote  it,*  the  1 
of  Dred  Scott  would,  after  a  passing  notice, 
have  gone  to  a  quiet  sleep  under  the  dust  of 
the  law  libraries.  A  far  different  fate  was  in 
store  for  it.  The  nation  was  then  being  stirred 
to  its  very  foundation  by  the  slavery  agitation. 
The  party  of  pro-slavery  reaction  was  for  the 
moment  in  the  ascendant;  and  as  by  an  irre- 
sistible impulse,  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  was  now  swept  from  its  hither- 
to impartial  judicial  moorings  into  the  danger- 
ous seas  of  politics. 
Before  Judge  Nelson's  opinion  was  sub- 
mitted to  the  judges  in  conference  for  final 
adoption  as  the  judgment  of  the  court,  a  move- 
ment seems  to  have  taken  place  among  the 
members,  not  only  to  change  the  ground  of 
the  decision,  but  also  to  greatly  enlarge  the 
field  of  inquiry.  It  is  stated  by  one  of  the  par- 
ticipants in  that  memorable  transaction  (Mr. 
Justice  Campbell)  that  this  occurred : 
"  Upon  a  motion  of  Mr.  Justice  Wayne,  who  stated 
that  the  case  had  created  public  interest  and  expecta- 
tion, that  it  had  been  twice  argued,  and  that  an  im- 
pression existed  that  the  questions  argued  would  be 
considered  in  the  opinion  of  the  court,  "t 
He  further  says  that 
"  The  apprehension  had  been  expressed  by  others 
of  the  court,  that  the  court  would  not  fulfill  public 
expectation  or  discharge  its  duties  by  maintaining  si- 
lence upon  these  questions  ;  and  my  impression  is, 
that  several  opinions  had  already  been  begun  among 
the  members  of  the  court,  in  which  a  full  discussion 
of  the  case  was  made,  before  Justice  Wayne  made  this 
proposal."  + 
The  exact  time  when  this  movement  was 
begun  cannot  now  be  ascertained.  The  mo- 
tives which  prompted  it  can  be  inferred  by 
recalling  contemporaneous  political  events. 
A  great  controversy  divided  public  opinion 
whether  slavery  might  be  extended  or  should 
be  restricted.  The  Missouri  Compromise  had 
been  repealed  to  make  such  an  extension  pos- 
sible. The  terms  of  that  repeal  were  purposely 
couched  in  ambiguous  language.  Kansas  and 
Nebraska  were  left  "  perfectly  free  to  form  and 
regulate  their  domestic  institutions  in  their 
own  way,  subject  only  to  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States."  Whether  under  the  Con- 
stitution slavery  could  be  excluded  from  the 
Federal  territories  was  affirmed  by  Northern 
and  denied  by  Southern  Democrats.  North- 
ern and  Southern  Democrats,  acting  together 
in  the  Cincinnati  National  Convention,  had 
ingeniously  avoided  any  solution  of  this  dif- 
ference. 
A  twofold  interpretation  had  enabled  that 
party  to  elect  Mr.  Buchanan,  not  by  its  own 
*  Campbell  to  Tyler,  "Life  of  Taney,"  pp.  383-4. 
t  Ibid.  p.  384. 
X  Ibid.  p.  384.
214 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 
popular  strength,  but  by  the  division  of  its 
opponents.  Notwithstanding  its  momentary 
success,  unless  it  could  develop  new  sources 
of  strength  the  party  had  only  a  precarious 
hold  upon  power.  Its  majority  in  the  Senate 
was  waning.  In  Kansas  free-State  emigration 
was  outstripping  the  South  in  numbers  and 
checkmating  her  in  border  strife.  According 
to  present  relative  growth  in  sectional  repre- 
sentation and  sectional  sentiment,  the  balance 
of  power  was  slowly  but  steadily  passing  to 
the  North. 
Out  of  this  doubt  and  difficulty  there  was 
one  pathway  that  seemed  easy  and  certain. 
All  the  individual  utterances  from  the  Demo- 
cratic party  agreed  that  the  meaning  of  the 
words  -  subject  to  the  Constitution  "  was  a 
question  for  the  courts.  This  was  the  original 
compact  between  Northern  and  Southern 
Democrats  in  caucus  when  Douglas  consented 
to  repeal.  Douglas,  shorn  of  his  prestige  by  his 
defeat  for  presidential  nomination,  must  ac- 
cept conditions  from  his  successful  rival.  The 
Dred  Scott  case  afforded  the  occasion  for  a 
decision.  Of  the  nine  judges  on  the  Supreme 
Bench  seven  were  Democrats,  and  of  these 
five  were  appointed  from  slave  States.  A 
better  opportunity  for  the  South  to  obtain  a 
favorable  dictum  could  never  be  expected  to 
arise.  A  declaration  by  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States  that  under  the  Constitu- 
tion Congress  possessed  no  power  to  prohibit 
slavery  in  the  Federal  territories  would  by  a 
single  breath  end  the  old  and  begin  a  new 
political  era.  Congress  was  in  session  and  the 
political  leaders  were  assembled  at  Washing- 
ton. Political  topics  excluded  all  other  con- 
versation or  thought.  Politics  reddened  the 
plains  of  Kansas ;  politics  had  recently  dese- 
crated the  Senate  chamber  with  a  murderous 
personal  assault;  politics  contended  greedily 
for  the  spoils  of  a  new  administration ;  poli- 
tic s  nursed  a  tacit  conspiracy  to  nationalize 
slavery.  The  slavery  sentiment  ruled  society, 
ruled  the  Senate,  ruled  the  Executive  Man- 
sion. It  is  not  surprising  that  this  universal 
influence  flowed  in  at  the  open  door  of  the 
national  hall  of  justice, —  that  it  filtered 
through  the  very  walls  which  surrounded  the 
ulting-room  of  the  Supreme  Court. 
The  judges  were,  after  all,  but  men.  They 
dined,  they  talked,  they  exchanged  daily  per- 
*  A  striking  example  may  be  found  in  the  utterance 
of  Attorney-General  Cushing  of  the  retiring  Pierce 
administration,  in  a  little  parting  address  to  the  Su- 
preme Court,  March  4th,  1857: 
"  Yours  is  not  the  gauntleted  hand  of  the  soldier, 
nor  yours  the  voice  which  commands  armies,  rules 
cabinets,  or  leads  senates;  but  though  you  are  none  of 
,  yet  you  are  backed  by  all  of  them.  Theirs  is  the 
external  power  which  sustains  your  moral  authority; 
you  are  the  incarnate  mind  of  the  political  body  of  the 
nation.     In  the  complex    institutions  of  our  country 
sonal  and  social  courtesies  with  the  political 
world.  Curiosity,  friendship,  patriotism,  led 
them  to  the  floors  of  Congress  to  listen  to  the 
great  debates.  Official  ceremony  called  them 
into  the  presence  of  the  President,  of  legis- 
lators, of  diplomats.  They  were  feasted,  flat- 
tered, questioned,  reminded  of  their  great 
opportunity,  tempted  with  the  suggestion  of 
their  supreme  authority.*  They  could  render 
their  names  illustrious.  They  could  honor  their 
States.  They  could  do  justice  to  the  South. 
They  could  perpetuate  their  party.  They  could 
settle  the  slavery  question.  They  could  end 
sectional  hatred,  extinguish  civil  war,  preserve 
the  Union,  save  their  country.  Advanced  age, 
physical  feebleness,  party  bias,  the  political  ar- 
dor of  the  youngest  and  the  political  satiety  of 
the  eldest,  all  conspired  to  draw  them  under 
the  insidious  influence  of  such  considerations. 
One  of  the  judges  in  official  language  frankly 
avows  the  motive  and  object  of  the  majority 
of  the  court.  "The  case,"  he  wrote,  "in- 
volves private  rights  of  value,  and  constitu- 
tional principles  of  the  highest  importance, 
about  which  there  had  become  such  a  differ- 
ence of  opinion  that  the  peace  and  harmony 
of  the  country  required  the  settlement  of  them 
by  judicial  decision."  f  This  language  betrays 
the  confusion  of  ideas  and  misconception  of 
authority  which  tempted  the  judges  beyond 
their  proper  duty.  Required  only  to  decide  a 
question  of  private  rights,  they  thrust  them- 
selves forward  to  sit  as  umpires  in  a  quarrel 
of  parties  and  factions. 
In  an  evil  hour  they  yielded  to  the  demands 
of  "  public  interest,"  and  resolved  to  "  fulfill 
public  expectation."  Mr.  Justice  Wayne  "  pro- 
posed that  the  Chief- Justice  should  write  an 
opinion  on  all  of  the  questions  as  the  opinion 
of  the  court.  This  was  assented  to,  some  re- 
serving to  themselves  to  qualify  their  assent 
as  the  opinion  might  require.  Others  of  the 
court  proposed  to  have  no  question,  save  one, 
discussed."  %  The  extraordinary  proceeding 
was  calculated  to  touch  the  pride  of  Mr.  Jus- 
tice Nelson.  He  appears  to  have  given  it  a 
kind  of  sullen  acquiescence.  "  I  was  not  pres- 
ent," he  writes,  "  when  the  majority  decided 
to  change  the  ground  of  the  decision,  and  as- 
signed the  preparation  of  the  opinion  to  the 
Chief- Justice ;  and  when  advised  of  the  change 
I  simply  gave  notice  that  I  should  read  the 
you  are  the  pivot  point  upon  which  the  rights  and  lib- 
erties of  all,  government  and  people  alike,  turn;  or, 
rather,  you  are  the  central  light  of  constitutional  wis- 
dom around  which  they  perpetually  revolve.  Long  may 
this  court  retain  the  confidence  of  our  country  as  the 
great  conservators,  not  of  the  private  peace  only,  but 
of  the  sanctity  and  integrity  of  the  Constitution." — 
[Nat.  Int.,  March  5th,  1857.] 
t  Wayne,  J.,  Opinion  in  the  Dred  Scott  case,  19 
Howard,  pp.  454-5. 
%  Campbell  to  Tyler,  "  Life  of  Taney,"  p.  384.
A    JU STORY. 
opinion  I  had  prepared  as  my  own,  and  which 
is  the  one  on  file."*  From  this  time  the  pens 
of  the  other  judges  were  busy,  and  in  the  inner 
political  circles  of  Washington  the  case  of  Dred 
Scott  gradually  became  a  shadowy  and  por- 
tentous cause  celebre. 
The  first  intimation  which  the  public  at  large 
had  of  the  coming  new  dictum  was  given  in 
Mr.  Buchanan's  inaugural.  The  fact  that  lie 
did  not  contemplate  such  an  announcement 
until  after  his  arrival  in  Washington  f  leads 
to  the  inference  that  it  was  prompted  from 
high  quarters.  In  congressional  and  popular 
discussions  the  question  of  the  moment  was 
at  what  period  in  the  growth  of  a  territory 
its  voters  might  exclude  or  establish  slavery. 
Referring  to  this  Mr.  Buchanan  said :  "  It  is 
a  judicial  question,  which  legitimately  belongs 
to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  be- 
fore whom  it  is  no  w  pending,  and  will,  it  is  under- 
stood, be  speedily  and  finally  settled.  To  their 
decision,  in  common  with  all  good  citizens,  I 
shall  cheerfully  submit,  whatever  this  may  be." 
The  popular  acquiescence  being  thus  in- 
voked by  the  presidential  voice  and  example, 
the  court  announced  its  decision  two  days  after- 
wards,—  March  6th,  1857.  The  essential  char- 
acter of  the  transaction  impressed  itself  upon  the 
very  form  of  the  judgment,  if  indeed  it  may 
be  called  at  all  by  that  name.  Chief-Justice 
Taney  read  the  opinion  of  the  court.  Justices 
Nelson,  Wayne,  Daniel,  Grier,  Catron,  and 
Campbell  each  read  a  separate  and  individual 
opinion,  agreeing  with  the  Chief-Justice  on 
some  points,  and  omitting  or  disagreeing  on 
others,  or  arriving  at  the  same  result  by  differ- 
ent reasoning,  and  in  the  same  manner  differ- 
ing from  one  another.  The  two  remaining 
associate  justices,  McLean  and  Curtis,  read 
emphatic  dissenting  opinions.  Thus  the  col- 
lective utterance  of  the  bench  resembled  the 
speeches  of  a  town  meeting  rather  than  the 
decision  of  a  court,  and  employed  two  hun- 
dred and  forty  printed  pages  of  learned  legal 
disquisition  to  order  the  simple  dismissal  of 
a  suit.  Compared  with  the  prodigious  effort 
the  result  is  a  ridiculous  anti-climax,  reveal- 
ing the  motive  and  animus  of  the  whole  affair. 
The  opinion  read  by  Chief- Justice  Taney  was 
long  and  elaborate,  and  the  following  were 
among  its  leading  conclusions  : 
*  Nelson  to  Tyler,  "  Life  of  Taney,"  p.  385. 
t  "  Mr.  Buchanan  was  also  preparing  his  inaugural 
address  with  his  usual  care  and  painstaking,  and  I  cop- 
ied his  drafts  and  recopied  them  until  he  had  prepared 
it  to  his  satisfaction.  It  underwent  no  alteration  after 
he  went  to  the  National  Hotel  in  Washington,  except 
that  he  there  inserted  a  clause  in  regard  to  the  question 
then  pending  in  the  Supreme  Court,  as  one  that  would 
dispose  of  a  vexed  and  dangerous  topic  by  the  high- 
est judicial  authority  of  the  land." — [Statement  of 
James   Buchanan  Henry  (President    Buchanan's  pri- 
That  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  .States  do  not 
include  or  refer  to  negroes  otherwise  than  as 
property;  that  they  cannot  become  citizens 
of  the  United  States  nor  sue  in  the  I 
courts.  That  Dred  Scott's  claim  to  freedom 
by  reason  of  his  residence  in  Illinois  was  a 
Missouri  question,  which  Missouri  law  had  de- 
cided against  him.  That  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  recognizes  slaves  as  prop- 
erty, and  pledges  the  Federal  government  to 
protect  it;  and  that  the  Missouri  Compromise 
act  and  like  prohibitory  laws  are  unconstitu- 
tional. That  the  Circuit  Court  of  the  United 
States  had  no  jurisdiction  in  the  case  and 
could  give  no  judgment  in  it,  and  must  be 
directed  to  dismiss  the  suit. 
This  remarkable  decision  challenged  the  at- 
tention of  the  whole  people  to  a  degree  never 
before  excited  by  any  act  of  their  courts  of 
law.  Multiplied  editions  were  at  once  printed,! 
scattered  broadcast  over  the  land,  read  with 
the  greatest  avidity,  and  earnestly  criticised. 
The  public  sentiment  regarding  it  immediate- 
ly divided,  generally  on  existing  party  lines  — 
the  South  and  the  Democrats  accepting  and 
commending,  the  North  and  the  Republicans 
spurning  and  condemning  it.  The  great  anti- 
slavery  public  was  not  slow  in  making  a  practi- 
cal application  of  its  dogmas  :  that  a  sweeping 
and  revolutionary  exposition  of  the  Constitu- 
tion had  been  attempted  when  confessedly  the 
case  and  question  had  no  right  to  be  in  court ; 
that  an  evident  partisan  dictum  of  national 
judges  had  been  built  on  an  avowed  partisan 
decision  of  State  judges  ;  that  both  the  legis- 
lative and  judicial  authority  of  the  nation  had 
been  trifled  with ;  that  the  settler's  "  sover- 
eignty "  in  Kansas  consisted  only  of  a  South- 
ern planter's  right  to  bring  his  slaves  there  ; 
and  that  if  under  the  "  property  "  theory  the 
Constitution  carries  slavery  to  the  territories, 
it  would  by  the  same  inevitable  logic  carry  it 
into  free  States. 
But  much  more  offensive  to  the  Northern 
mind  than  his  conclusions  of  law  were  the 
language  and  historical  assertions  by  which 
Chief- Justice  Taney  strove  to  justify  them. 
"  In  the  opinion  of  the  court,"  said  he,  "  the  legisla- 
tion and  histories  of  the  times,  and  the  language  used 
in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  show,  that  neither 
vate  secretary)  inCurtis's  "  Life  of  Buchanan,"  Vol.  II., 
p.  187.] 
%  "  It  may  not  be  improper  for  me  here  to  add  that 
so  great  an  interest  did  I  take  in  that  decision,  and  in 
its  principles  being  sustained  and  understood  in  the 
commonwealth  of  Kentucky,  that  I  took  the  trouble  at 
my  own  cost  to  print  or  have  printed  a  large  edition 
of  that  decision  to  scatter  it  over  the  State ;  and  unless 
the  mails  have  miscarried,  there  is  scarcely  a  member 
elected  to  the  Legislature  who  has  not  received  a  copy 
with  my  frank." — [Vice-President  Breckinridge, 
Frankfort  speech,  December,  1859.]
zi6 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 
the  class  of  persons  who  had  been  imported  as  slaves. 
nor  their  descendants,  whether  they  had  become  free  or 
Dot,  were  then  acknowledged  as  a  part  of  the  people, 
itended  to  be  included  in  the  general  words  used 
in  that  memorable  instrument.     It  is  difficult  at  this 
day  to  realize  the  state  of  public  opinion  in  relation  to 
e   race  which  prevailed  in  the  civilized 
alightened  portions  of  the  world  at  the  time  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  when  the  Con- 
f  the  United  States  was  framed  and  adopted. 
he  public  history  of  every  European  nation  dis- 
il  in  a  manner  too  plain  to  be  mistaken.  They  had 
for  more  than  a  century  before  been  regarded  as  beings 
of  an  inferior  order,  and  altogether  unfit  to  associate  with 
race,  cither  in  social  or  political  relations  ; 
and  so  far  inferior,  that  they  had  no  rights  which  the 
white  man  was  bound  to  respect;  and  that  the  negro 
might  justly  and  lawfully  be  reduced  to  slavery  for  his 
.  lie  was  bought  and  sold,  and  treated  as  an 
ordinary  article  of  merchandise  and  traffic,  whenever  a 
profit  could  be  made  by  it." 
Quoting  the  provisions  of  several  early  slave 
codes,  he  continues : 
"  They  show  that  a  perpetual  and  impassable  barrier 
was  intended  to  be  erected  between  the  white  race  and 
the  one  which  they  had  reduced  to  slavery  and  governed 
as  subjects  with  absolute  and  despotic  power,  and  which 
they  then  looked  upon  as  so  far  below  them  in  the  scale 
of  created  beings  that  intermarriages  between  white 
persons  and  negroes  or  mulattoes  were  regarded  as  un- 
natural and  immoral,  and  punished  as  crimes,  not  only 
in  the  parties,  but  in  the  person  who  joined  them  in 
marriage.  And  no  distinction  in  this  respect  was  made 
between  the  free  negro  or  mulatto  and  the  slave,  but  this 
stigma,  of  the  deepest  degradation,  was  fixed  upon  the 
whole  race." 
Referring  to  the  Declaration,  which  asserts 
that  all  men  are  created  equal,  he  remarks  : 
"  The  general  words  above  quoted  would  seem  to 
embrace  the  whole  human  family,  and  if  they  were  used 
in  a  similar  instrument  at  this  day  would  be  so  under- 
But  it  is  too  clear  for  dispute,  that  the  enslaved 
African  race  were  not  intended  to  be  included,  and 
formed  no  part  of  the  people  who  framed  and  adopted 
this  declaration;  for  if  the  language,  as  understood  in 
that  day,  would  embrace  them,  the  conduct  of  the  dis- 
tinguished men  who  framed  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence would  have  been  utterly  and  flagrantly  incon- 
sistent with  the  principles  they  asserted,  and  instead  of 
the  sympathy  of  mankind,  to  which  they  so  confidently 
appealed,  they  would  have  deserved  and  received  uni- 
versal rebuke  and  reprobation." 
He  then  applies  the  facts  thus  assumed,  as 
folio  v. 
