istration, and Douglas hastened to Washington, determined to know the mind of the President at once; his own was made up. Their interview, as the Senator recounted it, was dramatic indeed when he found that Buchanan was under the spell of a group of Southern men who were bent on making Kansas a Slave State at any cost. Whereat Douglas threw down the gauntlet, announcing with great earnestness that he would fight the scheme publicly and to the bitter end.

"Mr. Douglas," said the President, rising to his feet excitedly, "I desire you to remember that no Democrat ever yet differed from an administration of his own choice without being crushed. Beware of the fate of Tallmadge and Rives!"

"Mr. President," rejoined Douglas also rising, "I wish you to remember that General Jackson is dead!" 1

Such a retort-contrasting the weakest of Presidents with the most headstrong- was all the more stinging when we recall that, from 1852 to 1860, Douglas was by far the most noteworthy figure on the national political scene. Webster, Clay, and Calhoun had passed off the stage. Seward, Sumner, and Chase, though influential and able, had not yet come to their own. This interval of eight years belonged to Douglas, and it was neither vanity nor vehemence for him to imagine that he could defy the President. We have also to remember that he and Buchanan had been rivals for the same high office, the latter securing it partly because, as Minister to England, he had not been involved in the Nebraska agitation, and partly because he was less aggressive and more pliable. Douglas, whatever else he may have been, was not of that stripe. Astute and ambitious, he was at once masterful and persuasive, a born leader of men, skilled in all the devious arts of politics, and an orator who combined "something of the impressiveness of Webster with the roughness and readiness of the stump speaker." His break with the President meant a battle royal

1 Stephen A. Douglas, by Allen Johnson, pp. 327-8 (1908). Also, Milwaukee speech of Senator Douglas, Oct. 14, 1860, Chicago Times and Herald, Oct. 17, 1860.

2 Abraham Lincoln, by J. T. Morse, Vol. I, p. 106 (1896).

to the last ditch, for never was there a more resourceful or a more plucky fighter.

On the evening of December 9th, Douglas backed up his threat by a speech in the Senate, and so eager was the desire to hear him, that, from the time the Senate adjourned in the afternoon, until it re-assembled in the evening, the people kept their seats. For three hours he held his audience in rapt attention, broken only by peals of applause, while with more than his usual gravity and earnestness he denounced the Lecompton fraud, appealed for fair play, and flayed the President for attempting to dictate the duties of a Senator. His sense of justice was too deeply outraged for him to remain in a conciliatory mood, and at times his vehemence carried him further than he had meant to go. He compared the Kansas election to that held under the First Consul, when, so his enemies averred, Napoleon addressed his troops after this fashion: "Now, my soldiers, you are to go to the election and vote freely just as you please. If you vote for Napoleon, all is well; vote against him, and you are to be instantly shot!" That was a fair election!

This election, said Douglas with bitter irony, is to be equally fair! All men in favor of the constitution may vote for it - all men against it shall not vote at all! Why not let them vote against it? . . . Consult the poll books on a fair election held in pursuance of law; consult private citizens from there; consult whatever source of information you please, and you get the same answer - that this constitution does not embody the will, is not the act and deed of the people, does not represent their wishes; and hence, I deny your right, your authority, to make it their organic law. . . Will you force it on them against their will simply because they would have voted it down if you had consulted them? If you will, are you going to force it upon them under the plea of leaving them perfectly free to form and regulate their own domestic institutions in their own way? Is that the mode in which I am called upon to carry out the principle of self-government and popular sovereignty in the Territories... If Kansas wants a Slave constitution she has a right to it, if she wants a Free-State constitution she has a

right to it. It is none of my business which way the slavery clause is decided. I care not whether it is voted up or down. Lincoln, in his back office, made note of this last sentence for future reference; and he thereby put his pen upon the fatal flaw in the career of Senator Douglas. All during this heroic fight for the freedom of Kansas Douglas declared that, had the people of that Territory decided in favor of slavery, he would just as earnestly and persistently fight against the Free-Soilers for the admission of the Territory as a Slave State. To the question of the right and wrong of slavery, so far as this controversy was concerned, he was entirely indifferent. Unfortunately he remained indifferent, as though utterly blind to the moral issue involved in the very existence of slavery. None the less he did fight, consistently and magnificently, for the rights of the Free-State men of Kansas, many of whom were Douglas Democrats, and the Lecompton constitution was buried out of sight. It is true, as Lincoln afterwards said, that the Republicans in Congress gave most of the votes necessary to defeat it; yet it is also true that but for Douglas the infamy would not have been defeated.1 His victory over Buchanan was decisive, extending even to the parlors of social rivalry, where the gracious and brilliant Adele Douglas out-shone the handsome but somewhat reserved niece of the President, who served as "first lady of the land" for her bachelor uncle.2

