The Middle Period, 1817-1858

by John William Burgess

CHAPTER XIX.

THE REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE

[The Connection of California with the Mississippi Valley]—[Nebraska]—[Mr. Douglas' Nebraska Bill and Report]—[The Surprising Assumptions in the Report]—[Mr. Douglas' Purpose]—[The Report and Bill Together in Conflict with the Act of 1820]—[The New Section]—[Mr. Dixon's Proposed Amendment]—[Mr. Blair's Letter in Reference to Mr. Seward's Connection with Dixon's Proposition]—[Douglas and Dixon]—[Mr. Douglas' New Bill]—[The Free-soil Protest Against the Bill]—[Mr. Douglas' Reply to the Address]—[Mr. Chase's First Amendment to the Bill]—[The Southern Whigs Aroused by Mr. Wade's Accusations]—[Mr. Chase's Amendment Lost]—[Mr. Douglas' Last Change in the Wording of the Clause]—[Mr. Everett's Views]—[Mr. Houston's Opposition to the Bill]—[Mr. Bell's Attitude Toward the Bill]—[Mr. Douglas' Amendment Passed by the Senate]—[Mr. Chase's Amendments]—[Mr. Bell's Argument Against the Bill]—[Mr. Douglas' Final Argument]—[The Passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill by the Senate]—[Analysis of the Vote Upon the Bill]—[Development of Popular Opposition to the Bill]—[The Kansas-Nebraska Bill in the House]—[The Relation of the Administration to the Bill]—[President Pierce and Mr. Davis]—[The Bill Taken up in the Committee of the Whole of the House of Representatives]—[Mr. A. H. Stephens' Management of the Bill]—[The Bill Passed and Signed by the President]—[Analysis of the Vote on the Bill in the House]—[What the Figures Taught]—[The Kansas-Nebraska Act a Stupendous Fallacy.]

When President Fillmore's last annual message to Congress was sent in, on December 6th, 1852, the quiet of the country in regard to the slavery question was more complete than it had been since 1830. The President did not even mention the subject. Evidently the people believed that the Measures of 1850, and their cordial endorsement in the elections just passed, had finally solved the great question, in so far as the Congress could solve it at all. But never was there a more deceptive peace. It was merely the dead calm before the dread cyclone.

The connection of California with the Mississippi valley.

This time the storm came from the Northwest. After the acquisitions of the territory upon the Pacific coast, it was immediately apparent that these new possessions must be connected, so soon as possible, with the line of Commonwealths on the west bank of the Mississippi by the Territorial organization of the country lying between. Mr. Douglas had conceived this idea as far back as 1847, and had endeavored from that time forward to secure the attention of Congress for its realization. The seemingly more important questions involved in the Compromise Measures gave little room for the consideration of other subjects between 1848 and 1850. Now, however, that these questions had apparently received their final settlement, the moment seemed opportune for the solution of the problem of binding the Pacific slope with the settled country of the west valley of the Mississippi.

Nebraska.

In the Congressional session of 1852-53, a bill passed the House of Representatives for organizing the region lying between Missouri and the Rocky Mountains, and between the latitudes thirty-six degrees, thirty minutes, and forty-three degrees, into the Territory of Nebraska. A vote upon the measure was, however, not reached in the Senate before the close of the session.

During the consideration of the bill in the House, Mr. Howe, of Pennsylvania, asked Mr. Giddings, of Ohio, who was a member of the committee on Territories, from which the bill had come, why there was no clause in the bill prohibiting slavery. Mr. Giddings replied that the Act of 1820 did that for all of this territory. Whereupon Mr. Howe used these significant words: "I should like to know of the gentleman of Ohio, if he has not some recollection of a compromise made since that time." Mr. Giddings quietly replied: "That does not affect this question."

During the discussion of the bill in the Senate, Mr. Atchison, of Missouri, said that one of his objections to the organization of this Territory was that Missouri would be surrounded on three sides by free soil, into which the slaves of the citizens of Missouri could easily escape, but that, as he could see no prospect of a repeal of the Act of 1820 making this region free soil, he would not be willing to delay the organization of the Territory on that account.

There is no explanation of the language used by these three gentlemen, except that Mr. Howe had conceived that, in some way or other, the Measures of 1850 had modified the Act of 1820 prohibiting slavery in the Louisiana territory above thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes, and that Mr. Giddings and Mr. Atchison had never thought of such a thing.

On December 14th, 1853, Mr. Dodge, of Iowa, introduced a bill into the Senate for the organization of Nebraska Territory. It was referred to the committee on Territories, of which Mr. Douglas was chairman.

Mr. Douglas' Nebraska bill and report.

On January 4th, 1854, Mr. Douglas presented a bill from the committee, with a special report, in which latter document the principles of the laws of the United States in respect to slavery in the Territories, as understood by the committee, or rather as Mr. Douglas understood them, were stated. The report was a more important document than the bill, since the bill, drawn in vague terms upon this subject, was to be interpreted by the principles declared in the report. The first paragraph of the report read: "The principal amendments which your committee deem it their duty to commend to the favorable action of the Senate, in a special report, are those in which the principles established by the Compromise Measures of 1850, so far as they are applicable to Territorial organization, are proposed to be affirmed and carried into practical operation within the limits of the new Territory." The report then declares these principles to be: "That all questions pertaining to slavery in the Territories, and in the new States to be formed therefrom, are to be left to the decision of the people residing therein, by their appropriate representatives, to be chosen by them for that purpose: That all cases involving title to slaves, and questions of personal freedom, are to be referred to the adjudication of the local tribunals, with the right of appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States: That the provisions of the Constitution of the United States, in respect to fugitives from service, are to be carried into faithful execution in all the organized Territories the same as in the States."