"  The  only  two  provisions  which  point  to  them  and 
include  then  treat  them  as  property,  and  make  it  the 
fluty  of  the  Government  to  protect  it;  no  other  power 
in  relation  to  thi g  race  is  to  be  found  in  the  Constitu- 
tion. .  .  .  No  one,  we  presume,  supposes  that  any 
change  in  public  opinion  or  feeling  in  relation  to  this 
unfortunate  civilized  nations  of  Europe  or 
in  this  country,  should  induce  the  court  to  give  to  the 
words  of  the  Constitution  a  more  liberal  construction 
in  their  favor  than  they  were  intended  to  bear  when 
the  instrument  was  framed  and  adopted.  .  .  .  It  is 
not  only  the  same  in  words,  but  the  same  in  meaning, 
and  delegates  the  same  powers  to  the  Government,  and 
reserves  and  secures  the  same  rights  and  privileges  to 
the  citizen  ;  an't  as  long  as  it  continues  to  exist  in  its 
present  form,  it  speaks  not  only  in  the  same  words 
but  with  the  same  meaning  and  intent  with  which  it 
spoke  when  it  came  from  the  hands  of  its  framers  and 
was  voted  on  and  adopted  by  the  people  of  the  United 
States." 
This  cold  and  pitiless  historical  delineation 
of  the  bondage,  ignorance,  and  degradation 
of  the  unfortunate  kidnapped  Africans  and 
their  descendants  in  a  by-gone  century,  as  an 
immutable  basis  of  constitutional  interpreta- 
tion, was  met  by  loud  and  indignant  protest 
from  the  North.  The  people  and  press  of  that 
section  seized  upon  the  salient  phrase  of  the 
statement,  and  applying  it  in  the  present  tense, 
accused  the  Chief-Justice  with  saying  that  "  a 
negro  has  no  rights  which  a  white  man  is 
bound  to  respect."  This  was  certainly  a  dis- 
tortion of  his  exact  words  and  meaning;  yet 
the  exaggeration  was  more  than  half  excusa- 
ble, in  view  of  the  literal  and  unbending  rigor 
with  which  he  proclaimed  the  constitutional 
disability  of  the  entire  African  race  in  the 
United  States,  and  denied  their  birthright  in 
the  Declaration  of  Independence.  His  un- 
merciful logic  made  the  black  before  the  law 
less  than  a  slave  ;  it  reduced  him  to  the  status 
of  a  horse  or  dog,  a  bale  of  dry-goods  or  a 
block  of  stone.  Against  such  a  debasement 
of  any  living  image  of  the  Divine  Maker  the 
resentment  of  the  public  conscience  of  the 
North  was  quick  and  unsparing. 
Had  Chief-Justice  Taney's  delineation  been 
historically  correct,  it  would  have  been  never- 
theless unwise  and  unchristian  to  embody  it 
in  the  form  of  a  disqualifying  legal  sentence 
and  an  indelible  political  brand.  But  its  man- 
ifest untruth  was  clearly  shown  by  Mr.  Justice 
Curtis  in  his  dissenting  opinion.  He  reminded 
the  Chief-Justice  that  at  the  adoption  of  the 
Constitution  : 
"  In  five  of  the  thirteen  original  States  colored  per- 
sons then  possessed  the  elective  franchise,  and  were 
among  those  by  whom  the  Constitution  was  ordained 
and  established.  If  so,  it  is  not  true  in  point  of  fact 
that  the  Constitution  was  made  exclusively  by  the 
white  race,  and  that  it  was  made  exclusively  for  the 
white  race  is  in  my  opinion  not  only  an  assumption 
not  warranted  by  anything  in  the  Constitution,  but 
contradicted  by  its  opening  declaration  that  it  was  or- 
dained and  established  by  the  people  of  the  United 
States  for  themselves  and  their  posterity;  and  as  free 
colored  persons  were  then  citizens  of  at  least  five 
States,  and  so  in  every  sense  part  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  they  were  among  those  for  whom  and 
whose  posterity  the  Constitution  was  ordained  and 
established." 
Elsewhere  in  the  same  opinion  he  says : 
"I  shall  not  enter  into  an  examination  of  the  exist- 
ing opinions  of  that  period  respecting  the  African  race, 
nor  into  any  discussion  concerning  the  meaning  of 
those  who  asserted  in  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence that  all  men  are  created  equal;  that  they  are 
endowed  by  their  Creator  with  certain  inalienable 
rights  ;  that  among  these  are  life,  liberty,  and  the  pur- 
suit of  happiness.  My  own  opinion  is,  that  a  calm  com- 
parison of  these  assertions  of  universal  abstract  truths, 
and  of  their  own  individual  opinions  and  acts,  would
A   HISTORY. 
not  leave  these  men  under  any  reproach  of  inconsist- 
ency; that  the  great  truths  they  asserted  on  that  sol- 
emn occasion  they  were  ready  and  anxious  to  make 
effectual,  wherever  a  necessary  regard  to  circumstances, 
which  no  statesman  can  disregard  without  producing 
more  evil  than  good,  would  allow ;  and  that  it  would 
not  be  just  to  them,  nor  true  in  itself,  to  allege  that 
they  intended  to  say  that  the  Creator  of  all  men  had 
endowed  the  white  race  exclusively  with  the  great 
natural  rights  which  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
asserts." 
Mr.  Justice  McLean,  in  his  dissenting  opin- 
ion, completes  the  outline  of  the  true  histori- 
cal picture  in  accurate  language : 
"I  prefer  the  lights  of  Madison,  Hamilton,  and 
Jay,  as  a  means  of  construing  the  Constitution  in  all 
its  bearings,  rather  than  to  look  behind  that  period 
into  a  traffic  which  is  now  declared  to  be  piracy,  and 
punished  with  death  by  Christian  nations.  I  do  not 
like  to  draw  the  sources  of  our  domestic  relations 
from  so  dark  a  ground.  Our  independence  was  a 
great  epoch  in  the  history  of  freedom  ;  and  while  I 
admit  the  Government  was  not  made  especially  for 
the  colored  race,  yet  many  of  them  were  citizens  of 
the  New  England  States,  and  exercised  the  rights  of 
suffrage  when  the  Constitution  was  adopted,  and  it 
was  not  doubted  by  any  intelligent  person  that  its 
tendencies  would  greatly  ameliorate  their  condition. 
"  Many  of  the  States  on  the  adoption  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, or  shortly  afterward,  took  measures  to  abolish 
slavery  within  their  respective  jurisdictions ;  and  it 
is  a  well-known  fact  that  a  belief  was  cherished  by  the 
leading  men,  South  as  well  as  North,  that  the  institu- 
tion of  slavery  would  gradually  decline  until  it  would 
become  extinct.  The  increased  value  of  slave  labor, 
in  the  culture  of  cotton  and  sugar,  prevented  the  real- 
ization of  this  expectation.  Like  all  other  communi- 
ties and  States,  the  South  were  influenced  by  what  they 
considered  to  be  their  own  interests.  But  if  we  are 
to  turn  our  attention  to  the  dark  ages  of  the  world, 
why  confine  our  view  to  colored  slavery  ?  On  the 
same  principles  white  men  were  made  slaves.  All 
slavery  has  its  origin  in  power  and  is  against  right." 
To  the  constitutional  theory  advanced  by 
the  Chief-Justice,  that  Congress  cannot  exer- 
cise sovereign  powers  over  Federal  territories, 
and  hence  cannot  exclude  slave  property  from 
them,  Justices  McLean  and  Curtis  also  op- 
posed a  vigorous  and  exhaustive  argument, 
which  the  most  eminent  lawyers  and  states- 
men of  that  day  deemed  conclusive.  The  his- 
torical precedents  alone  ought  to  have  deter- 
mined the  issue. 
"  The  judicial  mind  of  this  country,  State  and  Fed- 
eral," says  McLean,  "  has  agreed  on  no  subject  within 
its  legitimate  action  with  equal  unanimity  as  on  the 
power  of  Congress  to  establish  territorial  govern- 
ments. No  court,  State  or  Federal,  no  judge  or  states- 
man, is  known  to  have  had  any  doubts  on  this  question 
for  nearly  sixty  years  after  the  power  was  exercised." 
And  Curtis  adds : 
"Here  are  eight  distinct  instances,beginning  with  the 
first  Congress,  and  coming  down  to  the  year  1848,  in 
*  The  ownership  of  Dred  Scott  and  his  family  passed 
by  inheritance  to  the  family  of  a  Massachusetts  Re- 
publican member  of  Congress.  The  following  telegram, 
copied  from  the  "  Providence  Post "  into  the  "  Wash- 
ington  Union,"  shows  the  action  of  the  new  owner : 
which  Congress  has  excluded  slavery  from  the  territory 
of  the  United  States;  and  six  distinct  instances  in  which 
Congress  organized  governments  of  territories  by  which 
slavery  was  recognized  and  continued,  beginning  also 
with  the  first  Congress,  and  coming  down  to  the  year 
1822.  These  acts  were  severally  signed  by  seven  Pres- 
idents of  the  United  .States,  beginning  with  General 
Washington,  and  coming  regularly  down  as  far  as  Mr. 
John  Quincy  Adams,  thus  including  all  who  were  in  pub- 
lic life  when  the  Constitution  was  adopted.  If  the  practi- 
cal construction  of  the  Constitution,  contemporaneously 
with  its  going  into  effect,  by  men  intimately  acquainted 
with  itsjiistory  from  their  personal  participation  in 
framing  and  adoptingit,  and  continued  by  them  through 
a  long  series  of  acts  of  the  gravest  importance,  be  en- 
titled to  weight  in  the  judicial  mind  on  a  question  of 
construction,  it  would  seem  to  be  difficult  to  resist  the 
force  of  the  acts  above  adverted  to." 
DOUGLAS    AND    LINCOLN    ON    DRED    SCOTT. 
Manifestly,  when  the  trained  and  informed 
intellects  of  the  learned  judges  differed  so 
radically  concerning  the  principles  of  law  and 
the  facts  of  history  applicable  to  the  Dred 
Scott  question,  the  public  at  large  could 
hardly  be  expected  to  receive  the  new  dog- 
mas without  similar  divergence  of  opinion. 
So  far  from  exercising  a  healing  influence,  the 
decision  widened  immensely  the  already  seri- 
ous breach  between  the  North  and  the  South. 
The  persons  immediately  involved  in  the  liti- 
gation were  quickly  lost  sight  of;  *  but  the 
constitutional  principle  affirmed  by  the  court 
was  defended  by  the  South  and  denounced 
by  the  North  with  zeal  and  acrimony.  The 
Republican  party  did  not  further  question  or 
propose  to  disturb  the  final  judgment  in  the 
case ;  but  it  declared  that  the  Dred  Scott  doc- 
trines of  the  Supreme  Court  should  not  be 
made  a  rule  of  political  action,  and  precisely 
this  the  South,  together  with  the  bulk  of  the 
Northern  Democrats,  insisted  should  be 
done. 
A  single  phase  of  the  controversy  wrill  serve 
to  illustrate  the  general  drift  of  the  discussion 
throughout  the  Union.  Some  three  months 
after  the  delivery  of  the  opinion  of  the  court, 
Senator  Douglas  found  himself  again  among 
his  constituents  in  Illinois,  and  although  there 
was  no  political  campaign  in  progress,  current 
events  and  the  roused  state  of  public  feeling 
seemed  to  require  that  he  should  define  his 
views  in  a  public  speech.  It  marks  his  acute- 
ness  as  a  politician  that  he  already  realized 
what  a  fatal  stab  the  Dred  Scott  decision  had 
given  his  vaunted  principle  of  "  Popular  Sov- 
ereignty," with  which  he  justified  his  famous 
repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise.  He  had 
ever  since  argued  that  congressional  prohibi- 
tion of  slavery  was  obsolete  and  useless,  and 
"  St.  Louis,  May  26  [1857].  Dred  Scott  with  his 
wife  and  two  daughters  were  emancipated  to-day  by 
Taylor  Blow,  Esq.  They  had  been  conveyed  to  him 
by  Mr.  Chaffee  for  that  purpose."
2lS 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
that  the  choice  of  slavery  or  freedom  ought 
to  be  confided  to  the  local  territorial  laws, 
as  it  was  confided  to  local  State  constitu- 
tions. But  the  Dred  Scott  decision  announced 
that  slaves  were  property  which  Congress 
could  not  exclude  from  the  territories,  add- 
ing also  the  inevitable  conclusion  that  what 
Congress  could  not  do  a  territorial  legisla- 
ture could  not.* 
1  >ifncult  as  this  made  his  task  of  reconciling 
his  pet  hobby  with  the  Dred  Scott  decision, 
such  was  his  political  boldness,  and  such 
had  been  his  skill  and  success  in  sophistry, 
that  he  undertook  even  this  hopeless  effort. 
Douglas  therefore  made  a  speech  at  Spring- 
field, Illinois,  on  the  12th  of  June,  1857,  in 
which  he  broadly  and  fully  indorsed  and 
commended  the  opinion  of  Chief-Justice 
Taney  and  his  concurring  associates,  declar- 
ing that 
"  Their  judicial  decisions  will  stand  in  all  future 
time,  a  proud  monument  to  their  greatness,  the  admi- 
ration of  the  good  and  wise,  and  a  rebuke  to  the  par- 
tisans of  faction  and  lawless  violence.  If  unfortunately 
any  considerable  portion  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States  shall  so  far  forget  their  obligations  to  society 
as  to  allow  the  partisan  leaders  to  array  them  in  vio- 
lent resistance  to  the  final  decision  of  the  highest  ju- 
dicial tribunal  on  earth,  it  will  become  the  duty  of  all 
the  friends  of  order  and  constitutional  government, 
without  reference  to  past  political  differences,  to  organ- 
ize themselves  and  marshal  their  forces  under  the 
glorious  banner  of  the  Union,  in  vindication  of  the 
Constitution  and  supremacy  of  the  laws  over  the  ad- 
vocates of  faction  and  the  champions  of  violence." 
Proceeding  then  with  a  statement  of  the 
case,  he  continued : 
"The  material  and  controlling  points  in  the  case, 
those  which  have  been  made  the  subject  of  unmeasured 
abuse  and  denunciation,  may  be  thus  stated:  1st.  The 
court  decided  that  under  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  a  negro  descended  from  slave  parents  is  not 
and  can  not  be  a  citizen  of  the  United  States.  2d.  That 
the  act  of  March  6th,  1820,  commonly  called  the  Mis- 
souri Compromise  act,  was  unconstitutional  and  void 
before  it  was  repealed  by  the  Nebraska  act,  and  con- 
sequently did  not  and  could  not  have  the  legal  effect 
of  extinguishing  a  master's  right  to  his  slave  in  that 
territory.  While  the  right  continues  in  full  force  under 
the  guarantees  of  the  Constitution,  and  cannot  be  di- 
vested or  alienated  by  an  act  of  Congress,  it  necessarily 
remains  a  barren  and  a  worthless  right,  unless  sustained, 
protected,  and  enforced  by  appropriate  police  regula- 
tions and  local  legislation,  prescribing  adequate  reme- 
dies for  its  violation.  These  regulations  and  remedies 
must  necessarily  depend  entirely  upon  the  will  and 
wishes  of  the  people  of  the  territory,  as  they  can  only 
be  prescribed  By  I  he  local  legislatures.  Hence  the  great 
principle  of  popular  sovereignty  and  self-government 
is  sustained  and  firmly  established  by  the  authority  of 
this  decision." 
It  is  scarcely  possible  that  Douglas  con- 
vinced himself  by  such  a  glaring  non  seguitur ; 
but  he  had  no  other  alternative.  It  was  a  des- 
perate expedient  to  shield  himself  as  well  as 
he  might  from  the  damaging  recoil  of  his  own 
*  19  Howard,  pp.  450-1. 
temporizing  statesmanship.  The  declaration 
made  thus  early  is  worthy  of  historical  notice 
as  being  the  substance  and  groundwork  of  the 
speaker's  somewhat  famous  "Freeport  doc- 
trine," or  theory  of  "  unfriendly  legislation," 
to  which  Lincoln's  searching  interrogatories 
drove  him  in  the  great  Lincoln-Douglas  de- 
bates of  the  following  year.  Repeated  and 
amplified  at  that  time,  it  became  in  the  eyes 
of  the  South  the  unpardonable  political  heresy 
which  lost  him  the  presidential  nomination  and^ 
caused  the  rupture  of  the  Democratic  National 
Convention  at  Charleston  in  the  summer  of 
i860.  For  the  moment,  however,  the  sophism 
doubtless  satisfied  his  many  warm  partisans. 
He  did  not  dwell  on  the  dangerous  point,  but 
trusted  for  oratorical  effect  rather  to  his  renewed 
appeals  to  the  popular  prejudice  against  the 
blacks,  so  strong  in  central  Illinois,  indorsing 
and  emphasizing  Chief-Justice  Taney's  asser- 
tion that  negroes  were  not  included  in  the 
words  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
and  arguing  that  if  the  principle  of  equality 
were  admitted  and  carried  out  to  its  logical 
results,  it  would  necessarily  lead  not  only  to 
the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  slave  States,  but 
to  the  general  amalgamation  of  the  two  races. 
The  Republican  party  of  Illinois  had  been 
greatly  encouraged  and  strengthened  by  its 
success  in  electing  the  State  officers  in  the  pre- 
vious autumn;  and  as  their  recognized  leader 
and  champion,  Lincoln  made  a  reply  to  this 
speech  some  two  weeks  later,  June  26th,  1857, 
also  at  Springfield.  Though  embracing  other 
topics,  the  question  of  the  hour,  the  Dred 
Scott  decision,  was  nevertheless  its  chief  sub- 
ject. The  extracts  here  presented  from  it  will 
give  the  reader  some  idea  of  its  power  of 
statement  and  eloquence : 
"  And  now,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "  as  to  the  Dred  Scott 
decision.  That  decision  declares  two  propositions  — 
first,  that  a  negro  cannot  sue  in  the  United  States 
courts ;  and  secondly,  that  Congress  cannot  prohibit 
slavery  in  the  territories.  It  was  made  by  a  divided 
court — dividing  differently  on  the  different  points. 
Judge  Douglas  does  not  discuss  the  merits  of  the  de- 
cision, and  in  that  respect  I  shall  follow  his  example, 
believing  I  could  no  more  improve  on  McLean  and 
Curtis,  than  he  could  on  Taney.  He  denounces  all 
who  question  the  correctness  of  that  decision,  as  offer- 
ing violent  resistance  to  it.  But  who  resists  it?  Who 
has,  in  spite  of  the  decision,  declared  Dred  Scott  free, 
and  resisted  the  authority  of  his  master  over  him? 
Judicial  decisions  have  two  uses  —  first,  to  absolutely 
determine  the  case  decided,  and,  secondly,  to  indicate 
to  the  public  how  other  similar  cases  will  be  decided 
when  they  arise.  For  the  latter  use  they  are  called 
'  precedents  '  and 'authorities.'  We  believe  as  much 
as  Judge  Douglas  (perhaps  more)  in  obedience  to  and 
respect  for  the  judicial  department  of  government. 
We  think  its  decisions  on  constitutional  questions, 
when  fully  settled,  should  control,  not  only  the  par- 
ticular cases  decided,  but  the  general  policy  of  the 
country,  subject  to  be  disturbed  only  by  amendments 
of  the  Constitution  as  provided  in  that  instrument  it- 
self.    More  than  this  would  be  revolution.    But  we
A    HISTORY. 
think  the  Dred  Scott  decision  is  erroneous.  We  know 
the  court  that  made  it  has  often  overruled  its  own 
decisions,  and  we  shall  do  what  we  can  to  have  it  over- 
rule this.  We  offer  no  resistance  to  it.  Judicial  decis- 
ions are  of  greater  or  less  authority  as  precedents 
according  to  circumstances.  That  this  should  be  so, 
accords  both  with  common  sense  and  the  customary 
understanding  of  the  legal  profession.  If  this  impor- 
tant decision  had  been  made  by  the  unanimous  concur- 
rence of  the  judges,  and  without  any  apparent  partisan 
bias,  and  in  accordance  with  legal  public  expectation, 
and  with  the  steady  practice  of  the  departments  through- 
out our  history,  and  had  been  in  no  part  based  on  as- 
sumed historical  facts  which  are  not  really  true ;  or,  if 
wanting  in  some  of  these,  it  had  been  before  the  court 
more  than  once,  and  had  there  been  affirmed  and  re- 
affirmed through  a  course  of  years,  it  then  might  be, 
perhaps  would  be,  factious,  nay,  even  revolutionary, 
not  to  acquiesce  in  it  as  a  precedent.  But  when,  as  is 
true,  we  find  it  wanting  in  all  these  claims  to  the  pub- 
lic confidence,  it  is  not  resistance,  it  is  not  factious,  it 
is  not  even  disrespectful,  to  treat  it  as  not  having  yet 
quite  established  a  settled  doctrine  for  die  country." 