Nevertheless, there were those who saw not the faintest gleam of high, disinterested motive in the audacious revolt of the Senator from Illinois. Men like Lincoln, Herndon, and Gustave Koerner, who had known Douglas for years, saw in his action only the first move in some far-reaching political game, the exact nature of which they did not at first divine. Herndon, writing to Parker after a long silence, gave his view of the situation, which may be taken as representing Lincoln's view of it; for he was closer to the mind of Lincoln than any other man, and could report him, not always correctly, yet with much shrewdness and intution :

1 Stephen A. Douglas, by Clark E. Carr, pp. 62-74 (1909).

2 Reminiscences of Peace and War, by Mrs. Roger Pryor, Chap. IV.

Friend Parker.

Springfield, Ill., December 19, 1857.

Dear Sir: It has been a long time since I addressed you a letter, and supposing you are rested I propose to slip a word to you. These are curious, mysterious days. What do you think of Douglas's late strike from his masters? We out here have this view: He, Douglas, is U. S. Senator, and still wants to be. If he go the Lecompton swindle he is dead in Illinois; and being defeated here, and for that office, he is dead everywhere, North and South; it is a test for the future. However, if he "bulges" against the Lecompton fraud, he is at all events gone in the South. Hope springs up and comes to his despair. He says this:

"I see my way clear. The North has got the majority in the electoral college, and if I oppose this despotism and strike as a man, good, brave and true, I can get the solid North. By doing this my first expectation is that I can get back in the Senate, and in the meantime I will go gradually towards Republicanism, and finally deeper. That won't do right now. I know the law of the gradual development of ideas. Before 1860 Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, Washington, and probably more States will have to come into this confederacy, and these will give such an overwhelming majority to the North, that it can beat the South. I am for Freedom, Liberty! Mr. Parker or Wendell Phillips worships no more sincerely or intensely at the shrine of Liberty than I. Hurrah for Liberty! It is eternal; an attribute of God given to man as an inalienable right! Blessed day, I am safe! Glory!"

I have no doubt but that this is the Senator's reason none in the world. But the question is, will he, "like a man," face the music, and so keep faced? There is the rub. I have no confidence in him morally, mentally, politically, or otherwise. His friends here do not know how to look upon this change. However, they say this: "Republicanism always before Southern tyranny; the South is nothing but a despotism. They do this with great energy and emphasis. And thank the bright stars for so much! Buchanan has numerous friends here; Douglas has more. The war between them is fierce, fiery, full of hate. Douglas will not reap any advantage from this move, though Freedom will. Mark that. The Buchanan faction here will kill him for the Senatorial seat. He has slipped, I think: it is too much now to say this will be so. There are not facts enough out yet to declare this is and must be so; it looks that way.

My notion of this move, if not a base trick, is this: Douglas will be a ranting Free-State's man-hot and angrily so. There are but two sides. If he breaks loose from the South, he must become Republican, or go deeper and eclipse Phillips. Tell Mr. Phillips to guard his laurels: say to him that his friend Herndon says, "Phillips, you have a competitor in the field." Be not surprised at what Douglas does either one way or the other. Douglas speaks glibly, already, of the "fundamental principles of Liberty." Watch the blazing comet. There will be many foul disclosures in this fight. They will tell each other of treachery of each other's rascality: they will taunt each other, and the age and freedom will profit by the quarrel. Robbers have fallen out over the distribution of their bloody booty. The quarrel will be long and bitter, wild and ferocious. Let honest men look on, and laugh or weep, as suits their respective natures. I shall mourn, yet rejoice.

The South will "snub" Douglas, and to defend or revenge himself he will fight back, and in doing so he must feel around for "clubs." The only clubs are, first, Republican ones; and, second, strong Abolition ones: the first are composed simply of policy, the second of world-wide truthseternal as world-wide. Look out! If Douglas is fighting for revenge its laws will keep him destructive, and so look out! It is not virtue that moves him. If this move of Douglas is simply one of revenge, I do not know what to say. Too soon to say absolutely this or that. I think, however, that the first part of this letter is the only correct view of things, so far as they are developed. Our June and July fight here with Douglas has opened his eyes. Do you remember that his Times said that the "Lecompton constitution might as well be submitted to the Feegee tribes as to the people of Kansas?" What is your opinion of things? How do the Massachusetts men look upon this "squabble?" W. H. HERNDON.

Yours truly,

Give Mr. Phillips my best respects, not forgetting your wife. Show this letter to any person who wants to know how we feel out West.

Only three Democratic Senators dared to stand with Douglas -Broderick of California, Pugh of Ohio, and Stuart of Michigan as against the solid phalanx of his party. Green, Bigler, and Fitch in turn assailed him on the floor of the Senate, trying to read him out of the party into the ranks of the "Black