Page images
PDF
EPUB

In June, 1857, Judge Douglas made a speech at Springfield, in which he attempted to vindicate the wisdom and fairness of the law under which the people of Kansas were about to choose delegates to a convention to be held at Lecompton to frame a State constitution. He declared with emphasis, that, if the Free-State party refused to vote at this election, they alone would be blamable for the proslavery constitution which might be formed. The Free-State men professed to have a vast majority,-"three-fourths," "four-fifths," " ninetenths," of the voters of Kansas. If these wilfully staid away from the polls, and allowed the minority to choose the delegates and make the constitution, Mr. Douglas thought they ought to abide the result, and not oppose the constitution adopted. Mr. Douglas's speech indicated clearly that he himself would countenance no opposition to the forthcoming Lecompton Convention, and that he would hold the Republican politicians responsible if the result failed to be satisfactory to them.

Judge Douglas seldom spoke in that region without provoking a reply from his constant and vigilant antagonist. Mr. Lincoln heard this speech with a critical ear, and then, waiting only for a printed report of it, prepared a reply to be delivered a few weeks later. The speeches were neither of them of much consequence, except for the fact that Judge Douglas seemed to have plainly committed himself in advance to the support of the Lecompton Constitution. Mr. Lincoln took that much for granted; and, arguing from sundry indications that the election would be fraudulently conducted, he insisted that Mr. Douglas himself, as the author of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and the inventor of "popular sovereignty," had made this "outrage" possible. He did not believe there were any "Free-State Democrats" in Kansas to make it a Free State without the aid of the Republicans, whom he held to be a vast majority of the population. The latter, he contended, were not all registered; and, because all were not registered, he thought none ought to vote. But Mr. Lincoln advised no bloodshed, no civil war, no roadside assas

[ocr errors]

sinations. Even if an incomplete registry might justify a majority of the people in an obstinate refusal to participate in the regulation of their own affairs, it certainly would not justify them in taking up arms to oppose all government in the Territory; and Mr. Lincoln did not say so. We have seen already how, in the "little speech" reported by Mr. Herndon, he deprecated "all physical rebellions" in this country, and applied his views to this case.

Mr. Lincoln also discussed the Dred-Scott Decision at some length; and, while doing so, disclosed his firm belief, that, in some respects, such as "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," the negroes were made by the Declaration of Independence the equals of white men. But it did not follow from this that he was in favor of political or social equality with them. "There is," said he, "a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all the white people to the idea of an indiscriminate amalgamation 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 his hope, as a drowning 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 because they want to vote, eat, sleep, and marry with negroes. 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."

These speeches were delivered, the one early and the other late, in the month of June: they present strongly, yet guardedly, the important issues which were to engage Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Douglas in the famous campaign of 1858, and leave us no choice but to look into Kansas, and observe what had taken place and what was happening there.

Violence still (June, 1857) prevailed throughout the Territory. The administration of President Pierce committed itself at the first in support of the proslavery party. It acknowledged the Legislature as the only legal government in the Territory, and gave it military assistance to enforce its enactments. Gov. Shannon, having by his course only served to increase the hostility between the parties, was recalled, and John W. Geary of Pennsylvania was appointed his successor. Gov. Geary, while adopting the policy of the administration, so far as recognizing the Legislative party as the only legally organized government, was yet disposed to see, that, so far as the two parties could be got to act together, each should be fairly protected. This policy, however, soon brought him into collision with some of the proslavery leaders in the Territory; and, not being sustained by Mr. Buchanan's administration, which had in the mean time succeeded the administration of President Pierce, he resigned his office. Hon. Robert J. Walker of Mississippi was appointed his successor, with Hon. F. P. Stanton of Tennessee as secretary. Both were strong Democrats; and both were earnest advocates of the policy of the administration, as expressed in the recent presidential canvass, and in Mr. Buchanan's inaugural Message,

the absolute freedom of the people of the Territories to form such governments as they saw fit, subject to the provisions of the Constitution. Gov. Walker and his secretary earnestly set themselves to work to carry out this policy. The governor, in various addresses to the people of the Territory, assured all parties that he would protect them in the free expression of their wishes in the election for a new Territorial legislature; and he besought the Free-State men to give up their separate Territorial organization, under which

they had already applied for admission into the Union, and by virtue of which they claimed still to have an equitable legal existence. The governor was so earnest in his policy, and so fair-minded in his purposes, that he soon drew upon himself the opposition of the proslavery party of the Territory, now in a small minority, as well as the enmity of that party in the States. He assured the people they should have a fair election for the new Legislature to be chosen in October (1857), and which would come into power in January following. The people took him at his word; and he kept it. Enormous frauds were discovered in two districts, which were promptly set aside. The triumph of the Free-State party was complete they elected a legislature in their interest by a handsome majority. And now began another phase of the struggle. The policy of the Governor and the Secretary was repudiated at Washington: the former resigned, and the latter was removed. Meanwhile, a convention held under the auspices of the old Legislature had formed a new constitution, known as the Lecompton Constitution, which the old Legislature proposed to submit to the people for ratification on the 21st of December. The manner of submitting it was singular, to say the least. The people were required to vote either for the constitution with slavery, or the constitution without slavery. As without slavery the constitution was in some of its provisions as objectionable as if it upheld slavery, the Free-State men refused to participate in its ratification. The vote on its submission, therefore, stood 4,206 for the constitution with slavery, and 567 without slavery; and it was this constitution, thus submitted and thus adopted, that Mr. Buchanan submitted to Congress on the 2d of February, 1858, as the free expression of the wishes of the people of Kansas; and its support was at once made an administration measure. Meantime the new Legislature elected by the people of the Territory in October submitted this same Lecompton Constitution to the people again, and in this manner: votes to be given for the constitution with slavery and without slavery, and also against the constitution entirely. The latter manner pre

vailed; the vote against the constitution in any form being over ten thousand. Thus the proslavery party in the Territory was overthrown. Under the auspices of the new FreeState Legislature, a constitutional convention was held at Wyandotte, in March, 1859. A Free-State constitution was adopted, under which Kansas was subsequently admitted into the Union.

Before leaving this Kansas question, there is one phase of the closing part of the struggle which it is worth while to note, particularly as it has a direct bearing upon the fortunes of Judge Douglas, and indirectly to the success of Mr. Lincoln. Douglas always insisted that his plan of "popular sovereignty" would give to the people of the Territories the utmost freedom in the formation of their local governments. When Mr. Buchanan attempted to uphold the Lecompton Constitution as being the free choice of the people of Kansas, Judge Douglas at once took issue with the administration on this question, and the Democratic party was split in twain. Up to the time of the vote of the people of the Territory on the constitution, Douglas had been an unswerving supporter of the administration policy in Kansas. His speech at Springfield, in the June previous, could not be misunderstood. He held all the proceedings which led to the Lecompton issue to be in strict accordance, not only with the letter, but the spirit, of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and with the faith of the Democratic party as expounded by himself. But a few weeks later it became manifest that his opinions had undergone a change. Ominous rumors of a breach with the administration began to circulate among his friends. It was alleged at length that Mr. Douglas's delicate sense of justice had been shocked by the unfairness of certain elections in Kansas: it was even intimated that he, too, considered the Lecompton affair an "outrage" upon the sovereign people of Kansas, and that he would speedily join the Republicansthe special objects of his indignation in the June speech-in denouncing and defeating it. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill had borne its appropriate fruits, the fruits all along predicted by

« PreviousContinue »