Rising  above  all  questions  of  technical  con- 
struction to  the  broad  and  universal  aspects 
of  the  issue,  Mr.  Lincoln  continued : 
"The  Chief-Justice  does  not  directly  assert,  but 
plainly  assumes  as  a  fact,  that  the  public  estimate  of 
the  black  man  is  more  favorable  now  than  it  was  in 
the  days  of  the  Revolution.  This  assumption  is  a  mis- 
take. In  some  trifling  particulars  the  condition  of  that 
race  has  been  ameliorated;  but  as  a  whole,  in  this 
country,  the  change  between  then  and  now  is  decid- 
edly the  other  way;  and  their  ultimate  destiny  has 
never  appeared  so  hopeless  as  in  the  last  three  or  four 
years.  In  two  of  the  five  States  —  New  Jersey  and 
North  Carolina — that  then  gave  the  free  negro  the 
right  of  voting,  the  right  has  since  been  taken  away ; 
and  in  a  third  —  New  York  —  it  has  been  greatly 
abridged ;  while  it  has  not  been  extended,  so  far  as  I 
know,  to  a  single  additional  State,  though  the  number 
of  the  States  has  more  than  doubled.  In  those  days, 
as  I  understand,  masters  could,  at  their  own  pleasure, 
emancipate  their  slaves ;  but  since  then  such  legal  re- 
straints have  been  made  upon  emancipation  as  to 
amount  almost  to  prohibition.  In  those  days,  legis- 
latures held  the  unquestioned  power  to  abolish  slavery 
in  their  respective  States ;  but  now  it  is  becoming 
quite  fashionable  for  State  constitutions  to  withhold 
that  power  from  the  legislatures.  In  those  days,  by 
common  consent,  the  spread  of  the  black  man's  bond- 
age to  the  new  countries  was  prohibited ;  but  now 
Congress  decides  that  it  will  not  continue  the  prohibi- 
tion, and  the  Supreme  Court  decides  that  it  could  not 
if  it  would.  In  those  days,  our  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence was  held  sacred  by  all,  and  thought  to  in- 
clude all ;  but  now,  to  aid  in  making  the  bondage  of 
the  negro  universal  and  eternal,  it  is  assailed,  and 
sneered  at,  and  construed  and  hawked  at,  and  torn, 
till  if  its  framers  could  rise  from  their  graves  they 
could  not  at  all  recognize  it.  All  the  powers  of  earth 
seem  rapidly  combining  against  him.  Mammon  is  after 
him,  ambition  follows,  philosophy  follows,  and  the  the- 
ology of  the  day  is  fast  joining  the  cry.  They  have  him 
in  his  prison  house,  they  have  searched  his  person  and 
left  no  prying  instrument  with  him.  One  after  another 
they  have  closed  the  heavy  iron  doors  upon  him ;  and 
now  they  have  him,  as  it  were,  bolted  in  with  a  lock  of 
a  hundred  keys,  which  can  never  be  unlocked  without 
the  concurrence  of  every  key ;  the  keys  in  the  hands 
of  a  hundred  different  men,  and  they  scattered  to  a 
hundred  different  and  distant  places  ;  and  they  stand 
musing  as  to  what  invention,  in  all  the  dominions  of 
mind  and  matter  can  be  produced  to  make  the  11 
sibility  of  his  escape  more  complete  than  it  is.    .    .    . 
"There  is  a  natural  disgust  in  the  minds  of  nearly  all 
white  people  at  the  idea  of  an  indiscriminate  amalga- 
mation of  the  white  and  black  races;  and  Judge 
Douglas  evidently  is  basing  his  chief  hope  upon  the 
chances  of  his  being  able  to  appropriate  the  benefit  of 
this  disgust  to  himself.  If  he  can  by  much  drumming 
and  repeating  fasten  the  odium  of  that  idea  upon  his 
adversaries,  he  thinks  he  can  struggle  through  the 
storm.  He  therefore  clings  to  this  hope  as  a  drown- 
ing man  to  the  last  plank.  He  makes  an  occasion  for 
lugging  it  in,  from  the  opposition  to  the  Dred  Scott 
decision.  He  finds  the  Republicans  insisting  that  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  includes  all  men,  black 
as  well  as  white,  and  forthwith  he  boldly  denies  that 
it  includes  negroes  at  all,  and  proceeds  to  argue 
gravely  that  all  who  contend  it  does,  do  so  only  be- 
cause they  want  to  vote,  and  eat,  and  sleep,  and  marry 
with  negroes.  He  will  have  it  that  they  cannot  be 
consistent  else.  Now  I  protest  against  the  counterfeit 
logic  which  concludes  that  because  I  do  not  want  a 
black  woman  for  a  slave  I  must  necessarily  want  her 
for  a  wife.  I  need  not  have  her  for  either.  I  can  just 
leave  her  alone.  In  some  respects  she  certainly  is  not 
my  equal ;  but  in  her  natural  right  to  eat  the  bread  she 
earns  with  her  own  hands,  without  asking  leave  of  any 
one  else,  she  is  my  equal  and  the  equal  of  all  others. 
"  Chief-Justice  Taney,  in  his  opinion  in  the  Dred 
Scott  case,  admits  that  the  language  of  the  Declaration 
is  broad  enough  to  include  the  whole  human  family ; 
but  he  and  Judge  Douglas  argue  that  the  authors  of 
that  instrument  did  not  intend  to  include  negroes,  by 
the  fact  that  they  did  not  at  once  actually  place  them 
on  an  equality  with  the  whites.  Now  this  grave  argu- 
ment comes  to  just  nothing  at  all  by  the  other  fact 
that  they  did  not  at  once  or  ever  afterwards  actually 
place  all  white  people  on  an  equality  with  one  another. 
And  this  is  the  staple  argument  of  both  the  Chief- Jus- 
tice and  the  senator,  for  doing  this  obvious  violence  to 
the  plain,  unmistakable  language  of  the  Declaration. 
"  I  think  the  authors  of  that  notable  instrument  in- 
tended to  include  all  men ;  but  they  did  not  intend  to 
declare  all  men  equal  in  all  respects.  They  did  not 
mean  to  say  all  were  equal  in  color,  size,  intellect, 
moral  development,  or  social  capacity.  They  defined 
with  tolerable  distinctness  in  what  respects  they  did 
consider  all  men  created  equal  —  equal  with  '  certain 
inalienable  rights,  among  which  are  life,  liberty,  and 
the  pursuit  of  happiness.'  This  they  said,  and  this  they 
meant.  They  did  not  mean  to  assert  the  obvious  un- 
truth that  all  were  then  actually  enjoying  that  equality, 
nor  yet  that  they  were  about  to  confer  it  immediately 
upon  them.  In  fact  they  had  no  power  to  confer  such 
a  boon.  They  meant  simply  to  declare  the  right,  so 
that  the  enforcement  of  it  might  follow  as  fast  as 
circumstances  should  permit.  They  meant  to  set 
up  a  standard  maxim  for  free  society,  which  should 
be  familiar  to  all,  and  revered  by  all;  constantly 
looked  to,  constantly  labored  for,  and  even  though 
never  perfectly  attained,  constantly  approximated,  and 
thereby  constantly  spreading  and  deepening  its  influ- 
ence and  augmenting  the  happiness  and  value  of  life 
to  all  people  of  all  colors  everywhere.  The  assertion 
that  '  all  men  are  created  equal '  was  of  no  practical 
use  in  effecting  our  separation  from  Great  Britain; 
and  it  was  placed  in  the  Declaration,  not  for  that  but 
for  future  use.  Its  authors  meant  it  to  be,  as,  thank 
God,  it  is  now  proving  itself,  a  stumbling-block  to  all 
those  who  in  after  times  might  seek  to  turn  a  free 
people  back  into  the  hateful  paths  of  despotism. 
They  knew  the  proneness  of  prosperity  to  breed 
tyrants,  and  they  meant  when  such  should  reappear  in 
this  fair  land  and  commence  their  vocation,  they  should 
find  left  for  them  at  least  one  hard  nut  to  crack." 
/fff 
w\  \
JACK. 
By  the  author  of  "The  Gates  Ajar,"  "The  Madonna  of  the  Tubs,"  etc. 
sort  than 
through, 
A.CK  was  a  Fairharbor  boy. 
This  might  be  to  say  any 
of  several  things  ;  but  it  is 
at  least  sure  to  say  one, — 
he  was  a  fisherman,  and  the 
son  of  a  fisherman. 
When  people  of  another 
Jack's  have  told  their  earthly  story 
the  biography,  the  memorial,  the 
obituary  remains.  Our  poet,  preacher,  healer, 
politician,  and  the  rest  pass  on  to  this  polite 
el  which  society  has  ordained  for  human 
existence.  When  Jack  dies,  he  stops.  We  find 
the  fisherman  squeezed  into  some  corner  of 
the  accident  column  :  "Washed  overboard," or 
"  Lost  in  the  fog,"  and  that  is  the  whole  of  it. 
He  ends  just  there.  There  is  no  more  J  ack.  No 
fellow-members  in  the  Society  for  Something- 
or-Xothing  pass  resolutions  to  his  credit  and 
the  consolation  of  his  family.  No  funeral  dis- 
course is  preached  over  him  and  privately 
printed  at  the  request  of  the  parishioners.  The 
columns  of  the  religious  weekly  to  which  he 
did  not  subscribe  contain  no  obituary  sketches 
signed  by  the  initials  of  friends  not  thought 
to  be  too  afflicted  to  speak  a  good  word  for  a 
dead  man.  From  the  press  of  the  neighboring 
city  no  thin  memorial  volume  sacred  to  his 
virtues  and  stone-blind  to  his  defects  shall  ever 
issue.  Jack  needs  a  biographer.  Such  the 
writer  of  this  sketch  would  fain  aspire  to  be. 
Jack  was  born  at  sea.  His  father  was  bring- 
ing his  mother  home  from  a  visit  at  a  half- 
sister's  in  Nova  Scotia,  for  Jack's  mother  was 
one  of  those  homesick,  clannish  people  who 
pine  without  their  relations  as  much  as  some 
of  us  pine  with  them;  and  even  a  half-sister 
was  worth  more  to  her  in  her  fanciful  and  fee- 
ble condition  than  a  whole  one  is  apt  to  be 
to  bolder  soul-. 
She  had  made  her  visit  at  her  half-sister's, 
and  they  had  talked  over  receipts,  and  com- 
pared yeast,  and  cut  out  baby  things,  and 
turned  dresses,  and  dyed  flannel,  and  gone 
to  prayer  meetings  together;  and  Jack's 
mother  was  coming  home,  partly  because 
Jack's  father  came  for  her,  and  partly  because 
he  happened  to  come  sober,  which  was  a 
great  point,  and  partly  because  the  schooner 
had  to  sail,  which  was  another, —  she  was  com- 
ing home,  at  all  events,  when  a  gale  struck 
them.  It  was  an  ugly  blow.  The  little  two- 
masted  vessel  swamped,  in  short,  at  midnight 
of  a  moonlit  night,  oft"  the  coast,  just  the  other 
side  of  seeing  Cape  Ann  light.  The  crew 
were  picked  up  by  a  three-master,  and  taken 
home.  Aboard  the  three-master,  in  fright  and 
chill  and  storm,  the  little  boy  was  born.  They 
always  put  it  that  he  was  born  in  Fairharbor. 
In  fact,  he  was  born  rounding  Eastern  Point. 
"  The  toughest  place  to  be  borned  in,  this  side 
o'  Torment,"  Jack's  father  said.  But  Jack's 
mother  said  nothing  at  all. 
Jack's  father  kept  sober  till  he  got  the 
mother  and  the  child  safely  into  the  little 
crumbling,  gray  cottage  in  half  of  whose  mea- 
ger dimensions  the  family  kept  up  the  illusion 
which  they  called  home.  Then,  for  truth  com- 
pels me,  I  must  state  that  Jack's  father  went 
straightway  out  upon  what,  in  even  less  obscure 
circles  than  his,  it  is  customary  to  call  "  a  tear." 
There  seems  to  be  something  in  the  savage, 
incisive  fitness  of  this  word  which  has  over- 
ridden all  mere  distinctions  of  class  or  culture, 
and  must  ultimately  make  it  a  classic  in  the 
language.  "  I've  stood  it  long  as  I  ken  stand, 
and  I'm  goin'  on  a  tear, —  I'm  a-goin'  on  a 
netarnal  tear,"  said  Jack's  father  to  his  oldest 
dory-mate,  a  fellow  he  had  a  feeling  for,  much 
as  you  would  for  an  oar  you  had  handled  a 
good  many  years ;  or  perhaps  a  sail  that  you 
were  used  to,  and  had  patched  and  watched, 
and  knew  the  cracks  in  it,  and  the  color  of 
it,  and  when  it  was  likely  to  give  way,  and 
whereabouts  it  would  hold. 
In  fact,  that  proved  to  be,  in  deed  and 
truth,  an  eternal  tear  for  Jack's  father.  Drunk 
as  a  fisherman  could  be,— and  that  is  say- 
ing a  good  deal,— he  reshipped  that  night, 
knowing  not  whither  nor  why,  nor  indeed 
knowing  that  the  deed  was  done ;  and  when 
he  came  to  himself  he  was  twelve  hours  out, 
on  his  way  to  the  Banks  of  Newfoundland; 
and  the  young  mother,  with  the  baby  on  her 
arms,  looked  out  of  the  frosty  window  over 
the  foot  of  her  old  bedstead,  and  watched  for 
him  to  come,  and  did  not  like  to  tell  the 
neighbors  that  she  was  short  of  fuel. 
She  was  used  to  waiting — women  are; 
Fairharbor  women  always  are.  But  she  had 
never  waited  so  long  before.  And  when,  at 
the  end  of  her  waiting,  the  old  dory-mate 
came  in  one  night  and  told  her  that  it  hap- 
pened falling  from  the  mast  because  he  was 
not  sober  enough  to  be  up  there,  Jack's 
mother  said  she  had  always  expected  it.    But
{BEGUN    IN    THE    NOVEMBER    NUMBER  \ 
THE    LINCOLN-DOUGLAS    DEBATES. 
ABRAHAM     LINCOLN:     A     HISTORY.  ; 
BY   JOHN    G.    NICOLAY    AND    JOHN    HAY,    PRIVATE    SECRETARIES    TO    THE    PRESIDENT. 
lutions,  and  devised  legislation 
to  further  their  intrigues.  %    By 
the  middle  of  February,  under 
their  inspiration,  a  bill  provid- 
ing for  a  convention  to  frame  a 
State  constitution  was  perfect- 
ed and  enacted.  The  governor 
immediately  sent  the  legislature 
his  message,  reminding  them 
that   the  leading  idea   of  the 
organic   act  was  to  leave  the 
actual  bond  fide  inhabitants  of 
the  territory  "perfectly  free  to 
form  and  regulate  their  domes- 
tic  institutions    in    their   own 
way,"    and    vetoing    the    bill 
because    "the   legislature   has 
failed  to  make  any  provision  to 
submit   the  constitution  when 
framed  to  the  consideration  of  the  people  for 
their  ratification  or  rejection."  §    The  govern- 
or's argument  was  wasted  on  the  predeter- 
mined legislators.    They  promptly  passed  the 
act  over  his  veto. 
The  cabal  was  in  no  mood  to  be  thwarted, 
and  under  a  show  of  outward  toleration,  if  not 
respect,  their  deep  hostility  found  such  means 
of  making  itself  felt  that  the  governor  began  to 
receive  insult  from  street  ruffians,  and  to  be- 
come apprehensive  for  his  personal  safety.  In 
such  a  contest  he  was  single-handed  against 
the  whole  pro-slavery  town  of  Lecompton. 
The  foundation  of  his  authority  was  gradually 
sapped;  and  finding  himself  no  longer  sus- 
tained at  Washington,  where  the  private  ap- 
peals and  denunciations  of  the  cabal  were 
more  influential  than  his  official  reports,  he 
wrote  his  resignation  on  the  day  of  Buchanan's 
inauguration,  and  a  week  later  left  the  terri- 
tory in  secrecy  as  a  fugitive.  Thus,  in  less 
than  three  years,  three  successive  Democratic 
executives  had  been  resisted,  disgraced,  and 
overthrown  by  the  political  conspiracy  which 
ruled  the  territory;  and  Kansas  had  indeed 
become,  in  the  phraseology  of  the  day,  "  the 
graveyard  of  governors." 
The  Kansas  imbroglio  was  a  political  scan- 
dal of  such  large  proportions,  and  so  clearly 
threatened  a  dangerous  schism  in  the  Demo- 
SUILDING     IN     WHICH     THE     LECOMPTON     CONSTITUTION     WAS     DRAWN 
THE    LECOMPTON     CONSTITUTION. 
HPH  E  year  1857  brings  us  to  a  decided  change 
J-  in  the  affairs  of  Kansas,  but  to  no  less 
remarkable  occurrences.  Active  civil  war  grad- 
ually ceased  in  the  preceding  autumn, —  a 
result  due  to  the  vigorous  and  impartial  ad- 
ministration of  Governor  Geary  and  the  ar- 
rival of  the  inclement  winter  weather. 
On  the  evening  of  the  day  the  legislature 
met  (January  12th,  1857),  the  pro-slavery 
party  held  a  large  political  convention,  in 
which  it  was  confessed  that  they  were  in  a 
hopeless  minority  in  the  territory,  and  the  gen- 
eral conclusion  was  reached  that  it  was  no 
longer  worth  while  to  attempt  to  form  a  slave 
State  in  Kansas,  t  Many  of  its  hitherto  ac- 
tive leaders  immediately  and  definitely  aban- 
doned the  struggle.  But  the  Missouri  cabal, 
intrenched  in  the  various  territorial  and  county 
offices,  held  to  their  design,  though  their  labors 
now  assumed  a  somewhat  different  character. 
They  denounced  Governor  Geary  in  their  reso- 
t  January  12th,  1857,  Wilder,  Annals  of  Kansas,  p. 
113.  Bell,  Speech  in  Senate,  March  18th,  1858.  Appen- 
dix to  Cong.  Globe,  p.  137. 
X  Geary  to  Marcy,  January  19th,  1857.  Senate  Docs., 
1st  Sess.  35th  Cong.,  Vol.  VI.,  Ex.  Doc.  17,  p.  131. 
§  Geary,  Veto  Message,  February  18th,  1857.  Senate 
Docs.,  1st  Sess.  35th  Cong.,  Vol.  VI.,  Ex.  Doc.  17,  p. 
167. 
Copyright  by  J.  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  18S6-7.    All  rights  reserved.
37° 
THE  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATES. 
JAMES    BUCHANAN, 
.857-61 
(FROM     A     PHOTOGRAPH     BY     BRADY.) 
<  ratic  party,  that  the  new  President,  Buchanan, 
and  his  new  Cabinet,  proceeded  to  its  treat- 
ment with  the  utmost  caution.  The  subject  was 
fraught  with  difficulties  not  of  easy  solution. 
The  South,  to  retain  her  political  supremacy, or 
even  her  equality,  needed  more  slave  States  to 
furnish  additional  votes  in  the  United  States 
Senate.  To  make  a  slave  State  of  Kansas,  the 
Missouri  Compromise  had  been  repealed,  and 
a  bogus  legislature  elected  and  supported  by 
the  successive  Missouri  invasions  and  the 
guerrilla  war  of  1856.  All  these  devices  had, 
however,  confessedly  failed  of  their  object. 
Northern  emigration  and  antislavery  senti- 
ment were  clearly  in  possession  of  Kansas,  and 
a  majority  of  voters  stood  ready  upon  fair 
occasion  to  place  her  in  the  column  of  free 
States.  It  had  become  a  game  on  the  chess- 
board of  national  politics.  The  moving 
pieces  stood  in  Missouri  and  Kansas,  but  the
THE  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATES. 
37* 
players  sat  in  Washington.  In  reality  it  was  a  tional  fame,  who  had  been  senator  and  Sec- 
double  game.  There  was  plot  and  under-plot.  retary  of  the  Treasury.  Walker,  realizing  fully 
Beneath  the  struggle  between  free  States  the  responsibility  and  danger  of  the  trust, 
and  slave  States  were  the  intrigue  and  de-  after  repeated  refusals  finally  accepted  upon 
ception  carried  on  between  Northern   Dem-  two   distinct   conditions  :    first,  that  General 
pillllllllllllllllH 
llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll 
GOVERNOR     ROBERT    J.    WALKER. 
ocrats  and  Southern  Democrats.  The  Kansas- 
Nebraska  act  was  a  double-tongued  statute, 
and  the  Cincinnati  platform  a  Janus-faced 
banner  Momentary  victory  was  with  the 
Southern  Democrats,  for  they  had  secured 
the  nomination  and  election  of  President 
Buchanan,  a  "  Northern  man  with  Southern 
principles." 
