STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS

(1813-1861)

ENRY CLAY hoped he might never live to see the Civil War, and died seeing it inevitable. Stephen A. Douglas, who attempted to take his place as a pacificator, lived to see it begin, and died, sternly determined to accept for himself and for all those he could influence the issues he had striven to avoid.

To go over the measures of home and foreign policy by which it was sought to postpone the crisis of the struggle for sectional supremacy will never be a pleasant duty, and it is only necessary to point out here that as Clay stood for the traditional foreign policy of Washington and Jefferson,-the maintenance of our "splendid isolation" and the development of the nation from within,- Douglas stood for the distraction of attention from domestic affairs to expansion and aggressive advance abroad. When Clay's influence as the representative of what had been a "pivotal border State" waned after the fruitless Compromise of 1850, Douglas, as the representative of the growing power of the "border States» north of the Ohio, forced himself into leadership as the spokesman of "Young America" and of progressive ideas, which were interpreted by some of his followers to mean the conquest of the territory remaining to Mexico, the seizure of Cuba and the Central American States, and the annexation of Canada. These exuberances of the theory of "Manifest Destiny" Douglas repudiated, but for a time it was hoped by some that in the discussion of them there would be a cessation of the agitation for disunion, now carried on by both the Secessionists of the Gulf States and the terribly determined idealists of New England. Any one who reads now the burning words in which Wendell Phillips, under the promptings of a genius as fiery as that of Desmoulins and as stern as that of Danton, denounced "the league with death and the covenant with hell," will see how sadly futile was the hope that Douglas entertained that Buchanan expressed in one of his messages at a time when civil war had virtually begun- the hope that any mere "policy" can change the logic of events or alter the reality of "manifest destiny" involved in the accumulation of moral and intellectual forces from generation to generation, from country to country, from age to age.

Douglas was hailed by enthusiastic thousands as a very great man. He will always be remembered as one of the leading actors in the

prologue of the greatest tragedy of American history. But the only verdict possible on his career as a whole is that he mistook the logic of history and so failed, in spite of his great powers, to control the logic of events.

He was a man of remarkable natural ability, hardly surpassed as a political debater, yet an unequal match for Lincoln, because of a lack of the subtlety which is the most characteristic of all Lincoln's qualities. In the great debate of 1858, Mr. Lincoln, by his knowledge. of the underlying forces of politics, was able to force issues far more radically and effectively through the speeches of Mr. Douglas than through his own. Lincoln's masterly habit of self-suppression was hardly suspected at the time, and few then could have supposed that Douglas, accustomed to use language to express his thoughts, was matched against a greater politician than Talleyrand,-one who knew the last great secret of politics-that of going twain willingly with those who had compelled him to go an unwilling mile.

Born in Vermont and bred to the trade of a cabinet maker, Douglas removed to Illinois in his youth and educated himself to such advantage that after giving up his trade and being admitted to the bar, he soon became recognized as one of the most effective lawyers of the State. He was elected Judge of the Supreme Court of Illinois in 1841. From 1843 to 1847 he served in the House of Representatives, and in the United States Senate from 1847 to 1861. He began to come into prominence just as Webster, Clay, Calhoun, and Benton were yielding their places at the front. Lewis Cass had been discredited by defeat, and Douglas easily took his place as the Western leader and Presidential candidate of those Democrats who still hoped to postpone the issue against slavery. As the representative of these, Douglas appealed for the Presidency on a theory which his opponents called "squatter sovereignty "—the doctrine that the people of a territory had a right to decide for themselves in adopting their constitution, whether they would have slavery or any other institution not prohibited by the Federal Constitution. The logic of this position seemed to be irrefragable, but it left William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips out of consideration, and so in his last speeches, made in 1860 and 1861, Mr. Douglas declared against the extreme logic of "local self-government" and in favor of any force necessary to prevent the Gulf States from establishing a confederation to control the Lower Mississippi and the ports of the Gulf of Mexico. Without doubt, the "Douglas Democrats" of 1861 held the decisive balance of power, and it is hardly too much to say of him that, defeated and heartbroken, Douglas did no less to prevent the success of the Southern States in their attempt at secession than Mr. Lincoln himself. W. V. B.

REPLY TO LINCOLN

(In the Joint Debate, at Freeport, Illinois, June 17th, 1858)

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I

AM glad that at last I have brought Mr. Lincoln to the conclusion that he had better define his position on certain political questions to which I called his attention at Ottawa. He there showed no disposition, no inclination, to answer them. I did not present idle questions for him to answer merely for my gratification. I laid the foundation for those interrogatories by showing that they constituted the platform of the party whose nominee he is for the Senate.. I did not presume that I had the right to catechise him as I saw proper, unless I showed that his party, or a majority of it, stood upon the platform and were in favor of the propositions upon which my questions were based. I desired simply to know, inasmuch as he had been nominated as the first, last, and only choice of his party, whether he concurred in the platform which that party had adopted for its government. In a few moments I will proceed to review the answers which he has given to these interrogatories; but in order to relieve his anxiety, I will first respond to these which he has presented to me. Mark you, he has not presented interrogatories which have ever received the sanction of the party with which I am acting, and hence he has no other foundation for them than his own curiosity.

