commercial intercourse and social relations across the line, can live in peace with each other." If the border slave States and the border free States could arbitrate the question of slavery, the Union would last forever.1

Arbitration and compromise these were the words with which the venerable Crittenden of Kentucky,, successor to Clay, now endeavored to rally Union-loving men. He was seconded by his colleague, Senator Powell, who had already moved the appointment of a special committee of thirteen, to consider the grievances between the slave-holding and non-slave-holding States. Douglas put himself unreservedly at the service of the party of compromise. It seemed, for the moment, as though the history of the year 1850 were to be repeated. Now, as then, the initiative was taken by a senator from the border-State of Kentucky. Again a committee of thirteen was to prepare measures of adjustment. The composition of the committee was such as to give promise of a settlement, if any were possible. Seward, Collamer, Wade, Doolittle, and Grimes, were the Republican members; Douglas, Rice, and Bigler represented the Democracy of the North. Davis and Toombs represented the Gulf States; Powell, Crittenden, and Hunter, the border slave States.2

On the 22d of December, the committee took under consideration the Crittenden resolutions, which proposed six amendments to the Constitution and four joint resolutions. The crucial point was the first amendment, which would restore the Missouri Compromise line "in all the territory of the United States

Globe, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 52.

Rhodes, History of the United States, III, pp. 151-153.

now held, or hereafter acquired." Could this disposition of the vexing territorial question have been agreed upon, the other features of the compromise would probably have commanded assent. But this and all the other proposed amendments were defeated by the adverse vote of the Republican members of the committee.1

The outcome was disheartening. Douglas had firmly believed that conciliation, or concession, alone could save the country from civil war.2 When the committee first met informally3 the news was already in print that the South Carolina convention had passed an ordinance of secession. Under the stress of this event, and of others which he apprehended, Douglas had voted for all the Crittenden amendments and resolutions, regardless of his personal predilections. "The prospects are gloomy," he wrote privately, "but I do not yet despair of the Union. We can never acknowledge the right of a State to secede and cut us off from the ocean and the world, without our consent. But in view of impending civil war with our brethren in nearly one-half of the States of the Union, I will not consider the question of force and war until all efforts at peaceful adjustment have been made and have failed. The fact can no longer be disguised that many of the Republican leaders desire war and disunion under pretext of saving the Union. They wish to get rid of the Southern senators in order to have a majority in the Senate to confirm Lincoln's appointments; and many of them think they can hold a permanent Republican

ascendancy in the Northern States, but not in the whole Union. For partisan reasons, therefore, they are anxious to dissolve the Union, if it can be done without making them responsible before the people. I am for the Union, and am ready to make any reasonable sacrifice to save it. No adjustment will restore and preserve peace which does not banish the slavery question from Congress forever and place it beyond the reach of Federal legislation. Mr. Crittenden's proposition to extend the Missouri line accomplishes this object, and hence I can accept it now for the same reasons that I proposed it in 1848. I prefer our own plan of non-intervention and popular sovereignty, however."1

The propositions which Douglas laid before the committee proved to be even less acceptable than the Crittenden amendments. Only a single, insignificant provision relating to the colonizing of free negroes in distant lands, commended itself to a majority of the committee. All hope of an agreement had now vanished. Sad at heart, Douglas voted to report the inability of the committee to agree upon any general plan of adjustment. Yet he did not abandon all hope; he was not yet ready to admit that the dread alternative must be accepted. He joined with Crittenden in replying to a dispatch from the South: "We have hopes that the rights of the South, and of every State and section, may be protected within the Union. Don't give up the ship. Don't despair of the Republic.

2

1MS. Letter, Douglas to C. H. Lanphier, December 25, 1860.

* Report of the Committee of Thirteen, p. 16.

'Ibid., p. 18.

'McPherson, Political History of the Rebellion, p. 38.

994

And when Crittenden proposed to the Senate that the people at large should be allowed to express their approval, or disapproval, of his amendments by a vote, Douglas cordially indorsed the suggested referendum in a speech of great power.

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

The immediate occasion for revolution in the South was no doubt the outcome of the presidential election; but that it furnished a just cause for the dissolution of the Union, he would not for an instant admit. No doubt Mr. Lincoln's public utterances had given some ground for apprehension. No one had more vigorously denounced these dangerous, revolutionary doctrines than he; but neither Mr. Lincoln nor his party would have the power to injure the South, if the Southern States remained in the Union and maintained full delegations in Congress. "Besides," he added, "I still indulge the hope that when Mr. Lincoln shall assume the high responsibilities which will soon devolve upon 1 Globe, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., App., p. 35. 2 Ibid., p. 38.

him, he will be fully impressed with the necessity of sinking the politician in the statesman, the partisan in the patriot, and regard the obligations which he owes to his country as paramount to those of his party.""

No one brought the fearful alternatives into view, with such inexorable logic, as Douglas in this same speech. While he denounced secession as "wrong, unlawful, unconstitutional, and criminal," he was bound to recognize the fact of secession. "South Carolina had no right to secede; but she has done it. The rights of the Federal government remain, but possession is lost. How can possession be regained, by arms or by a peaceable adjustment of the matters in controversy? Are we prepared for war? I do not mean that kind of preparation which consists of armies and navies, and supplies, and munitions of war; but are we prepared IN OUR HEARTS for war with our own brethren and kindred? I confess I am not.""2

These were not mere words for oratorical effect. They were expressions wrung from a tortured heart, bound by some of the tenderest of human affections to the people of the South. Buried in the land of her birth rested the mother of his two boys, whom he had loved tenderly and truly. There in the Southland were her kindred, the kindred of his two boys, and many of his warmest personal friends. The prospect

1 Globe 36 Cong., 2 Sess., App., p. 39. It is not unlikely that Douglas may have been reassured on this point by some communication from Lincoln himself. The Diary of a Public Man (North American Review, Vol. 129,) p. 130, gives the impression that they had been in correspondence. Personal relations between them had been cordial even in 1859, just after the debates; See Publication No. 11, of the Illinois Historical Library, p. 191.

2 Globe, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., App., p. 39.