Determined  to  secure  whatever  prestige 
could  be  derived  from  high  qualification  and 
party  influence,  Buchanan  tendered  the  va- 
cant governorship  of  Kansas  to  his  intimate 
personal  and  political  friend,  Robert  J.  Walker, 
of  Mississippi,  a  man  of  great  ability  and  na- 
Harney  should  be  "  put  in  special  command 
in  Kansas  with  a  large  body  of  troops,  and 
especially  of  dragoons  and  a  battery."  *  and 
retained  there  subject  to  his  military  direc- 
tions until  the  danger  was  over ;  and  second, 
that  he  "  should  advocate  the  submission  of 
the  constitution  to  the  vote  of  the  people  for 
ratification  or  rejection."  t 
This  latter  had  now  become  a  vital  point 
in  the  political  game.  The  recent  action  of 
the  territorial  legislature  and  Geary's  already 
*  Walker  to  Cass,  July  15th,  1S57.  Senate  Docs.,  1st 
Sess.  35th  Cong.,  Vol.  I.,  Ex.  Doc.  8,  p.  32. 
t  Walker  to  Cass,  Dec.  15th,  1S57.    Ibid.,  p.  122.
THE   LIXCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATES. 
mentioned  veto  message  were  before 
the  President  and  his  Cabinet.*  But 
much  more  important  than  this  move 
of  the  Kansas  pieces  was  the  prior  de- 
termination of  prominent  Washington 
players.  During  the  Kansas  civil  war 
and  the  Presidential  campaign  of  the 
previous  year,  by  way  of  offset  to  the 
Popeka  constitution,  both  Senator 
Douglast  and  Senator  Toombs  J  wrote 
and  introduced  in  the  Senate  bills  to 
enable  Kansas  to  form  a  State  constitu- 
tion. The  first  by  design,  and  the  second 
by  accident,  contained  a  clause  to  sub- 
mit such  constitution,  when  formed,  to 
a  \ote  of  the  people.  Both  these  bills 
were  considered  not  only  by  the  Senate 
Committee  on  Territories,  of  which 
Douglas  was  chairman,  but  also  by  a 
caucus  of  Democratic  senators.  Said 
Senator  Bigler  : 
••  k  was  held,  by  those  most  intelligent  on  the 
subject,  that  in  view  of  all  the  difficulties  sur- 
rounding that  Territory,  [and]  the  danger  of 
any  experiment  at  that  time  of  a  popular  vote, 
it  would  be  better  that  there  should  be  no  such 
provision  in  the  Toombs  bill ;  and  it  was  my 
understanding,  in  all  the  intercourse  I  had, 
that  that  convention  would  make  a  constitu- 
tion and  send  it  here  without  submitting  it 
to  the  popular  vote.  "^ 
This  Toombs  bill  was,  after  modifi- 
cation in  other  respects,  adopted  by 
Douglas,  and  duly  passed  by  the  Sen- 
ate ;  but  the  House  with  an  opposition 
majority  refused  its  assent.  All  these  prelimi- 
naries were  well  known  to  the  Buchanan 
Cabinet,  and  of  course  also  to  Douglas.  It 
is  fair  to  assume  that  under  such  circum- 
stances Walker's  emphatic  stipulation  was  de- 
liberately and  thoroughly  discussed.  Indeed, 
extraordinary  urging  had  been  necessary  to 
induce  him  to  reconsider  his  early  refusals. 
Douglas  personally  joined  in  the  solicitation.  || 
Because  of  the  determined  opposition  of  his 
own  family,  Walker  had  promised  his  wife 
that  he  would  not  go  to  Kansas  without  her 
consent ;  and  President  Buchanan  was  so 
anxious  on  the  point  that  he  personally  called 
on  Mrs.  Walker  and  persuaded  her  to  waive 
her  objections,  fl  Under  influences  like  these 
Walker  finally  accepted  the  appointment,  and 
the  President  and  Cabinet  accepted  his  condi- 
tions without  reserve.  He  wrote  his  inaugural 
address  in  Washington,  using  the  following 
language  : 
*  Geary  to  Marcy,  Feb.  2ist,  1857.  Senate  Docs.,  1st 
Sess.  35th  Cong.,  Vol.  VI.,  Ex.  Doc.  17,  p.  178. 
t  March  7th,  1856.    {  June  25th,  1856. 
0  Bigler,  Senate  Speech,  Dec.  9th,  1857.  Globe,  Part 
L,  p.  21.  See  also  Bigler,  Senate  Speech,  Dec.  21st, 
1 85 7.    Globe,  Part  I.,  p.  113. 
FREDERICK  P.  STANTON.   (FROM  A  PHOTOGRAPH  BY  BRADY.) 
"  I  repeat  then  as  my  clear  conviction  that  unless 
the  convention  submit  the  constitution  to  the  vote  of 
all  the  actual  resident  settlers,  and  the  election  be  fairly 
and  justly  conducted,  the  constitution  will  be  and  ought 
to  be  rejected  by  Congress." 
He  submitted  this  draft  of  his  inaugural  to 
President  Buchanan,  who  read  and  approved 
the  document  and  the  promise.  Secretary 
Cass  wrote  his  official  instructions  in  accord- 
ance with  it.  On  Walker's  journey  West  he 
stopped  at  Chicago  and  submitted  his  inaugu- 
ral to  Douglas,  who  also  indorsed  his  policy.** 
The  new  governor  fondly  believed  he  had  re- 
moved every  obstacle  to  success,  and  every 
possibility  of  misunderstanding  or  disapproval 
by  the  Administration,  such  as  had  befallen  his 
predecessors.  But  President  Buchanan  either 
deceived  him  at  the  beginning,  or  betrayed 
him  in  the  end. 
With  Governor  Walker  there  was  sent  a 
new  territorial  secretary.    Woodson,  who  had 
||  Douglas,  Milwaukee  Speech,  October   13th,  i860. 
if  Walker,  Testimony  before  the  Covode  Committee. 
Reports  of  Committees  H.  R.  1st  Sess.  36th  Cong., 
Vol.  V.,  pp.  105,6. 
**  Douglas,  Milwaukee  Speech,  October  13th,  i860.
THE   LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATES. 
.373 
so  often  abused  his  powers  during  his  repeated 
service  as  acting  governor,  was  promoted  to 
a  more  lucrative  post  to  create  the  vacancy. 
Frederick  P.  Stanton,  of  Tennessee,  formerly 
a  representative  in  Congress,  a  man  of  talent 
and,  as  the  event  proved,  also  a  man  of  cour- 
age, was  now  made  Secretary.  Both  Walker 
and  Stanton  being  from  slave  States,  it  may  be 
presumed  that  the  slavery  question  was  con- 
sidered safe  in  their  hands.  Walker,  indeed, 
entertained  sentiments  somewhat  more  valu- 
able to  the  South  in  this  conjuncture.  He  be- 
lieved in  the  balance  of  power;  he  preferred 
that  the  people  of  Kansas  should  make  it  a 
!  slave  State ;  he  was  "  in  favor  of  maintaining 
the  equilibrium  of  the  government  by  giving  the 
South  a  majority  in  the  Senate,  while  the  North 
would  always  necessarily  have  a  majority  in  the 
House  of  Representatives."  *  Both  also  entered 
on  their  mission  with  the  feelings  entertained 
by  the  President  and  the  Democratic  party ; 
namely,  that  the  free-State  men  were  a  mis- 
chievous insurrectionary  faction,  willfully  dis- 
turbing the  peace  and  defying  the  laws.  Gradu- 
ally, however,  their  personal  observation  con- 
vinced them  that  this  view  was  a  profound  error. 
Governor  Walker  arrived  in  the  Territory 
late  in  May,  and  it  required  but  short  investi- 
gation to  satisfy  him  that  any  idea  of  making 
Kansas  a  slave  State  was  utterly  preposterous. 
Had  everything  else  been  propitious,  climate 
alone  seemed  to  render  it  impossible.  But 
popular  sentiment  was  also  overwhelmingly 
against  it;  he  estimated  that  the  voters  were 
for  a  free  State  more  than  two  to  one.f  All 
the  efforts  of  the  pro-slavery  party  to  form 
a  slave  State  seemed  to  be  finally  abandoned. 
If  he  could  not  make  Kansas  a  slave  State, 
his  next  desire  was  to  make  her  a  Democratic 
State.  "  And  the  only  plan  to  accomplish  this 
was  to  unite  the  free-State  Democrats  with  the 
pro-slavery  party,  and  all  those  whom  I  re- 
garded as  conservative  men,  against  the  more 
violent  portion  of  the  Republicans."  J  He 
therefore  sought  by  fair  words  to  induce  the 
free-State  men  to  take  part  in  the  election  of 
delegates  to  the  constitutional  convention. 
His  inaugural  address,  quoting  the  President's 
instructions,  promised  that  such  election  should 
be  free  from  fraud  and  violence ;  that  the 
delegates  should  be  protected  in  their  delib- 
erations ;  and  that  if  unsatisfactory,  "  you  may 
by  a  subsequent  vote  defeat  the  ratification 
of  the  constitution."  § 
This  same  policy  was  a  few  weeks  later  urged 
*  Walker,  Testimony,  Covode  Committee  Report,  p. 
109. 
t  Walker  to  Buchanan,  June  28th,  1857.  Covode 
Committee  Report,  p.  115. 
X  Walker,  Testimony,  Covode  Committee  Report,  p. 
107. 
Vol.  XXXIV.— 51. 
at  Topeka,  where  a  mass  meeting  of  the  free- 
State  men  was  called  to  support  and  instruct 
another  sitting  of  the  "  insurrectionary  "  free- 
State  legislature  elected  under  the  Topeka 
constitution.  The  governor  found  a  large  as- 
semblage, and  a  very  earnest  discussion  in 
progress,  whether  the  "legislature"  should  pur- 
sue only  nominal  action,  such  as  would  in 
substance  amount  to  a  petition  for  redress  of 
grievances,  or  whether  they  should  actually  or- 
ganize their  State  government,  and  pass  a  com- 
plete code  of  laws.  The  moderate  free-State  men 
favored  the  former,  the  violent  and  radical  the 
latter  course.  When  their  mass  meeting  ad- 
journed, they  proceeded  to  the  governor's 
lodgings  and  called  him  out  in  a  speech,  in 
which  he  renewed  the  counsels  and  promises 
of  his  inaugural  address.  "  The  legislature," 
said  he,  "  has  called  a  convention  to  assemble 
in  September  next.  That  constitution  they 
will  or  they  will  not  submit  to  the  vote  of  a 
majority  of  the  then  actual  resident  settlers  of 
Kansas.  If  they  do  not  submit  it,  I  will  join 
you,  fellow-citizens,  in  lawful  opposition  to 
their  course.  And  I  cannot  doubt,  gentlemen, 
that  one  much  higher  than  I,  the  Chief  Mag- 
istrate of  the  Union,  will  join  you  in  that  op- 
position. "||  His  invitation  to  them  to  participate 
in  the  election  of  a  convention  produced  no  ef- 
fect ;  they  still  adhered  to  their  resolve  to  have 
nothing  to  do  with  any  affirmative  proceed- 
ings under  the  bogus  laws  or  territorial  legis- 
lature. But  the  governor's  promise  of  a  fair 
vote  on  the  constitution  was  received  with 
favor.  "  Although  this  mass  convention,"  re- 
ports the  governor,  "  did  not  adopt  fully  my 
advice  to  abandon  the  whole  Topeka  move- 
ment, yet  they  did  vote  down  by  a  large  ma- 
jority the  resolutions  prepared  by  the  more 
violent  of  their  own  party  in  favor  of  a  com- 
plete State  organization  and  the  adoption  of 
a  code  of  State  laws." 
If  the  governor  was  gratified  at  this  result  as 
indicative  of  probable  success  in  his  official  ad- 
ministration, he  rejoiced  yet  more  in  its  signifi- 
cance as  a  favorable  symptom  of  party  politics. 
"  The  result  of  the  whole  discussion  at  Topeka," 
he  reports,  "  was  regarded  by  the  friends  of 
law  and  order  as  highly  favorable  to  their 
cause,  and  as  the  commencement  of  a  great 
movement  essential  to  success ;  viz.,  the  sep- 
aration of  the  free-State  Democrats  from  the 
Republicans,  who  had  to  some  extent  hereto- 
fore cooperated  under  the  name  of  the  free- 
State  party."  **    Another  party  symptom  gave 
§  Walker,  Inaugural,  May  2  7th,  1 85  7.  Senate  Docs . , 
1st  Sess.  35th  Cong.,  Vol.  L,  Ex.  Doc.  8,  p.  II. 
||  Walker,  Topeka  Speech,  June  6th,  1857,  in 
"Washington  Union  "  of  June  27th,  1857. 
**  Walker  to  Cass,  July  15th,  1857.  Senate  Docs., 
1st  Sess.  35th  Cong.,  Vol.  I.,  Ex.  Doc.  8,  p.  27.
174 
THE   LINCOLX-DOUGLAS  DEBATES. 
the  governor  equal  it"  not  greater,  encourage- 
ment. On  the  2d  and  3d  of  July  the  "  National 
Democratic  *"  or  pro-slavery  party  of  the  Terri- 
tory  met  in  convention  at  Lecompton.  The 
leader-  were  out  in  full  force.  The  hopelessness 
of  making  Kansas  a  slave  State  was  once  more 
acknowledged,  the  governor's  policy  indorsed, 
and  a  resolution  "against  die  submission  of  the 
constitution  to  a  vote  of  the  people  was  laid 
on  the  table  as  a  test  vote  by  a  vote  of  forty- 
two  io  one."  *  The  governor  began  already  to 
look  upon  his  counsels  and  influence  as  a 
turning-point  in  national  destiny.  "Indeed," 
he  writes,  "it  is  universally  admitted  here  that 
the  only  real  question  is  this  :  whether  Kansas 
shall  be  a  conservative,  constitutional,  Demo- 
cratic, and  ultimately  free  State,  or  whether 
it  shall  be  a  Republican  and  abolition  State; 
and  that  the  course  pursued  by  me  is  the  only 
one  which  will  prevent  the  last  most  calamitous 
result,  which,  in  my  opinion,  would  soon  seal 
the  fate  of  the  republic."  t 
In  his  eagerness  to  reform  the  Democratic 
party  of  Kansas,  and  to  strengthen  the  Dem- 
ocratic party  of  the  nation  against  the  assaults 
and  dangers  of  "  abolitionism,"  the  governor 
was  not  entirely  frank ;  else  he  would  at  the 
same  time  have  reported,  what  he  was  obliged 
later  to  explain,  that  the  steps  taken  to  form  a 
constitution  from  which  he  hoped  so  much 
were  already  vitiated  by  such  defects  or 
frauds  as  to  render  them  impossible  of  pro- 
ducing good  fruit.  The  territorial  law  ap- 
pointing the  election  of  delegates  provided  for 
a  census  and  a  registry  of  voters,  to  be  made 
by  county  officers  appointed  by  the  territorial 
legislature.  These  officers  so  neglected  or 
failed  to  discharge  their  duty,  that  in  nearly 
half  the  organized  counties  of  the  interior  no 
attempt  whatever  was  made  to  obtain  the 
census  or  registration  ;  %  and  in  the  counties 
lying  on  the  Missouri  border,  where  the  pro- 
slavery  party  was  strong,  the  work  of  both 
was  exceedingly  imperfect,  and  in  many  in- 
stances with  notorious  discrimination  against 
free-State  voters.  While  the  disfranchised 
1  o amies  had  a  comparatively  sparse  popula- 
tion, the  number  of  voters  in  them  was  too 
considerable  to  be  justly  denied  their  due 
representation^  The  apportionment  of  dele- 
was  based  upon  this  defective  registra- 
tion and  census,  and  this  alone  would  have 
n  the  pro-slavery  party  a  disproportionate 
r  in  the  convention.    But  at  the  election 
"  Walker  to(  lass,  July  15th,  1857.    Senate  Docs.,  1st 
Vol.  I.,  Ex.  Doc.  8,  p.  29. 
t  Walker  to  Cass,  July  15th,  1857.    Senate  Docs.,  1st 
35th  Cong.,  Vol.  I.,  Ex.  Doc.  8,  p.  30. 
:  F.    P.    Star  ton's    Speech,   Philadelphia,   February 
8th,  1858. 
^  "  These  fifteen  counties  in  which  there  was  no  reg- 
istry gave  a  much  larger  vote  at  the  October  election, 
of  delegates  on  the  15th  of  June,  the  free- 
State  men,  following  their  deliberate  purpose 
and  hitherto  unvarying  practice  of  non-con- 
formity to  the  bogus  laws,  abstained  entirely 
from  voting.  "The  consequence  was  that  out 
of  the  9250  voters  whose  names  had  been 
registered  .  .  .  there  were  in  all  about  2200 
votes  cast,  and  of  these  the  successful  candi- 
dates received  1800."  || 
"  The  black  Republicans,"  reported  the  gov- 
ernor, "  would  not  vote,  and  the  free-State 
Democrats  were  kept  from  voting  by  the  fear 
that  the  constitution  would  not  be  submitted 
by  the  convention,  and  that  by  voting  they 
committed  themselves  to  the  proceeding  of 
the  convention.  But  for  my  inaugural,  circu- 
lated by  thousands,  and  various  speeches  all 
urging  the  people  to  vote,  there  would  not 
have  been  one  thousand  votes  polled  in  the 
Territory,  and  the  convention  would  have  been 
a  disastrous  failure,  "fl 
But  this  was  not  the  only  evil.  The  appor- 
tionment of  the  members  of  the  territorial 
legislature  to  be  chosen  the  ensuing  autumn 
was  also  based  upon  this  same  defective  regis- 
try and  census.  Here  again  disproportionate 
power  accrued  to  the  pro-slavery  party,  and 
the  free-State  men  loudly  charged  that  it  was 
a  new  contrivance  for  the  convenience  of 
Missouri  voters.  Governor  Walker  publicly 
deplored  all  these  complications  and  defects; 
but  he  counseled  endurance,  and  constantly 
urged  in  mitigation  that  in  the  end  the  people 
should  have  the  privilege  of  a  fair  and  direct 
vote  upon  their  constitution.  That  promise 
he  held  aloft  as  a  beacon-light  of  hope  and 
redress.  This  attitude  and  policy,  frequently 
reported  to  Washington,  was  not  disavowed 
or  discouraged  by  the  President  and  Cabi- 
net. 
The  governor,  however,  soon  found  a  storm 
brewing  in  another  quarter.  When  the  news- 
papers brought  copies  of  his  inaugural  ad- 
dress, his  Topeka  speech,  and  the  general 
report  of  his  Kansas  policy  back  to  the 
Southern  States,  there  arose  an  ominous 
chorus  of  protest  and  denunciation  from  the 
whole  tribe  of  fire-eating  editors  and  poli- 
ticians. What  right  had  the  governor  to 
intermeddle  ?  they  indignantly  demanded. 
What  call  to  preach  about  climate,  what  busi- 
ness to  urge  submission  of  the  constitution  to 
popular  vote,  or  to  promise  his  own  help  to 
defeat  it  if  it  were  not  submitted;  what  author- 
even  with  the  six  months'  qualification,  than  the  whole 
vote  given  to  the  delegates  who  signed  the  Lecompton 
constitution  on  the  7th  November  last." —  [Walker  to 
Cass,  December  15th,  1857.  Senate  Docs.,  1st  Sess. 
35th  Cong.,  Vol.  L,  Ex.  Doc.  8,  p.  128.] 
||  F.  P.  Stanton,  Speech,  Philadelphia,  Feb.  8th,  1858. 
If  Walker  to  Buchanan,  June  28th,  1 85  7.  Report 
Covode  Committee,  p.   118.
THE   LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATES. 
375 
ity  to  pledge  the  President  and  Administration 
to  such  a  course  ?  The  convention  was  sover- 
eign, they  claimed,  could  do  what  it  pleased, 
and  no  thanks  to  the  governor  for  his  imper- 
tinent advice.  The  Democratic  State  Conven- 
tion of  Georgia  took  the  matter  in  hand,  and 
by  resolution  denounced  Walker's  inaugural 
address,  and  asked  his  removal  from  office. 
