The struggle in Congress was long and sharp. Finally the Senate voted to admit Kansas under the Lecompton constitution. Senator Crittenden, of Kentucky, elected as an American, and one of the best representatives of the moderate Southern sentiment, had proposed a bill, submitting the constitution to a direct vote of the people, its acceptance to be followed by immediate admission, or its rejection by the choice of a new constitutional convention. This bill, defeated in the Senate, was in substance passed by the House, the Republicans and their friends supporting it. A committee of conference was appointed; for a while each House insisted on its own measure; finally the committee reported a singular compromise. Mr. English, of Indiana, who had hitherto been a leader among the Douglas Democrats in the House, was the author of this measure, which was known as the "English bill"; and it was accepted by the Administration party, as the best they could get; while enough Anti-Lecompton men supported it to secure its passage through both Houses,-Douglas and a part of his allies. uniting with the Republicans in opposing it. Its purport was the submission of the entire constitution to a vote of the people; if they accepted it Kansas was to immediately become a state, and to receive an immense land grant from the general government; while if they rejected it, the territory was not to become a state till it had the full population requisite for a representative in the House,-93,340,-and no land grant was offered. It is, said the Republican (April 22),

"An attempt to drive the people of the territory into assuming for themselves what the Administration has failed to force upon them; and the hopes of its success with them are based on the supposition that a majority of the voters care more for getting into the Union, and fingering the rich grants of

land offered as a bribe, than they do for their own consistency, honor, and inherent right to fashion their own institutions."

The English bill was in appearance a lame and illogical conclusion to a great controversy. But, substantially, it was a half-retreat from the four years' struggle to make Kansas a slave state. The election under the bill a few months later was the end of the contest. The Lecompton constitution was defeated by a heavy majority? The destiny of the state was too obvious to be longer resisted, and Kansas ceased to be a battle-ground. A new constitution was framed at Wyandotte, ratified by the people, and the final admission of the state-delayed by a sullen Democratic opposition - was effected when the departure of the seceding Southern members left the Republicans with a majority in the Senate, as well as in the House, in the winter of 1860-61. The effort to make it a slave state had resulted in making it not only free, but the most tenaciously Republican state in the Union.

CHAPTER XXI.

DOUGLAS AND LINCOLN.

"I was not ripublican of March 15, 1860, "that for

T was notorious among well-informed politicians,"

weeks and months"- early in 1858" Mr. Douglas was in full consultation with leading Republicans at'Washington, openly seeking their influence to get the Illinois Republicans to make no opposition to his reelection, and making plenty of promises for coöperation, to depose not only the Administration but the ' power behind it.' It was, we could do this, and we would do that.' All the leading Eastern Republicans responded to his ideas; nearly every Republican senator, and most of the representatives, were desirous that the Republicans should withhold their fight, and let Mr. Douglas come back to the Senate with the Republican mark upon him. He sought this himself in every way consistent with the outside independent position which he had taken, and which was necessary to his purpose of dividing and breaking down the Democratic party. But the Illinois Republicans could not if they would, and perhaps would not if they could." Now that the lives of Douglas and Lincoln are finished, it is easy for us to pronounce wisely on this question. But it was not so clear when the sole way to Republican victory seemed to lie through Democratic division, and Douglas was the leader of a

revolt which in its effect had turned the scales in favor of free Kansas. The argument of policy was stated by the Republican, June 19, 1858, in reply to a correspondent who pointed out with much force that Douglas was the same man who had given leadership, support, or connivance to every aggression of the slave power up to the preceding winter. Its reply was: "The Republicans of 1856, in order to turn out the present slavery administration of 1860, must have help from somewhere-from men who voted for Buchanan or for Fillmore, or from both, and who, if they did not applaud the Nebraska bill and the assault on Sumner, at least acquiesced in them both and were silent." Former oppoents, it continued, stand ready to become allies, such Americans as Crittenden, Bell, Marshall, Fillmore, and the Brookses, such Democrats as Douglas, Broderick, Stuart, Haskins, and Montgomery. "Shall we step in and ask them what they think of the repeal of the Missouri compromise, the brutality of Brooks, and the capacity of Fremont, before we join hands in a beneficent and patriotic duty of to-day?"

The Republican had, too, a reason of its own for countenancing Douglas. Its editor hated the rule of party almost as heartily as he hated negro slavery. The paper protested against party tyranny vigorously in behalf of Seward when, in the preceding winter, some attempt was made to discipline him for voting against his associates in favor of an Administration bill for the increase of the army. Now, its hearty sympathies went to the brilliant rebel who had defied the tyranny of the President and the Southern leaders, and was like to pay the penalty in political ruin, unless the Republicans welcomed him to their ranks. Only when Douglas had dexterously united the Democratic party in his support at home, against the spiteful but feeble opposition of the President, did the

Republican yield a reluctant approval to his opponents. It recognized then that, "through his own timidity and the folly of the Illinois Republicans," he had become again the most formidable of Democratic chiefs, and his defeat desirable.

The weak spot in the plea for accepting Douglas as a Republican leader lay in his moral untrustworthiness. Two years later, the Republican judged him with entire correctness when it said, April 14, 1860:

"There is one essential deficiency in his political character. He does not recognize the moral element in politics in the slightest degree; makes no account of it; never appeals to conscience, and in effect despises and scouts its authority. Yet as a politician he is successful, and no man carries the masses with him so easily. In his own state and at the West everywhere his success on the stump is perfect. Yet his arts are those of the demagogue and the sophist, and the fame and influence built on such foundations must necessarily be perishable. Yet, with a courage amounting to audacity, a will that marches scornfully over every obstacle, and a magnetic power to inspire and control men, his ambition may reach its goal, in spite of the great moral deficiencies which make him an unsafe leader, and which will give him a much lower place in history than he will hold during the period of his vigor and influence. It is precisely this lack of the moral quality that stands in the way of his aspirations more than anything else. Men do not trust him. Nobody can be sure what he will do to-morrow. If placed in the presidential chair, those who elect him will tremble for the result. They can never be sure of him for any given period of time, and this notwithstanding the tenacity, amounting to doggedness, with which he sticks to his own purposes."/

The Illinois Republicans in 1858 already knew their old foe far too well to accept him for their leader. They were willing, as Senator Trumbull said, to "take him on probation"; but they by no means proposed to make