First, he desires to know if the people of Kansas shall form a constitution by means entirely proper and unobjectionable, and ask admission into the Union as a State, before they have the requisite population for a Member of Congress, whether I will vote for that admission. Well, now, I regret exceedingly that he did not answer that interrogatory himself before he put it to me, in order that we might understand, and not be left to infer on which side he is. Mr. Trumbull, during the last session of Congress, voted from the beginning to the end against the admission of Oregon, although a free State, because she had not the requisite population for a Member of Congress. Mr. Trumbull would not consent, under any circumstances, to let a State, free or slave, come into the Union until it had the requisite population. As Mr. Trumbull is in the field fighting for Mr. Lincoln, I would like to have Mr. Lincoln answer his own question,

and tell me whether he is fighting Trumbull on that issue or not. But I will answer his question. In reference to Kansas, it is my opinion that as she has population enough to constitute a slave State, she has people enough for a free State. I will not make Kansas an exceptionable case to the other States of the Union. I hold it to be a sound rule of universal application to require a Territory to contain the requisite population for a Member of Congress before it is admitted as a State into the Union. I made that proposition in the Senate in 1856, and I renewed it during the last session in a bill providing that no Territory of the United States should form a constitution and apply for admission, until it had the requisite population. On another occasion I proposed that neither Kansas or any other territory should be admitted until it had the requisite population. Congress did not adopt any of my propositions containing this general rule, but did make an exception of Kansas.I will stand by that exception. Either Kansas must come in as a free State, with whatever population she may have, or the rule must be applied to all the other territories alike. I therefore answer at once, that it having been decided that Kansas has people enough for a slave State, I hold that she has enough for a free State. I hope Mr. Lincoln is satisfied with my answer; and now I would like to get his answer to his own interrogatory—whether or not he will vote to admit Kansas before she has the requisite population. I want to know whether he will vote to admit Oregon before that territory has the requisite population. Mr. Trumbull will not, and the same reason that commits Mr. Trumbull against the admission of Oregon commits him against Kansas, even if she should apply for admission as a free State. If there is any sincerity, any truth, in the argument of Mr. Trumbull in the Senate against the admission of Oregon, because she had not 93,420 people, although her population was larger than that of Kansas, he stands pledged against the admission of both Oregon and Kansas, until they have 93,420 inhabitants. I would like Mr. Lincoln to answer this question. I would like him to take his own medicine. If he differ with Mr. Trumbull, let him answer his argument against the admission of Oregon, instead of poking questions at me.

The next question propounded to me by Mr. Lincoln is: Can the people of the territory in any lawful way, against the wishes of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from their

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limits prior to the formation of a State constitution? I answer emphatically, as Mr. Lincoln has heard me answer a hundred times from every stump in Illinois, that in my opinion the people of a territory can, by lawful means, exclude slavery from their limits prior to the formation of a State constitution.Mr. Lincoln knew that I had answered that question over and over again. He heard me argue the Nebraska Bill on that principle all over the State in 1854, in 1855, and in 1856, and he has no excuse for pretending to be in doubt as to my position on that question. It matters not what way the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to the abstract question whether slavery may or may not go into a territory under the Constitution; the people have the lawful means to introduce it or exclude it as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist a day or an hour anywhere, unless it is supported by local police regulations. Those police

regulations can only be established by the local legislature; and if the people are opposed to slavery, they will elect representatives to that body who will by unfriendly legislation effectually prevent the introduction of it into their midst. If, on the contrary, they are for it, their legislation will favor its extension. Hence, no matter what the decision of the Supreme Court may be on that abstract question, still the right of the people to make a slave Territory or a free Territory is perfect and complete under the Nebraska Bill. I hope Mr. Lincoln deems my answer satisfactory on that point..

In this connection, I will notice the charge which he has introduced in relation to Mr. Chase's amendment. I thought that I had chased that amendment out of Mr. Lincoln's brain at Ottawa, but it seems that still haunts his imagination, and he is not yet satisfied. I had supposed that he would be ashamed to press that question further. He is a lawyer, and has been a Member of Congress, and has occupied his time and amused you by telling you about parliamentary proceeding. He ought to have known better than to try to palm off his miserable impositions upon this intelligent audience. The Nebraska Bill provided that the legislative power and authority of the said Territory should extend to all rightful subjects of legislation, consistent with the organic act and the Constitution of the United States. It did not make any exception as to slavery, but gave all the power that it was possible for Congress to give without violating the Constitution to the territorial legislature, with no exception or