The  Democratic  State  Convention  ®f  Missis- 
sippi followed  suit,  and  called  the  inaugural 
address  an  unjust  discrimination  against  the 
rights  of  the  South,  and  a  dictatorial  intermed- 
dling with  the  high  public  duty  intrusted  to 
the  convention. 
Walker  wrote  a  private  letter  to  Buchanan, 
defending  his  course,  and  adding : 
"  Unless  I  am  thoroughly  and  cordially  sustained 
by  the  Administration  here,  I  cannot  control  the  con- 
vention, and  we  shall  have  anarchy  and  civil  war. 
With  that  cordial  support  the  convention  (a  majority  of 
whose  delegates  I  have  already  seen)  will  do  what  is 
right.  I  shall  travel  over  the  whole  Territory,  make 
speeches,  rouse  the  people  in  favor  of  my  plan,  and 
see  all  the  delegates.  But  your  cordial  support  is  in- 
dispensable, and  I  never  would  have  come  here,  unless 
assured  by  you  of  the  cordial  cooperation  of  all  the 
Federal  officers.  .  .  .  The  extremists  are  trying  your 
nerves  and  mine,  but  what  can  they  say  when  the  con- 
vention submits  the  constitution  to  the  people  and  the 
vote  is  given  by  them  ?  But  we  must  have  a  slave  State 
out  of  the  south-western  Indian  Territory,  and  then  a 
calm  will  follow ;  Cuba  be  acquired  with  the  acquies- 
cence of  the  North;  and  your  Administration,  having 
in  reality  settled  the  slavery  question,  be  regarded  in 
all  time  to  come  as  a  re-signing  and  re-sealing  of  the 
constitution.  ...  I  shall  be  pleased  soon  to  hear  from 
you.  Cuba!  Cuba!  (and  Porto  Rico,  if  possible)  should 
be  the  countersign  of  your  Administration,  and  it  will 
close  in  a  blaze  of  glory."  * 
The  governor  had  reason  to  be  proud  of  the 
full  and  complete  reendorsement  which  this 
appeal  brought  from  his  chief.  Under  date  of 
July  1 2th,  1857,  the  President  wrote  in  reply  : 
"  On  the  question  of  submitting  the  constitution  to 
the  bond  fide  resident  settlers  of  Kansas  I  am  willing 
to  stand  or  fall.  In  sustaining  such  a  principle  we  can- 
not fall.  It  is  the  principle  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska 
bill;  the  principle  of  popular  sovereignty;  and  the 
principle  at  the  foundation  of  all  popular  government. 
The  more  it  is  discussed  the  stronger  it  will  become. 
Should  the  convention  of  Kansas  adopt  this  principle, 
all  will  be  settled  harmoniously,  and  with  the  blessing 
of  Providence  you  will  return  triumphantly  from  your 
arduous,  important,  and  responsible  mission.  The  stric- 
tures of  the  Georgia  and  Mississippi  conventions  will 
then  pass  away  and  be  speedily  forgotten.  In  regard 
to  Georgia,  our  news  from  that  State  is  becoming  better 
every  day,  we  have  not  yet  had  time  to  hear  much  from 
Mississippi.  Should  you  answer  the  resolutions  of  the 
latter,  I  would  advise  you  to  make  the  great  principle 
of  the  submission  of  the  constitution  to  the  bond  fide 
residents  of  Kansas  conspicuously  prominent.  On  this 
you  will  be  irresistible."  t 
The  delegates  to  the  constitutional  conven- 
tion, chosen  in  June,  met  according  to  law 
*  Walker  to  Buchanan,  June  28th,  1857.  Report 
Covode  Committee,  pp.  11 7-1 19. 
at  Lecompton,  September  7th,  and,  having 
spent  five  days  in  organization,  adjourned 
their  session  to  October  19th.  The  object 
of  this  recess  was  to  await  the  issue  of  the 
general  election  of  October  5th,  at  which 
a  full  territorial  legislature,  a  delegate  to 
Congress,  and  various  county  officers  were 
to  be  chosen. 
By  the  action  of  the  free- State  men  this 
election  was  now  made  a  turning-point  in  Kan- 
sas politics.  Held  together  as  a  compact  party 
by  their  peaceful  resistance  to  the  bogus  laws, 
emigration  from  the  North  had  so  strengthened 
their  numbers  that  they  clearly  formed  a  ma- 
jority of  the  people  of  the  Territory.  A  self- 
constituted  and  self-regulated  election  held  by 
them  for  sundry  officials  under  their  Topeka 
constitution  revealed  a  numerical  strength  of 
more  than  seven  thousand  voters.  Feeling 
that  this  advantage  justified  them  in  receding 
from  their  attitude  of  non-conformity,  they 
met  in  convention  toward  the  end  of  August, 
and  while  protesting  against  the  "  wicked 
apportionment,"  resolved  that  "  whereas  Gov- 
ernor Walker  has  repeatedly  pledged  himself 
that  the  people  of  Kansas  should  have  a  full 
and  fair  vote,  before  impartial  judges,  at  the 
election  to  be  held  on  the  first  Monday  in 
October,  ...  we  the  people  of  Kansas,  in 
mass  convention  assembled,  agree  to  partici- 
pate in  said  election."  J 
Governor  Walker  executed  his  public  prom- 
ises to  the  letter.  A  movement  of  United 
States  troops  to  Utah  was  in  progress,  and 
about  two  thousand  of  these  were  detained  by 
order  until  after  election  day.  Stationed  at  ten 
or  twelve  different  points  in  the  Territory,  they 
served  by  their  mere  presence  to  overawe  dis- 
order, and  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of 
Kansas  the  two  opposing  parties  measured 
their  strength  at  the  ballot-box.  The  result 
was  an  overwhelming  triumph  for  the  free- 
State  party.  For  delegate  in  Congress,  Ran- 
som, the  Democratic  candidate,  received 
3799  votes;  Parrott,  the  Republican  candi- 
date, 7888, —  a  free-State  majority  of  40S9. 
For  the  legislature,  even  under  the  defective 
apportionment,  the  council  stood  9  free-State 
members  to  4  Democrats,  and  the  House  24 
free-State  members  to  15  Democrats. 
That  the  pro-slavery  cabal  would  permit 
power  to  slip  from  their  grasp  without  some 
extraordinary  effort  was  scarcely  to  be  ex- 
pected. When  the  official  returns  were  brought 
from  the  various  voting-places  to  the  govern- 
or's office,  there  came  from  Oxford,  a  single 
precinct  in  Johnson  county,  "  a  roll  of  paper. 
40  or  50  feet  long,  containing  names  as  thickly 
t Buchanan    to    Walker,    July    12th,   1S57.    Report 
Covode  Committee,  p.  112. 
%  Wilder,  p.  133.
376 
THE   LIXCOLX-DOUGLAS  DEBATES. 
as  they  could  be  written."*  and  a  large  part 
of  which  were  afterward  discovered  to  have 
been  Literally  copied  from  an  old  Cincinnati 
directory.  This  paper  purported  to  be  a  re- 
turn of  1628  votes  for  the  it  pro-slavery  can- 
didates for  the  legislature  in  that  district,  and 
if  counted,  it  would  elect  8  members  of  the 
House  and  3  of  the  council  by  a  trifling 
majority,  and  thereby  change  the  political 
complexion  and  power  of  the  legislature.  In- 
spection showed  the  document  to  be  an  at- 
tempt to  commit  a  stupendous  fraud;  and 
after  visiting  the  locality  ("  a  village  with  six 
houses,  including  stores,  and  without  a  tav- 
ern ")t  and  satisfying  himself  of  the  impossi- 
bility  of  such  a  vote  from  such  a  place,  Gov- 
ernor Walker  rejected  the  whole  return  from 
Oxford  precinct  for  informality,  and  gave 
certificates  of  election  to  the  free-State  candi- 
dates elected  as  appeared  by  the  other  regular 
returns.  A  similar  paper  from  McGee  county 
with  more  than  1200  names  was  treated  in 
like  manner.t  Judge  Cato  issued  his  writ  of 
mandamus  to  compel  the  governor  to  give 
certificates  to  the  pro-slavery  candidates,  but 
without  success.  The  language  of  Governor 
Walker  and  Secretary  Stanton  in  a  proclama- 
tion announcing  their  action  deserves  remem- 
brance and  imitation. 
'•  The  consideration  that  our  own  party  by  this  de- 
cision will  lose  the  majority  in  the  legislative  assembly 
does  not  make  our  duty  in  the  premises  less  solemn 
and  imperative.  The  elective  franchise  would  be  ut- 
terly valueless,  and  free  government  itself  would 
receive  a  deadly  blow,  if  so  great  an  outrage  as  this 
could  be  shielded  under  the  cover  of  mere  forms  and 
technicalities.  We  cannot  consent  in  any  manner  to 
give  the  sanction  of  our  respective  official  positions  to 
such  a  transaction.  Nor  can  we  feel  justified  to  relieve 
ourselves  of  the  proper  responsibility  of  our  offices, 
in  a  case  where  there  is  no  valid  return,  by  submitting 
the  question  to  the  legislative  assembly,  and  in  that 
very  act  giving  the  parties  that  might  claim  to  be 
chosen  by  this  spurious  vote  the  power  to  decide  upon 
their  own  election."  § 
The  decisive  free-State  victory,  the  Oxford 
and  McGee  frauds, ||  and  the  governor's  fear- 
less action  in  exposing  and  rejecting  them, 
called  forth  universal  comment;  and  under 
the  new  political  conditions  which  they  re- 
vealed, created  intense  interest  in  the  further 
proceedings  of  the  Lecompton  Constitutional 
Convention.  That  body  reassembled  accord- 
ing to  adjournment  on  the  19th  of  October. 
Elected  in  the  preceding  June  without  any 
participation  by  free-State  voters,  the  mem- 
bers were  all  pro-slavery,  and  were  presided 
over  by  John  Calhoun  (the  same  man  who, 
as  county  surveyor  of  Sangamon  county,  Illi- 
nois, employed  Abraham  Lincoln  as  his  dep- 
uty in  1832). 
At  the  June  election,  while  he  and  his  seven 
colleagues  from  Douglas  county  were  yet 
candidates  for  the  convention,  they  had  cir- 
culated a  written  pledge  that  they  would  sub- 
mit the  constitution  to  the  people  for  ratifica- 
tion. This  attitude  was  generally  maintained 
by  them  till  the  October  election.  But  when  by 
that  vote  they  saw  their  faction  overwhelmed 
with  defeat,  they  and  others  undertook  to 
maintain  themselves  in  power  by  an  unprece- 
dented piece  of  political  jugglery.  Calhoun, 
who  was  surveyor-general  of  the  Territory, 
employed  a  large  number  of  subordinates,  and 
was  one  of  the  most  able  and  unscrupulous 
leaders  in  the  pro-slavery  cabal.  A  large  ma- 
jority of  the  convention  favored  the  establish- 
ment of  slavery;  only  the  question  of  a  popular 
vote  on  ratification  or  rejection  excited  con- 
troversy. 
An  analysis  shows  that  the  principle  of  del- 
egated authority  had  become  attenuated  to  a 
remarkable  degree.  The  defective  registration 
excluded  a  considerable  number  (estimated  at 
about  one-sixth)  of  the  legal  voters.  Of  the 
9250  registered,  only  about  2200  voted,  all 
told.  Of  these  2200,  only  about  1800  votes 
were  given  for  the  successful  candidates  for 
delegate.  Of  the  whole  60  delegates  alleged 
to  have  been  chosen,  "but  43,"  says  a  Com- 
mittee Report, 
"  participated  in  the  work  of  the  convention.  Ses- 
sions were  held  without  a  quorum,  and  the  yeas  and 
nays  often  show  that  but  few  above  thirty  were  pres- 
ent. It  is  understood,  and  not  denied,  that  but  28  of 
these  —  less  than  half  of  a  full  house  of  60  —  decided 
the  pro-slavery  or  free-State  question  ;  and  upon  the 
question  of  submission  of  their  work  to  the  will  of  the 
people,  the  pro-slavery  party  carried  the  point  by  a 
majority  of  two  votes  only.    It  was  quite  in  keeping 
"  Stanton,  Speech  at  Philadelphia,  February  8th,  1858. 
*  Walker,  Proclamation,  October  19th,  1857.  Senate 
Docs.,  istSess.  35th  Cong.,  Vol.  I.,  Ex.  Doc.  8,  p.  103. 
t  [bid.,  pp.  104-6. 
%  Walker,  Proclamation,  October  19th,  1857.  .Senate 
Docs.,  1st  Sess.  35th  Cong.,  Vol.  I.,  Ex.  Doc.  8,  p.  104. 
||  The  ingenuity  which  evolved  1600  Kansas  votes 
from  an  old  Cincinnati  directory  and  1200  more  from 
an  uninhabited  county,  was  not  exhausted  by  that  pro- 
digious labor.  '1  he  same  influences,  and  perhaps  the 
same  manipulators,  produced  a  companion  piece  known 
by  the  name  of  the  "  candle-box  fraud."  At  the  elec- 
tion of  January  4th,  1858,  for  officers  under  the  Le- 
compton   constitution,    the    returns    from    Delaware 
Agency  underwent  such  suspicious  handling  that  an 
investigating  commission  of  the  Legislature,  by  aid  of 
a  search-warrant,  found  them  secreted  in  a  candle-box 
buried  under  a  wood-pile  near  Calhoun's  "  Surveyor- 
General's  office"  at  Lecompton.  A  forged  list  of  379 
votes  had  been  substituted  for  the  original  memoran- 
dum of  only  43  votes  cut  from  the  certificate  of  the 
judges;  the  votes  on  the  forged  list  being  intended 
for  the  pro-slavery  candidates.  During  the  investiga- 
tion Calhoun  was  arrested,  but  liberated  by  Judge  Cato 
on  habeas  corpus,  after  which  he  immediately  went  to 
Missouri,  and  from  there  to  Washington.  The  details 
and  testimony  are  found  in  House  Com.  Reports,  1st 
Scss.  35th  Cong.,  Vol.  III.,  Report  No.  377.
THE  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATES. 
377 
with  the  character  of  this  body  and  its  officers  to  find 
the  journal  of  its  proceedings  for  the  last  days  miss- 
ing." * 
Their  allotted  task  was  completed  in  a  short 
session  of  about  three  weeks ;  the  convention 
adjourned  November  7th,  43  of  the  50  dele- 
gates present  having  been  induced  to  sign  the 
constitution.  When  the  document  was  pub- 
lished the  whole  country  was  amazed  to  see 
what  perversity  and  ingenuity  had  been  em- 
ployed to  thwart  the  unmistakable  popular 
will.  Essentially  a  slave-State  constitution  of 
the  most  pronounced  type,  containing  the 
declaration  that  the  right  of  property  in  slaves 
is  "  before  and  higher  than  any  constitutional 
sanction,"  it  made  the  right  to  vote  upon  it 
depend  on  the  one  hand  on  a  test  oath  to 
"  support  this  constitution  "  in  order  to  repel 
conscientious  free-State  voters,  and  on  the 
other  hand  on  mere  inhabitancy  on  the  day 
of  election  to  attract  nomadic  Missourians ; 
it  postponed  the  right  to  amend  or  alter  for 
a  period  of  seven  years  ;  it  kept  the  then  ex- 
isting territorial  laws  in  force  until  abrogated 
by  State  legislation ;  it  adopted  the  late  Ox- 
ford fraud  as  a  basis  of  apportionment ;  it  gave 
to  Calhoun,  the  presiding  officer,  power  to 
make  the  precincts,  the  judges  of  election,  and 
to  decide  finally  upon  the  returns  in  the  vote 
upon  it,  besides  many  other  questionable  or 
inadmissible  provisions.  Finally  the  form  of 
submission  to  popular  vote  to  be  taken  on  the 
2 1  st  of  December  was  prescribed  to  be,  "con- 
stitution with  slavery  "  or  "  constitution  with 
no  slavery,"  thus  compelling  the  adoption  of 
the  constitution  in  any  event. 
There  is  a  personal  and  political  mystery 
underlying  this  transaction  which  history  will 
probably  never  solve.  Only  a  few  points  of 
information  have  come  to  light,  and  they  serve 
to  embarrass  rather  than  aid  the  solution.  The 
first  is  that  Calhoun,  although  the  friend  and 
protege  of  Douglas,  and  also  himself  personally 
pledged  to  submission,  came  to  the  governor 
and  urged  him  to  join  in  the  new  programme 
as  to  slavery, —  alleging  that  the  Administration 
had  changed  its  policy,  and  now  favored  this 
plan,  —  and  tempted  Walker  with  a  prospect 
of  the  Presidency  if  he  would  concur.  Walker 
declared  such  a  change  impossible,  and  indig- 
nantly spurned  the  proposal,  f  The  second 
is  that  one  Martin,  a  department  clerk,  was, 
after  confidential  instructions  from  Secretary 
*  Minority  Report,  Select  Com.  of  Fifteen.  Report 
No-  377,  page  109,  Vol.  III.,  H.  R.  Reports,  1st  Sess. 
35th  Cong. 
This  "  missing  link,"  no  less  than  the  remaining 
portion  of  the  journal  printed  in  the  proceedings  of  the 
investigating  committee,  is  itself  strong  circumstantial 
proof  of  the  imposture  underlying  the  whole  transac- 
tion. Many  sections  of  the  completed  constitution  are 
not  even  mentioned  in  the  journal:  it  does  not  contain 
Thompson  and  Secretary  Cobb,  of  Buchan- 
an's Cabinet, sent  to  Kansas  in  October,  osten- 
sibly on  department  business;  that  he  spent 
his  time  in  the  lobby  and  the  secret  caucuses 
of  the  convention.  Martin  testifies  that  these 
Cabinet  members  favored  submission,  but  that 
Thompson  wished  it  understood  that  he  was 
unwilling  to  oppose  the  admission  of  Kansas 
"  if  a  pro-slavery  constitution  should  be  made 
and  sent  directly  to  Congress  by  the  conven- 
tion." J  A  wink  was  as  good  as  a  nod  with 
that  body,  or  rather  with  the  cabal  which  con- 
trolled it;  and  after  a  virtuous  dumb-show  of 
opposition,  it  made  a  pretense  of  yielding  to  the 
inevitable,  and  acted  on  the  official  suggestion. 
This  theory  is  the  more  plausible  because  Mar- 
tin testifies  further  that  he  himself  drafted  the 
slavery  provision  which  was  finally  adopted. § 
The  third  point  is  that  the  President  inexcus- 
ably abandoned  his  pledges  to  the  governor 
and  adopted  this  Cobb-Thompson-Calhoun 
contrivance,  instead  of  keeping  his  word  and 
dismissing  Calhoun,  as  honor  dictated.  This 
course  becomes  especially  remarkable  in  view 
of  the  fact  that  the  change  did  not  occur  un- 
til after  Walker's  rejection  of  the  fraudulent 
Oxford  returns,  which  action  placed  the  legis- 
lative power  of  the  Territory  in  the  hands  of 
the  newly  elected  free-State  legislature,  as  al- 
ready related.  On  the  same  day  (October  2 2d, 
1857)  on  which  Walker  and  Stanton  issued 
their  proclamation  rejecting  the  fraudulent  re- 
turns, President  Buchanan  wrote  another  high- 
ly commendatory  letter  to  Governor  Walker. 
As  it  has  never  before  been  published,  its  full 
text  will  have  special  historical  interest. 
"Washington  City,  22d  October,  1857. 
"  My  Dear  Sir  :  I  have  received  your  favor  of  the 
tenth  instant  by  Captain  Pleasonton  and  am  rejoiced 
to  learn  from  you,  what  I  had  previously  learned  from 
other  less  authentic  sources,  that  the  convention  of 
Kansas  will  submit  the  constitution  to  the  people.  It 
is  highly  gratifying  that  the  late  election  passed  off  so 
peacefully ;  and  I  think  we  may  now  fairly  anticipate 
a  happy  conclusion  to  all  the  difficulties  in  that  Terri- 
tory. Your  application  for  a  month's  leave  of  absence 
has  been  granted  to  commence  after  the  adjournment 
of  the  convention.  During  its  session  your  presence 
will  be  too  important  to  be  dispensed  with.  I  shall 
be  glad  to  see  you  before  you  publish  anything.  The 
whole  affair  is  now  gliding  along  smoothly.  Indeed, 
the  revulsion  in  the  business  of  the  country  seems  to 
have  driven  all  thoughts  of  '  bleeding  Kansas  '  from  the 
public  mind.  When  and  in  what  manner  anything 
shall  be  published  to  revive  the  feeling,  is  a  question 
of  serious  importance.  I  am  persuaded  that  with  every 
passing  day  the  public  are  more  and  more  disposed  to 
the  submission  clause  of  the  schedule,  and  the  authen- 
ticity of  the  document  rests  upon  the  signatures  and 
the  certificate  of  John  Calhoun. 
t  Walker,  Testimony.  Report  Covode  Committee, 
p.  no. 
t  Martin,  Testimony.    Report  Covode  Committee, 
P-  !59- 
$  Report  Covode  Committee,  pp.  170-1.
37« 
THE   LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATES. 
do  you  justice.  You  certainly  do  injustice  to  Harris, 
the  editor  of  the  '  Union.1  In  the  beginning  I  paid  some 
attention  to  the  course  oi  the  paper  in  regard  to  your- 
ind  I  think  it  was  unexceptionable:  I  know  he 
stc  h!  firm  amidst  a  shower  of  abuse  from  the  extrem- 
is:-. I  never  saw  nor  did  I  ever  hear  of  the  communi- 
n  published  in  the  'Union'  to  which  you  refer, 
and  Harris  has  no  recollection  oi  it.  1  requested  him  to 
number  ami  send  it  to  me;  but  this  he  has 
not  done.  He  is  not  responsible  in  any  degree  for  the 
•.dun  ot  the  letters  to  which  you  refer.''  I 
knew  nothing  of  them  until  after  the  receipt  of  yours  ; 
and  upon  inquiry  1  found  their  publication  had  been 
prevented  by  Mr.  Cobb  under  a  firm  conviction  that 
they  would  injure  both  yourself  and  the  Administra- 
tion. Whether  he  judged  wisely  or  not  I  cannot  say, 
never  saw  them.  That  he  acted  in  fairness  and 
friendship  I  have  not  a  doubt.  He  was  anxious  that 
General  Whitfield  should  publish  a  letter  and  prepared 
one  ioy  him.  expecting  he  would  sign  it  before  he  left. 
He  sent  this  letter  after  him  for  his  approval  and  sig- 
nature ;  but  it  has  not  been  returned.  I  know  not  what 
are  its  contents.  General  W.  doubtless  has  the  letter 
in  his  possession.  Beyond  all  question,  the  motives  of 
Mr.  Cobb  were  proper.  Mrs.  Walker  and  Mrs.  Bache 
have  just  left  me  after  a  half  hour's  very  agreeable 
conversation.  Mrs.  Walker  desires  me  to  inform  you 
the  family  are  all  well  and  sends  her  love. 
"  From  your  friend,  very  respectfully, 
"James  Buchanan. 
'•'Hon.  Robert  J.  Walker/'! 
The  question  naturally  occurs,  for  whom 
did  Calhoun  speak  when  he  approached  Gov- 
ernor Walker,  offering  him  the  bribe  of  the 
Presidency  and  assuring  him  that  the  Admin- 
istration had  changed  its  mind  ?  That  was  be- 
fore, or  certainly  not  long  after,  the  probable 
receipt  of  this  letter  in  Kansas,  for  the  gov- 
ernor left  the  Territory  (November  1 6th)  about 
one  week  after  the  adjournment  of  the  Le- 
compton  convention.  The  question  becomes 
still  more  pressing  owing  to  Governor  Walker's 
testimony  that  when  he  reached  Washington, 
••the  President  himself  distinctly  and  emphat- 
ically assured  me  that  he  had  not  authorized 
anybody  to  say  that  he  had  approved  of  that 
[Lecompton]  programme."!  On  whose  author- 
ity, then,  did  Calhoun  declare  that  the  Admin- 
istration had  changed  its  mind  ? 
This  query  brings  us  to  another  point  in 
President  Buchanan's  letter  of  October  22d, 
in  which  he  mentions  that  Secretary  Cobb,  of 
his  Cabinet,  had  without  his  knowledge  sup- 
ed  the  publication  of  certain  letters  in  the 
•:  Washington  Union."  These  were,  as  we 
learn  elsewhere,  §  the  letters  in  which  some  of 
the  Kansas  pro-slavery  leaders  repeated  their 
declaration  of  the  hopelessness  of  any  further 
contest  to  make  Kansas  a  slave  State.  Why 
this  secret  suppression  by  Secretary  Cobb  ? 
There  is  but  one  plausible  explanation  of 
this  whole  chain  of  contradictions.  The  con- 
clusion is  almost  forced  upon  us  that  a  Cabinet 
intrigue,  of  which  the  President  was  kept  in 
ignorance,  was  being  carried  on,  under  the  very 
eyes  of  Mr.  Buchanan,  by  those  whom  he  him- 
self significantly  calls  "  the  extremists," — a 
plot  to  supersede  his  own  intentions  and 
make  him  falsify  his  own  declarations.  As 
in  the  case  of  similar  intrigues  by  the  same 
agents  a  few  years  later,  he  had  neither  the 
wit  to  perceive  nor  the  will  to  resist. 
The  protest  of  the  people  of  the  Territory 
against  the  extraordinary  action  of  the  Le- 
compton  convention  almost  amounted  to 
a  popular  revolt.  This  action  opened  a  wide 
door  to  fraud,  and  invited  Missouri  over  to 
an  invasion  of  final  and  permanent  conquest. 
Governor  Walker  had  quitted  the  Territory  on 
his  leave  of  absence,  and  Secretary  Stanton 
was  acting  governor.  "The  people  in  great 
masses,"  he  says,  "  and  the  legislature  that 
had  been  elected,  with  almost  an  unanimous 
voice  called  upon  me  to  convene  the  legisla- 
ture, in  order  that  they  might  take  such  steps 
as  they  could  to  counteract  the  misfortune 
which  they  conceived  was  about  to  befall 
them  in  the  adoption  of  this  constitution. "||  As 
already  stated,  Stanton  had  come  to  Kansas 
with  the  current  Democratic  prejudices  against 
the  free-State  party.  But  his  whole  course  had 
been  frank,  sincere,  and  studiously  impartial, 
and  the  Oxford  fraud  had  completely  opened 
his  eyes.  "  I  now  discovered  for  the  first  time 
to  my  entire  satisfaction  why  it  was  that  the 
great  mass  of  the  people  of  the  Territory  had 
been  dissatisfied  with  their  government,  and 
were  ready  to  rebel  and  to  throw  it  off."^]  Hav- 
ing, like  Walker,  frequently  and  earnestly  as- 
sured the  people  of  their  ultimate  right  to  ratify 
or  reject  the  work  of  the  convention,  he  was 
personally  humiliated  by  the  unfairness  and 
trickery  of  which  that  body  was  guilty.  Un- 
der the  circumstances  he  could  not  hesitate  in 
his  duty.  By  proclamation  he  convened  the 
new  legislature  in  extra  session. 
The  members  respected  the  private  pledge 
■  "Dr.  Tebbs  and  General  Whitfield  a  month  since 
left  very  strong  letters  for  publication  with  the  editor 
of  the  'Union'  which  he  promised  to  publish.  His 
breach  of  this  promise  is  a  gross  outrage.  If  not  pub- 
is died  immediately  our  success  in  convention  materi- 
ally depends  on  my  getting  an  immediate  copy  at 
Lecompton.  My  friends  here  all  regard  now  the 
'Union'  as  an  enemy  and  encouraging  by  its  neu- 
trality the  fire-eaters  not  to  submit  the  constitution. 
Very  well,  the  facts  are  so  clear  that  1  can  get  along 
without  the  'Union,'  but  he  had  no  right  to  suppress 
Dr.  Tebbs's  letter.  I  shall  in  due  time  expose  that 
transaction."  —  [R.  J.  Walker  to  James  Buchanan, 
October,  1857.   Extract.] 
t  For  this  autograph  letter  and  other  interesting 
manuscripts,  we  are  indebted  to  General  Duncan  S. 
Walker,  a  son  of  the  governor,  now  residing  in  Wash- 
ington, D.  C. 
t  Report  Govode  Committee,  p.  III. 
$  John  Bell,  Senate  Speech,  March  18th,  1858. 
||  Stanton,  Philadelphia  Speech,  Feb. 8th,  1858. 
f  Ibid.
THE  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATES. 
319 
they  had  given  him  to  engage  in  no  general 
legislation ;  but  provided  by  law  for  an  inves- 
tigation of  the  Oxford  and  McGee  frauds, 
and  for  an  election  to  be  held  on  January  4th, 
1858  (the  day  fixed  by  the  Lecompton  con- 
stitution for  the  election  of  State  officers  and 
a  State  legislature),  at  which  the  people  might 
vote  for  the  Lecompton  constitution  or  against 
it.  Thus  in  course  of  events  two  separate 
votes  were  taken  on  this  notorious  document. 
The  first,  provided  for  in  the  instrument  it- 
self, took  place  on  the  21st  of  December, 
1857.  Detachments  of  troops  were  stationed 
at  several  points ;  the  free-State  men  abstained 
from  voting;  the  election  was  peaceable;  and 
in  due  time  Calhoun  proclaimed  that  6143 
ballots  had  been  cast  "  for  the  constitution 
with  slavery,"  and  589  "  for  the  constitution 
with  no  slavery."  But  the  subsequent  legisla- 
tive investigation  disclosed  a  gross  repetition 
of  the  Oxford  fraud,  and  proved  the  actual 
majority,  in  a  one-sided  vote,  to  have  been 
only  3423.  The  second  election  occurred  on 
January  4th,  1858,  under  authority  of  the  legis- 
lative act.  At  this  election  the  pro-slavery 
party  voted  for  the  State  officers,  but  in  its 
turn  abstained  from  voting  on  the  constitu- 
tion, the  result  being, —  against  the  Lecompton 
constitution,  10,226;  for  the  Lecompton  con- 
stitution with  slavery,  138  ;  for  the  Lecompton 
constitution  without  slavery,  24.* 
This  emphatic  rejection  of  the  Lecompton 
constitution  by  a  direct  vote  of  the  people  of 
Kansas  sealed  its  fate.  We  shall  see  further 
on  what  persistent  but  abortive  efforts  were 
made  in  Congress  to  once  more  galvanize  it 
into  life.  The  free-State  party  was  jubilant ; 
but  the  pro-slavery  cabal,  foiled  and  checked, 
was  not  yet  dismayed  or  conquered.  For  now 
there  was  developed,  for  the  first  time  in  its 
full  proportions,  the  giant  pro-slavery  intrigue 
which  proved  that  the  local  conspiracy  of  the 
Atchison- Missouri  cabal  was  but  the  image 
and  fraction  of  a  national  combination,  find- 
ing its  headquarters  in  the  Administration,  first 
of  President  Pierce,  and  now  of  President  Bu- 
chanan ;  working  as  patiently  and  insidiously 
as  the  order  of  Jesuits  in  the  Church  of  Rome, 
through  successive  efforts  to  bring  about  a 
practical  subversion  of  the  whole  theory  and 
policy  of  the  x\merican  government.  It  linked 
the  action  of  Border  Ruffians,  presidential  as- 
*  Under  an  Act  of  Congress  popularly  known  as  the 
"  English  Bill,"  this  same  Lecompton  constitution  was 
once  more  voted  upon  by  the  people  of  Kansas  on 
August  2d,  1858,  with  the  following  result:  for  the 
proposition,  1788;  against  it,  11,300. —  [Wilder,  pp. 
186-8.] 
t  Cass  to  Stanton,  December  2d,  1857.  Senate  Docs., 
1st  Sess.  35th  Cong.,  Vol.  I.,  Doc.  8,  p.  112. 
X  Cass  to  Stanton,  December  8th,  1857.    Ibid.,  p.  1 13. 
§Cass  to  Denver,  December  nth,  1857.  Ibid.,  p.  120. 
pirants,  senates,  courts,  and  cabinets  into  effi- 
cient cooperation;  leading  up,  step  by  step, 
from  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise, 
through  the  Nebraska  bill,  border  conquest, 
the  Dred  Scott  decision,  the  suppression  of 
the  submission  clause  in  the  Toombs  bill,  and 
the  extraordinary  manipulation  and  machinery 
of  the  Lecompton  constitution,  toward  the 
final  overthrow  of  the  doctrine  that  "  all  men 
are  created  equal,"  and  the  substitution  of  the 
dogma  of  property  in  man  ;  toward  the  judi- 
cial construction  that  property  rights  in  human 
beings  are  before  and  above  constitutional 
sanction,  and  that  slavery  must  find  protection 
and  perpetuity  in  States  as  well  as  in  Terri- 
tories. 
The  first  weather-sign  came  from  Washing- 
ton. On  the  day  after  Acting  Governor  Stanton 
convened  the  October  Legislature  in  special 
session,  and  before  news  of  the  event  reached 
him,  Secretary  Cass  transmitted  to  him  ad- 
vance copies  of  the  President's  annual  mes- 
sage, in  which  the  Lecompton  constitution 
was  indorsed  in  unqualified  terms,  t  A  week 
later  he  was  admonished  to  conform  to  the 
views  of  the  President  in  his  official  con- 
duct, f  At  this  point  the  State  Department 
became  informed  of  what  had  taken  place,  and 
the  acting  governor  had  short  shrift.  On  De- 
cember 1 1  th  Cass  wrote  to  J.  W.  Denver,  Esq. : 
"  You  have  already  been  informed  that  Mr. 
Stanton  has  been  removed  from  the  office  of 
Secretary  of  the  Territory  of  Kansas  and  that 
you  have  been  appointed  in  his  place."  Cass 
further  explained  that  the  President 
"  was  surprised  to  learn  that  the  secretary  and  act- 
ing governor  had,  on  the  1st  of  December,  issued  his 
proclamation  for  a  special  session  of  the  territorial  legis- 
lature on  the  7th  instant,  only  a  few  weeks  in  advance 
of  its  regular  time  of  meeting,  and  only  fourteen  days 
before  the  decision  was  to  be  made  on  the  question 
submitted  by  the  convention.  This  course  of  Mr. 
Stanton,  the  President  seriously  believes,  has  thrown 
a  new  element  of  discord  among  the  excited  people  of 
Kansas,  and  is  directly  at  war,  therefore,  with  the 
peaceful  policy  of  the  Administration.  For  this  reason 
he  has  felt  it  his  duty  to  remove  him."  § 
Walker,  already  in  Washington  on  leave  of 
absence,  could  no  longer  remain  silent.  He 
was  as  pointedly  abandoned  and  disgraced  by 
the  Administration  as  was  his  subordinate.  In 
a  dignified  letter  justifying  his  own  course, 
which,  he  reminded  them,  had  never  been  criti- 
cised or  disavowed,  he  resigned  the  governor- 
ship. 
"  From  the  events  occurring  in  Kansas  as  well  as 
here,"  he  wrote,  "  it  is  evident  that  the  question  is 
passing  from  theories  into  practice  ;  and  that  as  gov- 
ernor of  Kansas  I  should  be  compelled  to  carry  our 
new  instructions,  differing  on  a  vital  question  from 
those  received  at  the  date  of  my  appointment.  Such 
instructions  I  could  not  execute  consistently  with  my 
views  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  of  the  Kansas  and
380 
THE  LINCOLX-DOUGLAS  DEBATES. 
Nebraska  bill,  or  with  my  pledges  to  the  people  of 
Kansas."  "  The  idea  entertained  by  some  that  I 
should  see  the  Federal  Constitution  and  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  bill  overthrown  and  disregarded,  and  that, 
playing  the  part  o\  a  mute  in  a  pantomime  of  ruin,  I 
should  acquiesce  by  my  silence  in  sueh  a  result,  espe- 
eiallv  where  sueh  acquiescence  involved,  as  an  immedi- 
ate consequence,  a  disastrous  and  sanguinary  civil  war, 
seems  to  me  most  preposterous."* 
The  conduct  and  the  language  of  Walker 
and  Stanton  bear  a  remarkable  significance 
when  we  remember  that  they  had  been  citi- 
zens of  slave  States  and  zealous  Democratic 
partisans,  and  that  only  hard  practical  experi- 
ence and  the  testimony  of  their  own  eyes  had 
forced  them  to  join  their  predecessors  in  the 
political  "  graveyard."  "  The  ghosts  on  the 
banks  ot  the  Styx,"  said  Seward,  "  constitute 
a  cloud  scarcely  more  dense  than  the  spirits 
of  the  departed  governors  of  Kansas,  wander- 
ing in  exile  and  sorrow  for  having  certified 
the  truth  against  falsehood  in  regard  to  the 
elections  between  Freedom  and  Slavery  in 
Kansas."  t 
THE    REVOLT  OF    DOUGLAS. 
The  language  of  President  Buchanan's  an- 
nual message,  the  summary  dismissal  of  Act- 
ing Governor  Stanton,  and  the  resignation  of 
Governor  Walker,  abruptly  transferred  the 
whole  Lecompton  question  from  Kansas  to 
Washington  ;  and  even  before  the  people  of 
the  Territory  had  practically  decided  it  by  the 
respective  popular  votes  of  December  21st, 
1857,  and  January  4th,  1858,  it  had  become 
the  dominant  political  issue  in  the  Thirty-fifth 
Gongress,  which  convened  on  December  7th, 
1857.  The  attitude  of  Senator  Douglas  on  the 
new  question  claimed  universal  attention.  The 
Dred  Scott  decision,  affirming  constitutional 
sanction  and  inviolability  for  slave  property 
in  Territories,  had  rudely  damaged  his  theory. 
But  we  have  seen  how  in  his  Springfield 
speech  he  ingeniously  sought  to  repair  and 
rehabilitate  "  popular  sovereignty "  by  the 
sophism  that  a  master's  abstract  constitu- 
tional right  to  slave  property  in  a  Territory 
was  a  "  barren  and  a  worthless  right  unless 
sustained,  protected,  and  enforced  by  appro- 
priate police  regulations,"  which  could  only 
be  supplied  by  the  local  territorial  legisla- 
tures; and  that  the  people  of  Kansas  thus 
still  possessed  the  power  of  indirect  prohibi- 
tion. 
To  invent  and  utter  this  sophism  for  home 
consumption  among  his  distant  constituents 
on  the  1 2th  of  June  (a  few  days  before  the 
Lecompton  delegates  were  elected),  and  in 
so  unobtrusive  a  manner  as  scarcely  to  attract 
*  Walker  to  Cass,  Dec.  15,  1857.    Senate  Docs.,  1st 
Sess.  35th  Con^.,  Vol.  I.,  Doc  8,  pp.  131,  130. 
t  Seward,  Senate  Speech,  April  30th,  1858. 
a  ripple  of  public  notice,  was  a  light  task 
compared  with  that  which  confronted  him  as 
Senator,  at  the  meeting  of  Congress  in  De- 
cember, in  the  light  of  John  Calhoun's  doings 
and  powers,  of  the  scandal  of  the  Oxford 
fraud,  and  of  the  indignation  of  Northern 
Democrats  against  the  betrayal  of  Walker 
and  Stanton. 
One  of  his  first  experiences  was  a  personal 
quarrel  with  Buchanan.  When  he  reached 
Washington,  three  days  before  the  session, 
he  went  to  the  President  to  protest  against 
his  adopting  the  Lecompton  constitution  and 
sending  it  to  Congress  for  acceptance.  Bu- 
chanan insisted  that  he  must  recommend  it 
in  his  annual  message.  Douglas  replied  that 
he  would  denounce  it  as  soon  as  it  was  read. 
The  President,  excited,  told  him  to  remember 
"  that  no  Democrat  ever  yet  differed  from  an 
administration  of  his  own  choice  without  be- 
ing crushed.  Beware  of  the  fate  of  Tallmadge 
and  Rives,"  added  he.  "  Mr.  President,"  re- 
torted Douglas,  "  I  wish  you  to  remember 
that  General  Jackson  is  dead."  J 
In  the  election  of  Mr.  Buchanan  as  Presi- 
dent the  South  had  secured  a  most  important 
ally  for  the  work  of  pro-slavery  reaction. 
Trained  in  the  belief  that  the  South  had 
hitherto  been  wronged,  he  was  ready  on  every 
occasion  to  appear  as  her  champion  for  re- 
dress ;  and  the  Southern  politicians  were  now 
eager  to  use  his  leadership  to  make  their 
views  of  public  policy  and  constitutional  duty 
acceptable  to  the  North.  Mediocre  in  talent 
and  feeble  in  will,  he  easily  submitted  to  con- 
trol and  guidance  from  a  few  Southern  leaders 
of  superior  intellectual  force.  In  his  inaugural, 
he  sought  to  prepare  public  opinion  for  obedi- 
ence to  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  and  since  its 
publication  he  had  undertaken  to  interpret  its 
scope  and  effect.  Replying  to  a  memorial 
from  certain  citizens  of  New  England,  he 
declared  in  a  public  letter,  "  Slavery  existed 
at  that  period,  and  still  exists  in  Kansas, 
under  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 
This  point  has  at  last  been  finally  decided  by 
the  highest  tribunal  known  to  our  laws.  How 
it  could  ever  have  been  seriously  doubted  is 
a  mystery."  §  In  the  same  letter  he  affirmed 
the  legality  of  the  Lecompton  convention, 
though  he  yet  clearly  expressed  his  expecta- 
tion that  the  constitution  to  be  framed  by  it 
would  be  submitted  to  popular  vote  for  "  ap- 
probation or  rejection." 
But  when  that  convention  adjourned,  and 
made  known  its  cunningly  devised  work,  the 
whole  South  instantly  became  clamorous  to 
secure  the  sectional  advantages  which  lay  in  its 
\  Douglas,  Milwaukee  Speech,  October  13th,  i860. 
§  Buchanan  to  Silliman  and  others,  Aug.  15th,  1857. 
Senate  Docs.,  1st  Sess.  35th  Cong.,  Vol.  I., Doc.  8,  p.  74.
THE  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS   DEIiATES. 
381 
JOHN    CALHOUN.       (FROM     A    PAINTING     BY    D.    C.    FABRONIUS, 
PHOTOGRAPH    BY    BRADY,    OWNED    BY    JOSEPH     LEDLIE, 
technical  regularity,  its  strong  affirmance  of  the 
"  property "  theory,  and  the  extraordinary 
power  it  gave  to  John  Calhoun  to  control 
the  election  and  decide  the  returns.  This 
powerful  reactionary  movement  was  not  lost 
upon  Mr.  Buchanan.  He  reflected  it  as  un- 
erringly as  the  vane  moves  to  the  change  of 
the  wind.  Longbefore  the  meeting  of  Congress, 
the  Administration  organ,  the  "  Washington 
Union,"  heralded  and  strongly  supported  the 
new  departure.  When,  on  the  8th  of  December, 
the  President's  annual  message  was  trans- 
mitted and  read,  the  Lecompton  constitution, 
as  framed  and  submitted,  was  therein  warmly 
indorsed  and  its  acceptance  indicated  as  the 
future  Administration  policy. 
The  language  of  this  message  discloses  with 
what  subtle  ingenuity  words,  phrases,  defini- 
tions, ideas,  and  theories  were  being  invented 
and  plied  to  broaden  and  secure  every  coigne 
of  vantage,  every  conquest  of  the  pro-slavery 
reaction.  An  elaborate  argument  was  made 
to  defend  the  enormities  of  the  Lecompton 
constitution.  The  doctrine  of  the  Silliman 
letter,  that  "  slavery  exists  in  Kansas  under 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,"  was 
assumed  as  a  conceded  theory.  "In  emerg- 
ing from  the  condition  of  territorial  depend- 
ence into  that  of  a  sovereign  State,"  the  people 
might  vote  "  whether  this  important  domestic 
institution  should  or  should  not  continue  to 
Vol.  XXXIV.— 52. 
AFTER    A 
ESQ.) 
exist."  "Domestic  institutions" 
was  defined  to  mean  slavery. 
"  Free  to  form  and  regulate  their 
domestic  institutions" — thephra  se 
employed  in  the  Kansas-Nebraska 
act  —  was  construed  to  mean  a  vote 
to  continue  or  discontinue  slavery. 
And  "if  any  portion  of  the  inhab- 
itants shall  refuse  to  vote,  a  fair 
opportunity  to  do  so  having  been 
presented,  ....  they  alone  will  be 
responsible  for  the  consequences." 
"Should  the  constitution  without 
slavery  be  adopted  by  the  votes 
of  the  majority,  the  rights  of  prop- 
erty in  slaves  now  in  the  Territory 
are  reserved.  .  .  .  These  slaves  were 
brought  into  the  Territory  under 
the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  and  are  now  the  property 
of  their  masters.  This  point  has 
at  length  been  finally  decided  by 
the  highest  judicial  tribunal  of  the 
country."* 
However  blind  Buchanan  might 
be  to  the  fact  that  this  extreme  in- 
terpretation shocked  and  alarmed 
the  sentiment  of  the  North  ;  that 
if  made  before  the  late  presidential 
campaign  it  would  have  defeated 
his  own  election  ;  and  that  if  rudely  persisted 
in,  it  might  destroy  the  Democratic  ascend- 
ency in  the  future,  the  danger  was  obvious 
and  immediately  vital  to  Douglas.  His  sena- 
torial term  was  about  to  expire.  To  secure  a 
reelection  he  must  carry  the  State  of  Illinois 
in  1858,  which  had  on  an  issue  less  pro- 
nounced than  this  defeated  his  colleague 
Shields  in  1854,  and  his  lieutenant  Richard- 
son in  1856.  But  more  than  this,  his  own 
personal  honor  was  as  much  involved  in 
his  pledges  to  the  voters  of  Illinois  as  had 
been  that  of  Governor  Walker  to  the  voters 
of  Kansas.  His  double-dealing  caucus  bar- 
gain had  thus  placed  him  between  two  fires, — 
party  disgrace  at  Washington  and  popular  dis- 
grace in  Illinois.  In  such  a  dilemma  his  choice 
could  not  be  doubtful.  At  all  risk  he  must 
endeavor  to  sustain  himself  at  home. 
He  met  the  encounter  with  his  usual  adroit- 
ness and  boldness.  Assuming  that  the  Presi- 
dent had  made  no  express  recommendation, 
he  devoted  his  speech  mainly  to  a  strong 
argument  of  party  expediency,  repelling  with- 
out reserve  and  denouncing  without  stint  the 
work  of  the  Lecompton  convention. 
"  Stand  by  the  doctrine,"  said  he,  "that  leaves  the 
people  perfectly  free  to  form  and  regulate  their  institu- 
tions for  themselves,  in  their  own  way,  and  your  party 
will  be  united  and  irresistible  in  power.      Abandon 
*  Buchanan,  Annual  Message,  Dec.  Sth,  1S57.
THE  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATES. 
that  great  principle,  and  the  party  is  not  worth  sav- 
g,  and  cannot   be  saved  after  it  shall  be  violated. 
1  trust  we  are  not  to  be  rushed  upon  this  question. 
\\    v  shall  it  be  done?     Who  is  to  be  benefited?     Is 
S  uth  to  be  the  gainer?  Is  the  North  to  be  the 
er  ?   Neither  the  North  nor  the  South  has  the  right 
gain  a  sectional  advantage  by  trickery  or  fraud.  .  .   . 
But  1   am  told  on  all  -ides,  'Oh!  just  wait;  the  pro- 
slavery  clause  will  be  voted  down.'    That   does   not 
obviate  any  of  my  objections;  it  does  not  diminish  any 
of  them.   You  have  no  more  right  to  force  a  free-State 
tution  on  Kansas  than  a  slave-State  constitution. 
1:"  Kansas  wants  a  slave-State   constitution   she  has  a 
right  to  it  ;  if  she  wants   a  tree-Slate   constitution  she 
right  to  it.    It  is  none  of  my  business  which  way 
the  slavery  clause  is  decided.      1  care  not  whether  it  is 
Lown  or  voted  up.    \)o  you  suppose,  after  the 
pledges  oi  my  honor,  that  I  would  go  for  that  princi- 
•  I  leave  the  people  to  vote  as  they  choose,  that  I 
would  now  degrade  myself  by  voting  one  way  if  the 
slavery  clause  be  voted  down,  and  another  way  if  it  be 
voted  up?    I  care  not  how  that  vote  may  stand.    .    .   . 
I  g      re  Lecompton  ;  ignore  Topeka ;  treat  both  those 
party  movements  as  irregular  and  void;  pass    a  fair 
bill  —  the  one  that  we  framed  ourselves  when  we  were 
acting  as  a  unit ;  have  a  fair  election  —  and  you  will  have 
peace  in  the  Democratic  party,  and  peace  throughout 
the  country,  in  ninety  days.    The  people  want  a  fair 
l'liey  will  never  be   satisfied  without  it.    .    .   . 
But  if  this    constitution    is    to    be    forced   down    our 
throats  in  violation  of  the  fundamental  principle    of 
_    vernment,  under  a  mode  of  submission  that  is  a 
mockery  and  insult,  I  will  resist  it  to  the  last."* 
President  Buchanan  and  the  strong  pro- 
slavery  faction  which  was  directing  his  course 
paid  no  attention  whatever  to  this  proposal  of 
a  compromise.  Shylock  had  come  into  court 
to  demand  his  bond,  and  would  heed  no 
pleas  of  equity  or  appeals  to  grace.  The  elec- 
tions of  December  21st  and  January  4th  were 
held  in  due  time,  and  with  what  result  we 
have  already  seen.  John  Calhoun  counted 
the  votes  on  January  13th,  and  declared 
the  -;  Lecompton  constitution  with  slavery  " 
duly  adopted,  prudently  reserving,  however, 
any  announcement  concerning  the  State  offi- 
cers or  legislature  under  it.  This  much  ac- 
complished,  he  hurried  away  to  Washington, 
where  he  was  received  with  open  arms  by 
the  President  and  his  advisers,  who  at  once 
;eded  with  a  united  and  formidable  effort 
to  legalize  the  transparent  farce  by  Congres- 
sional san'  tion. 
On  the  second  day  of  February,  1858,  Presi- 
dent Buchanan  transmitted  to  Congress  the 
Le  »mpton  constitution,  "received  from  J. 
Calhoun.  Esq.,"  and  "  duly  certified  by  him- 
self." The  President's  accompanying  special 
message  argues  that  the  organic  law  of  the 
Territory  conferred  the  essential  rights  of  an 
enabling  act;  that  the  free- State  party  stood 
in  the  attitude  of  willful  and  chronic  revolu- 
tion ;  that  their  various  refusals  to  vote  were 
a  sufficient  bar  to  complaint  and  objection; 
that  the  several  steps  in  the  creation  and  work 
■  Douglas,  Senate  Speech,  Dec.  9th,  1857. 
of  the  Lecompton  convention   were  regular 
and  legal. 
"  The  people  of  Kansas  have,  then,  '  in  their  own 
way,'  and  in  strict  accordance  with  the  organic  act, 
framed  a  constitution  and  State  government,  have  sub- 
mitted the  all-important  question  of  slavery  to  the 
people,  and  have  elected  a  governor,  a  member  to 
represent  them  in  Congress,  members  of  the  State 
legislature,  and  other  State  officers.  They  now  ask  ad- 
mission into  the  Union  under  this  constitution,  which 
is  Republican  in  form.  It  is  for  Congress  to  decide 
whether  they  will  admit  or  reject  the  State  which  has 
thus  been  created.  For  my  own  part  I  am  decidedly 
in  favor  of  its  admission  and  thus  terminating  the 
Kansas  question." 
The  vote  of  January  4th  against  the  con- 
stitution he  declared  to  be  illegal  because  it 
was  "  held  after  the  Territory  had  been  pre- 
pared for  admission  into  the  Union  as  a 
sovereign  State,  and  when  no  authority  ex- 
isted in  the  territorial  legislature  which  could 
possibly  destroy  its  existence  or  change  its 
character."  His  own  inconsistency  was  light- 
ly glossed  over. 
"  For  my  own  part,  when  I  instructed  Governor 
Walker  in  general  terms,  in  favor  of  submitting  the 
constitution  to  the  people,  I  had  no  object  in  view  ex- 
cept the  all-absorbing  question  of  slavery.  ...  I 
then  believed,  and  still  believe,  that  under  the  organic 
act  the  Kansas  convention  were  bound  to  submit  this 
all-important  question  of  slavery  to  the  people.  It 
was  never,  however,  my  opinion  that  independently 
of  this  act  they  would  have  been  bound  to  submit  any 
portion  of  the  constitution  to  a  popular  vote,  in  order 
to  give  it  validity." 
To  the  public  at  large,  the  central  point  of 
interest  in  this  special  message,  however,  was 
the  following  dogmatic  announcement  by  the 
President: 
"  It  has  been  solemnly  adjudged  by  the  highest  judi- 
cial tribunal  known  to  our  laws  that  slavery  exists  in 
Kansas  by  virtue  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States.  Kansas  is,  therefore,  at  this  moment  as  much 
a  slave  State  as  Georgia  or  South  Carolina.  Without 
this,  the  equality  of  the  sovereign  States  composing 
the  Union  would  be  violated,  and  the  use  and  enjoy- 
ment of  a  territory  acquired  by  the  common  treasure 
of  all  the  States  would  be  closed  against  the  people 
and  the  property  of  nearly  half  the  members  of  the 
Confederacy.  Slavery  can,  therefore,  never  be  prohib- 
ited in  Kansas  except  by  means  of  a  constitutional  pro- 
vision, and  in  no  other  manner  can  this  be  obtained  so 
promptly,  if  a  majority  of  the  people  desire  it,  as  by 
admitting  it  into  the  Union  under  its  present  constitu- 
tion." 
In  the  light  of  subsequent  history  this  ex- 
treme pro-slavery  programme  was  not  only 
wrong  in  morals  and  statesmanship,  but  short- 
sighted and  fool-hardy  as  a  party  policy.  But 
to  the  eyes  of  President  Buchanan  this  latter 
view  was  not  so  plain.  The  country  was  ap- 
parently in  the  full  tide  of  a  pro-slavery 
reaction.  He  had  not  only  been  elected  Presi- 
dent, but  the  Democratic  party  had  also  re-
TILE   LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATES. 
383 
covered  its  control  of  Congress.  The  presid- 
ing officer  of  each  branch  was  a  Southerner. 
Out  of  64  members  of  the  Senate,  39  were 
Democrats,  20  Republicans,  and  5  Americans. 
Of  the  237  members  of  the  House,  131  were 
Democrats,  92  Republicans,  and  14  Ameri- 
cans. Here  was  a  clear  majority  of  14  in  the 
upper  and  25  in  the  lower  House.  This  was 
indeed  no  longer  the  formidable  legislative 
power  which  repealed  the  Missouri  Compro- 
mise, but  it  seemed  perhaps  a  sufficient  force 
to  carry  out  the  President's  recommendation. 
His  error  was  in  forgetting  that  this  apparent 
popular  indorsement  was  secured  to  him  and 
his  party  by  means  of  the  double  construction 
placed  upon  the  Nebraska  bill  and  the  Cin- 
cinnati platform,  by  the  caucus  bargain  be- 
tween the  leaders  of  the  South  and  the  leaders 
of  the  North.  The  moment  had  come  when 
this  unnatural  alliance  needed  to  be  exposed 
and  in  part  repudiated. 
The  haste  with  which  the  Southern  leaders 
advanced  step  by  step,  forced  every  issue,  and 
were  now  pushing  their  allies  to  the  wall  was, 
to  say  the  least,  bad  management,  but  it  grew 
logically  out  of  their  situation.  They  were 
swimming  against  the  stream.  The  leading 
forces  of  civilization,  population,  wealth,  com- 
merce, intelligence,  were  bearing  them  down. 
The  balance  of  power  was  lost.  Already  there 
were  16  free  States  to  15  slave  States.  Min- 
nesota and  Oregon,  inevitably  destined  also  to 
become  free,  were  applying  for  admission  to 
the  Union. 
Still,  the  case  of  the  South  was  not  hope- 
less. Kansas  was  apparently  within  their 
grasp.  Existing  law  provided  for  the  forma- 
tion and  admission  of  four  additional  States 
to  be  carved  out  of  Texas,  which  would  cer- 
tainly become  slave  States.  Then  there  re- 
mained the  possible  division  of  California, 
and  a  race  for  the  possession  of  New  Mexico 
and  Arizona.  Behind  all,  or,  more  likely,  be- 
fore all  except  Kansas,  in  the  order  of  desired 
events,  was  the  darling  ambition  of  President 
Buchanan,  the  annexation  of  Cuba.  As  United 
States  Minister  to  England,  he  had  publicly 
declared,  that  if  Spain  refused  to  sell  us  that 
coveted  island,  we  should  be  justified  in  wrest- 
ing it  from  her  by  force ;  *  as  presidential 
candidate  he  had  confidentially  avowed,  amid 
the  first  blushes  of  his  new  honor,  "  If  I  can 
be  instrumental  in  settling  the  slavery  ques- 
tion upon  the  terms  I  have  mentioned,  and 
then  add  Cuba  to  the  Union,  I  shall,  if  Presi- 
dent, be  willing  to  give  up  the  ghost,  and  let 
Breckinridge  take  the  government."  f    Thus, 
*  Ostend  Manifesto,  Oct.  9th,  1854. 
t  Senator  Brown  to  Adams,  Tune  18th,  18^6.     Am. 
Conflict,  Vol.  I.,  p.  278. 
%  Official  proceedings,  pamphlet. 
even  excluding  the  more  problematical 
chances  which  lay  hidden  in  filibustering  en- 
terprises, there  was  a  possibility,  easily  demon- 
strable to  the  sanguine,  that  a  decade  or  two 
might  change  mere  numerical  preponderance 
from  the  free  to  the  slave  States.  Xor  could 
this  possibility  be  waved  aside  by  any  affec- 
tation of  incredulity.  Not  alone  Mr.  Bu- 
chanan, but  the  whole  Democratic  party  was 
publicly  pledged  to  annexation.  "  Resolved," 
said  the  Cincinnati  platform,  "  that  the  Dem- 
ocratic party  will  expect  of  the  next  Admin- 
istration that  every  proper  effort  will  be  made 
to   insure    our    ascendency    in    the    Gulf  of 
LIFE-MASK    OF     STEPHEN    A.    DOUGLAS,    TAKEN    BY- 
LEONARD    W.    YOLK. 
Mexico  "j  while  another  resolution  declaring 
sympathy  with  efforts  to  "  regenerate  "  Cen- 
tral America  was  no  less  significant.  % 
But  to  accomplish  such  marvels,  they  must 
not  sit  with  folded  hands.  The  price  of  sla- 
very was  fearless  aggression.  They  must  build 
on  a  deeper  foundation  than  presidential  elec- 
tions, party  majorities,  or  even  than  votes  in 
the  Senate.  The  theory  of  the  government 
must  be  reversed,  the  philosophy  of  the  repub- 
lic interpreted  anew.  In  this  subtler  effort  they 
had  made  notable  progress.  By  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  act  they  had  paralyzed  the  legis- 
lation of  half  a  century.  By  the  Dred  Scott 
decision  they  had  changed  the  Constitution 
and  blighted  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
By  the  Lecompton  trick  they  would  show  that
3»4 
THE   LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATES. 
STEPHEN     A.    DOUGLAS 
in  conflict  with  their  dogmas  the  public  will 
was  vicious,  and  in  conflict  with  their  intrigues 
the  majority  powerless.  They  had  the  Presi- 
dent, the  Cabinet,  the  Senate,  the  House,  the 
Supreme  Court,  and,  by  no  means  least  in  the 
immediate  problem,  John  Calhoun  with  his 
technical  investiture  of  far-reaching  authority. 
The  country  had  recovered  from  the  shock 
of  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise, 
and  rewarded  them  with  Buchanan.  Would 
it  not  equally  recover  from  the  shock  of  the 
Lecompton  constitution  ? 
It  was  precisely  at  this  point  that  the  bent 
bow  broke.  The  great  bulk  of  the  Democratic 
party  followed  the  President  and  his  Southern 
advisers,  even  in  this  extreme  step ;  but  to  a 
minority  sufficient  to  turn  the  scale,  the  Le- 
compton scandal  had  become  too  offensive  for 
further  tolerance. 
In  the  Senate,  with  its  heavy  Democratic 
majority,  the  Administration  easily  secured  the 
passage  of  a  bill  to  admit  Kansas  with  the  Le- 
compton constitution.  Out  of  eleven  Demo- 
cratic Senators  from  free  States,  only  three  — 
Douglas  of  Illinois,  Broderick  of  California,  and 
Stuart  of  Michigan  —  took  courage  to  speak 
and  vote  against  the  measure.  In  the  House 
of  Representatives,  however,  with  a  narrower
THE  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATES. 
3*5 
margin  of  political  power,  the  scheme,  after 
an  exciting  discussion  running  through  about 
two  months,  met  a  decisive  defeat.  A  formi- 
dable popular  opposition  to  it  had  developed 
itself  in  the  North,  in  which  speeches  and  let- 
ters from  Governor  Walker  and  Secretary  Stan- 
ton in  denunciation  of  it  were  a  leading  feature 
and  a  powerful  influence.  The  lower  House  of 
Congress  always  responds  quickly  to  currents 
of  public  sentiment ;  but  in  this  case  it  caught 
direction  all  the  more  promptly  because  its 
members  were  to  be  chosen  anew  in  the  en- 
suing autumn.  However  much  they  might 
have  party  subordination  and  success  at  heart, 
some  of  them  felt  that  they  could  not  defend 
before  their  antislavery  constituencies  the 
Oxford  frauds,  the  Calhoun  dictatorship,  the 
theory  that  slave  property  is  above  constitu- 
tional sanction,  and  the  dogma  that  "  Kansas 
is  therefore  at  this  moment  as  much  a  slave 
State  as  Georgia  or  South  Carolina."  When 
the  test  vote  was  taken  on  April  ist,  out  of  the 
53  Democratic  representatives  from  the  free 
States  31  voted  for  Lecompton;  but  the  re- 
maining 22,*  joining  their  strength  to  the 
opposition,  passed  a  substitute,  originating 
with  Mr.  Crittenden  of  the  Senate,  which  in 
substance  directed  a  resubmission  of  the  Le- 
compton  constitution  to  the  people  of  Kan- 
sas;—  if  adopted,  the  President  to  admit  the 
new  State  by  a  simple  proclamation ;  if  re- 
jected, the  people  to  call  a  convention  and 
frame  a  new  instrument. 
As  the  October  vote  had  been  the  turning- 
point  in  the  local  popular  struggle  in  the 
Territory,  this  adoption  of  the  Crittenden- 
Montgomery  substitute,  by  a  total  vote  of 
120  to  112  in  the  House  of  Representatives, 
was  the  culmination  of  the  National  intrigue 
to  secure  Kansas  for  the  South.  It  was  a  nar- 
row victory  for  freedom ;  a  change  of  5  votes 
would  have  passed  the  Lecompton  bill  and 
admitted  the  State  with  slavery,  and  a  con- 
stitutional prohibition  against  any  change  for 
seven  years  to  come.  With  his  authority  to 
control  election  returns,  there  is  every  reason 
to  suppose  that  Calhoun  would  have  set  up 
a  pro-slavery  State  legislature,  to  choose  two 
pro-slavery  senators,  whom  in  its  turn  the 
strong  Lecompton  majority  in  the  United 
States  Senate  would  have  admitted  to  seats ; 
and  thus  the  whole  chain  of  fraud  and  usur- 
pation back  to  the  first  Border-Ruffian  inva- 
sion of  Kansas  would  have  become  complete, 
legal,  and  irrevocable,  on  plea  of  mere  formal 
and  technical  regularity. 
*  From  California,  1  ;  Illinois,  5  ;  Indiana,  3 ;  New 
Jersey,  1 ;   New  York,  2  ;   Ohio,  6 ;   Pennsylvania,  4. 
For  Lecompton  :  California,  1  ;  Connecticut,  2  ;  In- 
diana, 3  ;  New  Jersey,  2  ;  New  York,  10 ;  Ohio,  2  ; 
Pennsylvania,  11. 
Vol.  XXXIV.— 53. 
Foiled  in  its  main  object,  the  Administration 
made  another  effort  which  served  to  break 
somewhat  the  force,  and  humiliation  of  its  first 
and  signal  defeat.  The  two  houses  of  Congress 
having  disagreed  as  stated,  and  each  having 
once  more  voted  to  adhere  to  its  own  action, 
the  President  managed  to  make  enough  con- 
verts among  the  anti-Lecompton  Democrats 
of  the  House  to  secure  the  appointment  of  a 
committee  of  conference.  This  committee  de- 
vised what  became  popularly  known  as  the 
"  English  bill,"  a  measure  which  tendered  a 
land  grant  to  the  new  State,  and  provided  that 
on  the  following  August  3d  the  people  of  Kan- 
sas might  vote  "proposition  accepted"  or 
"  proposition  rejected."  Acceptance  should 
work  the  admission  of  the  State  with  the  Le- 
compton constitution,  while  rejection  should 
postpone  any  admission  until  her  population 
reached  the  ratio  of  representation  required  for 
a  member  of  the  House.  "  Hence  it  will  be  ar- 
gued," explained  Douglas,  "in  one  portion  of 
the  Union  that  this  is  a  submission  of  the  con- 
stitution, and  in  another  portion  that  it  is  not." 
The  English  bill  became  a  law;  but  the  people 
of  Kansas  once  more  voted  to  reject  the  "  prop- 
osition "  by  nearly  ten  thousand  majority. 
Douglas  opposed  the  English  bill  as  he  had 
done  the  Lecompton  bill,  thus  maintaining  his 
attitude  as  the  chief  leader  of  the  anti-Lecomp- 
ton opposition.  In  proportion  as  he  received 
encouragement  and  commendation  from  Re- 
publican and  American  newspapers,  he  fell 
under  the  ban  of  the  Administration  journals. 
The  "Washington  Union"  especially  pursued 
him  with  denunciation.  "  It  has  read  me  out 
of  the  Democratic  party  every  other  day  at 
least,  for  two  or  three  months,"  said  he,  "  and 
keeps  reading  me  out ;  and,  as  if  it  had  not 
succeeded,  still  continues  to  read  me  out, 
using  such  terms  as  'traitor,'  'renegade'  '  de- 
serter,' and  other  kind  and  polite  epithets 
of  that  nature."  He  explained  that  this  arose 
from  his  having  voted  in  the -Senate  against 
its  editor  for  the  office  of  public  printer ;  but 
he  also  pointed  out  that  he  did  so  because  that 
journal  had  become  pro-slavery  to  the  point 
of  declaring  "  that  the  emancipation  acts  of 
New  York,  of  New  England,  of  Pennsylvania, 
and  of  New  Jersey  were  unconstitutional,  were 
outrages  upon  the  right  of  property,  were  viola- 
tions of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States." 
"The  proposition  is  advanced,"  continued  he, 
"  that  a  Southern  man  has  a  right  to  move 
from  South  Carolina  with  his  negroes  into  Illi- 
nois, to  settle  there  and  hold  them  there  as 
slaves,  anything  in  the  constitution  and  laws 
of  Illinois  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding." 
Douglas  further  intimated  broadly  that  the 
President  and  Cabinet  were  inspiring  these 
editorials  of  the  Administration  organ,  as  part
386 
THE  LIXCOLX-DOCGLAS  DEBATES. 
and  parcel  of  the  same  system  and  object  with 
which  they  were  pushing  the  Lecompton  con- 
stitution with  its  odious  "property "doctrine; 
and  declared.  "  it"  my  protest  against  this  inter- 
polation into  the  policy  of  this  country  or  the 
creed  of  the  Democratic  party  is  to  bring  me 
under  the  ban.  I  am  ready  to  meet  the  issue."* 
He  had  not  long  to  wait  for  the  issue.  The 
rupture  was  radical,  not  superficial.  It 
as  he  had  himself  pointed  out,  part  of  the 
contest  for  national  supremacy  between  slav- 
ery and  freedom.  From  time  to  time  he  still 
held  out  the  olive-branch  of  an  accommo- 
dation, and  pointed  wistfully  to  the  path  of  rec- 
onciliation. But  the  reactionary  faction  which 
ruled  Mr.  Buchanan  never  forgave  Douglas 
for  his  part  in  defeating  Lecompton,  and  more 
especially  for  what  they  alleged  to  be  his 
treachery  to  his  caucus  bargain,  in  refusing 
to  accept  and  defend  all  the  logical  conse- 
quences of  the  Dred  Scott  decision. 
THE  LINXOLX-DOUGLAS  DEBATES. 
The  anti-Lecompton  recusancy  of  Douglas 
baffled  the  plotting  extremists  of  the  South 
and  created  additional  dissension  in  the 
Democratic  ranks;  and  this  growing  Demo- 
cratic weakness  and  the  increasing  Republi- 
can ardor  and  strength  presaged  a  possible 
Republican  success  in  the  coming  Presidential 
election.  While  this  condition  of  things  gave 
national  politics  an  unusual  interest,  the  State 
of  Illinois  now  became  the  field  of  a  local 
contest  which  for  the  moment  held  the  atten- 
tion of  the  entire  country  in  such  a  degree 
as  to  involve  and  even  eclipse  national  issues. 
In  this  local  contest  in  Illinois,  the  choice  of 
candidates  on  both  sides  was  determined  long 
beforehand  by  a  popular  feeling,  stronger 
and  more  unerring  than  ordinary  individ- 
ual or  caucus  intrigues.  Douglas,  as  author 
of  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise, 
as  a  formidable  Presidential  aspirant,  and 
now  again  as  leader  of  the  anti-Lecompton 
Democrats,  could,  of  course,  have  no  rival  in 
hi-  party  for  his  own  Senatorial  seat.  Lin- 
coln, who  had  in  1854  gracefully  yielded  his 
justly  won  Senatorial  honors  to  Trumbull,  and 
who  alone  bearded  Douglas  in  his  own  State 
throughout  the  whole  anti-Nebraska  struggle, 
with  anything  like  a  show  of  equal  political 
courage  and  intellectual  strength,  was  as  inev- 
itably the  leader  and  choice  of  the  Republi- 
cans. Their  State  convention  met  in  Spring- 
field on  the  1 6th  of  June,  1858,  and,  after  its 
ordinary  routine  work,  passed  with  acclama- 
tion a  separate  resolution,  which  declared 
"that  Abraham  Lincoln  is  the  first  and  only 
choice  of  the  Republicans  of  Illinois  for  the 
"  Douglas,  Senate  Speech,  March  22d,  1858. 
United  States  Senate  as  the  successor  of 
Stephen  A.  Douglas."  The  proceedings  of 
the  convention  had  consumed  the  afternoon, 
and  an  adjournment  was  taken.  At  8  o'clock 
that  same  evening,  the  convention  having 
reassembled  in  the  State-house,  Lincoln  ap- 
peared before  it,  and  made  what  was  perhaps 
the  most  carefully  prepared  speech  of  his 
whole  life.  Every  word  of  it  was  written, 
every  sentence  had  been  tested;  but  the 
speaker  delivered  it  without  manuscript  or 
notes.  It  was  not  an  ordinary  oration,  but, 
in  the  main,  an  argument,  as  sententious  and 
axiomatic  as  if  made  to  a  bench  of  jurists. 
Its  opening  sentences  contained  a  political 
prophecy  which  not  only  became  the  ground- 
work of  the  campaign,  but  heralded  one  of 
the  wrorld's  great  historical  events.    He  said : 
"  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  con- 
fident 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  ex- 
pect 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  course  of  ulti- 
mate 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."  t 
Then  followed  his  demonstration,  through 
the  incidents  of  the  Nebraska  legislation,  the 
Dred  Scott  decision,  and  present  political 
theories  and  issues,  which  would  by  and  by 
find  embodiment  in  new  laws  and  future 
legal  doctrines.  The  repeal  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise,  the  language  of  the  Nebraska 
bill,  which  declared  slavery  "  subject  to  the 
Constitution,"  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  which 
declared  that  "  subject  to  the  Constitution  " 
neither  Congress  nor  a  territorial  legislature 
could  exclude  slavery  from  a  Territory, —  the 
argument  presented  point  by  point  and  step 
by  step  with  legal  precision  the  silent  subver- 
sion of  cherished  principles  of  liberty.  "  Put 
this  and  that  together,"  said  he,  "  and  we 
have  another  nice  little  niche,  which  we  may 
ere  long  see  filled  with  another  Supreme  Court 
decision,  declaring  that  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  does  not  permit  a  State  to  ex- 
clude slavery  from  its  limits.  .  .  .  Such  a 
decision  is  all  that  slavery  now  lacks  of  being 
alike  lawful  in  all  the  States.  .  .  .  We  shall 
lie  down,"  continued  the  orator,  "pleasantly 
t  Lincoln-Douglas  Debates,  p.  1.
THE  LINCOLH-DOUGLAS  DEBATES. 
J«7 
dreaming  that  the  people  of  Missouri  are  on 
the  verge  of  making  their  State  free ;  and  we 
shall  awake  to  the  reality  instead,  that  the 
Supreme  Court  has  made  Illinois  a  slave 
State." 
His  peroration  was  a  battle-call : 
"  Our  cause  then  must  be  intrusted  to  and  conducted 
by  its  own  undoubted  friends,  those  whose  hands  are 
free,  whose  hearts  are  in  the  work,  who  do  care  for 
the  result.  Two  years  ago  the  Republicans  of  the  na- 
tion mustered  over  thirteen  hundred  thousand  strong. 
We  did  this  under  the  single  impulse  of  resistance  to 
a  common  danger,  with  every  external  circumstance 
against  us.  Of  strange,  discordant,  and  even  hostile 
elements  we  gathered  from  the  four  winds,  and  formed 
and  fought  the  battle  through,  under  the  constant  hot 
fire  of  a  disciplined,  proud,  and  pampered  enemy.  Did 
we  brave  all  then  to  falter  now  ?  —  now,  when  that 
same  enemy  is  wavering,  dissevered,  and  belligerent  ? 
The  result  is  not  doubtful.  We  shall  not  fail  —  if  we 
stand  firm  we  shall  not  fail.  Wise  counsels  may  ac- 
celerate or  mistakes  delay  it,  but  sooner  or  later  the 
victory  is  sure  to  come." 
Lincoln's  declaration  that  the  cause  of  slav- 
ery restriction  "  must  be  intrusted  to  its  own 
undoubted  friends"  had  something  more  than 
a  general  meaning.  We  have  seen  that  while 
Douglas  avowed  he  did  not  care  "  whether 
slavery  was  voted  down  or  voted  up  "  in  the 
Territories,  he  had  opposed  the  Lecompton 
constitution  on  the  ground  of  its  non-sub- 
mission to  popular  vote,  and  that  this  op- 
position caused  the  Buchanan  Democrats  to 
look  upon  and  treat  him  as  an  apostate.  Many 
earnest  Republicans  were  moved  to  strong 
sympathy  for  Douglas  in  this  attitude,  partly 
for  his  help  in  defeating  the  Lecompton  in- 
iquity, partly  because  they  believed  his  action 
in  this  particular  a  prelude  to  further  political 
repentance,  partly  out  of  that  chivalric  gener- 
osity of  human  nature  which  sides  with  the 
weak  against  the  strong.  In  the  hour  of  his 
trial  and  danger  many  wishes  for  his  success- 
ful reelection  came  to  him  from  Republicans 
even  of  national  prominence.  Greeley,  in  the 
*  See  Hollister,  "  Life  of  Colfax,"  pp.  119-22. 
t  J.  Watson  Webb  to  Bates,  June  9th,  1858.   MS. 
%  Wentworth  to  Lincoln,  April  19th,  1858.   MS. 
§  It  is  interesting  to  compare  with  Lincoln's  a  letter 
from  Greeley  to  a  Chicago  editor  on  the  same  subject : 
"  New  York,  July  24th,  1858. 
"  My  Friend  :  You  have  taken  your  own  course  — 
don't  try  to  throw  the  blame  on  others.  You  have  re- 
pelled Douglas,  who  might  have  been  conciliated  and 
attached  10  our  own  side,  whatever  he  may  now  find  it 
necessary  to  say,  or  do,  and,  instead  of  helping  us  in 
other  States,  you  have  thrown  a  load  upon  us  that  may 
probably  break  us  down.  You  knew  what  was  the 
almost  unanimous  desire  of  the  Republicans  of  other 
States  ;  and  you  spurned  and  insulted  them.  Now  go 
ahead  and  fight  it  through.  You  are  in  for  it,  and  it 
does  no  good  to  make  up  wry  faces.  What  I  have  said 
in  the  '  Tribune '  since  the  fight  was  resolved  on,  has  been 
in  good  faith,  intended  to  help  you  through.  If  Lincoln 
would  fight  up  to  the  work  also,  you  might  get  through 
—  if  he  apologizes,  and  retreats,  he  is  lost,  and  all  oth- 
ers go  down  with  him.    His  first  Springfield  speech  (at 
New  York  "Tribune"  as  well  as  in  private 
letters,  made  no  concealment  of  such  a  desire. 
Burlingame  in  a  fervid  speech  in  the  House  of 
Representatives  called  upon  the  young  men 
of  the  country  to  stand  by  the  Douglas  men. 
It  was  known  that  Colfax  and  other  influen- 
tial members  of  the  House  were  holding  con- 
fidential interviews  with  Douglas,  the  object 
of  which  it  was  not  difficult  to  guess.  *  There 
were  even  rumors  that  Seward  intended  to 
interfere  in  his  behalf.  This  report  was  bruited 
about  so  industriously  that  he  felt  it  neces- 
sary to  permit  a  personal  friend  to  write  an 
emphatic  denial,  so  that  it  might  come  to 
Lincoln's  knowledge.!  On  the  other  hand, 
newspapers  ventured  the  suggestion  that  Lin- 
coln might  retaliate  by  a  combination  against 
Seward's  Presidential  aspirations. 
Rival  politicians  in  Illinois  were  suspicious 
of  each  other,  and  did  not  hesitate  to  com- 
municate their  suspicions  to  Lincoln. |  Per- 
sonal friends,  of  course,  kept  him  well  informed 
about  these  various  political  under-currents, 
and  an  interesting  letter  of  his  shows  that  he 
received  and  treated  the  matter  with  liberal 
charity. 
"  I  have  never  said  or  thought  more,"  wrote  he, 
"  as  to  the  inclination  of  some  of  our  Eastern  Repub- 
lican friends  to  favor  Douglas,  than  I  expressed  in  your 
hearing  on  the  evening  of  the  21st  April,  at  the  State 
Library  in  this  place.  I  have  believed  —  do  believe 
now  —  that  Greeley,  for  instance,  would  be  rather 
pleased  to  see  Douglas  reelected  over  me  or  any  other 
Republican ;  and  yet  I  do  not  believe  it  is  so  because 
of  any  secret  arrangement  with  Douglas  —  it  is  because 
he  thinks  Douglas's  superior  position,  reputation,  ex- 
perience, and  ability,  if  you  please,  would  more  than 
compensate  for  his  lack  of  a  pure  Republican  position, 
and,  therefore,  his  reelection  do  the  general  cause  of 
Republicanism  more  good  than  would  the  election  of 
any  one  of  our  better  undistinguished  pure  Republi- 
cans. I  do  not  know  how  you  estimate  Greeley,  but 
I  consider  him  incapable  of  corruption  or  falsehood. 
He  denies  that  he  directly  is  taking  part  in  favor  of 
Douglas,  and  I  believe  him.§  Still  his  feeling  con- 
stantly manifests  itself  in  his  paper,  which,  being  so 
the  convention)  was  in  the  right  key;  his  Chicago 
speech  was  bad ;  and  I  fear  the  new  Springfield  speech 
is  worse.  If  he  dare  not  stand  on  broad  Republican 
ground,  he  cannot  stand  at  all.  That,  however,  is  his 
business ;  he  is  nowise  responsible  for  what  I  say. 
I  shall  stand  on  the  broad  anti-slavery  ground,  which 
I  have  occupied  for  years.  I  cannot  change  it  to  help 
your  fight ;  and  I  should  only  damage  you  if  I  did.  You 
have  got  your  Elephant  —  you  would  have  him  —  now 
shoulder  him  !  He  is  not  so  very  heavy,  after  all.  As 
I  seem  to  displease  you  equally  when  I  try  to  keep  you 
out  of  trouble,  and  when,  having  rushed  in  in  spite  of 
me,  I  try  to  help  you  in  the  struggle  you  have  unwisely 
provoked,  I  must  keep  neutral,  so  far  as  may  be  here- 
after. Yours, 
(Signed)  "  Horace  Greeley. 
"J.  Medill,  Esq.,  Chicago,  (very)  111. 
"  What  have  I  ever  said  in  favor  of  '  Negro  equal- 
ity '  with  reference  to  your  fight  ?    I  recollect  nothing. n 
The  above  is  from  a  manuscript  copy  of  Greeley's 
letter,  and  the  authors  cannot  vouch  for  its  literal  accu- 
racy, though  it  bears  internal  evidence  of  genuineness.