The surprising assumptions in the report.

These were most astonishing and confusing propositions in a variety of respects. In the first place, the claim that the Compromise Acts of 1850 contained any general principles of Territorial organization in respect to slavery, which were applicable to any other Territories than those organized under these Acts, was a surprising assumption. It was an induction from one precedent when there were half a dozen precedents against it. The fact was that the Acts of 1850 only set up a rule for a single case, a rule patched up by compromise, and not derived from any general principle. This claim was also, if admitted, highly confusing. Was it a principle of the Constitution, and therefore supreme over all Congressional policies in the case? Or was it simply a principle of Congressional policy? If the former, then it had already rendered the prohibition upon slavery in the Louisiana territory, by the Act of 1820, nugatory. If it was the latter, then it would require a new act of Congress to apply it to any other Territory than Utah and New Mexico. In the second place, the statement, also contained in the report, that there was a pronounced conflict of opinion in the country upon the question of the constitutional validity of the Act of 1820, prohibiting slavery in the Louisiana territory above thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes, was equally surprising. Nobody had heard the noise of any such conflict. The fact is, that conflict was yet to be aroused. And, lastly, it was most highly surprising and confusing that the attempt to rouse this conflict should proceed from the bosom of the party which had won its splendid victory under the peace issue upon the subject of slavery, and should be inaugurated by a member of that party from the North.

Mr. Douglas' purpose.

What was, or what could have been, Mr. Douglas' purpose? It is held by most historians that it was simply a reckless and dishonest bid for Southern support, in his ambitious plans to gain the presidency. Most of Mr. Douglas' political opponents at the time believed that he was animated solely by that desire. His character was, according to their view, that of a scheming politician, who would sacrifice anything and anybody for his own advancement. While we can understand this radical estimate of him by those with whom he was in daily conflict, it does seem that the historians, with his subsequent career before them, might suspect, at least, that some conviction of the rightfulness of his views may have aided in moving him to the position which he took. Mr. Douglas was a Western Democrat; that is, he was a radical Democrat. He had, therefore, an exaggerated notion of the virtues of the people, and of the importance of local autonomy. He resented the idea that the sturdy adventurers who accomplished the first settlement of a Western Territory were not as fully capable of local self-government, from the very outset, as the "effeminate" inhabitants of an Eastern Commonwealth. He repudiated the notion that they needed any pupilage from the general Government in the management of public affairs. He was not alone in such views. It is safe to say that the mass of the people in his section held the same views at that time. They have not progressed much beyond them now. Is it not, then, fair to say that Mr. Douglas, in all probability, really believed that the reference of the questions in regard to slavery to the residents of each Territory, as well as to those of each "State," was the true principle of the political science of the Republic, and the true policy of its legislation? If his convictions and his ambition went hand in hand, and if his convictions were not the product of his ambition, should he be so harshly criticised for declaring them? It is true that his announcement of them filled the land with clamor and angry dispute, and that their adoption by Congress led to violence, bloodshed, and war; but can we conclude that he had any conception whatsoever that this could be the result of them? Is it not far more probable that he thought the quiet of the country would be confirmed and forever established by their general acceptance? There is certainly ground for this view of his motives. It is certainly very improbable that there was ever any balancing, in his mind, of risks to his country's peace and safety against his ambition for the presidency. It is much more probable that he believed his principles, without his presidency, would contribute, in high degree, to the peace and welfare of his country, but that, taken together with his presidency, they would shed untold blessings upon the land. This is no unusual psychology. It is decidedly common.

The doctrines of the report at first not inserted in the bill.

Mr. Douglas did not, however, insert his doctrine of popular sovereignty in the Territories, and his dictum as to the repeal of the slavery prohibition in the Act of 1820 by the principles of the Acts of 1850, in the bill. Possibly he thought it unnecessary. Possibly he did not venture to do so. Possibly he did intend to leave things in such an ambiguous shape that one interpretation might be put upon them in one section, and a somewhat different one in another. He would hardly have been an American politician if he had not, at some time or other in his life, practised something of this kind. This is what they call feeling the public pulse, which is a main point in the practice of democratic statesmanship. It is not particularly edifying to the academic statesman, but it is business, and Americans are a business people. Mr. Douglas simply modelled the bill after the Utah and New Mexico bills, in respect to slavery, that is, he made no mention of the subject in that part of the bill which provided for the Territorial period, but added a clause which read: "When admitted as a State, the said Territory, or any portion of the same, shall be received into the Union, with or without slavery, as its Constitution may prescribe at the time of its admission."

The report and bill together in conflict with the Act of 1820.

Taken apart from the report, the bill might be interpreted as not in conflict with the Act of 1820, but taken with the report, it meant the repeal of the Act of 1820, and the attribution of all power over the question of slavery in the Territory to those who might squat upon its soil. Of course it was entirely within the power of Congress to repeal the Act of 1820. The restraints resting upon Congress in regard to this matter were moral, not legal. If Congress would, nevertheless, do it, it must do it in the form of a statute, and not in that of a report doubting the constitutionality of the Act, or even declaring it unconstitutional. It was entirely natural that the demand should be made for clearing the bill of its ambiguities.

The new section.

Before the demand came, however, the committee itself did something in this direction. When the bill was printed, on January 7th, it contained twenty sections. On the 10th, a revised edition of it appeared, which contained twenty-one sections. The last section was the dictum of the report in regard to the principles of the Measures of 1850 upon the subject of slavery in the Territories. The committee explained that it had been left out of the first draft by a clerical error. This change did not, however, clear the bill of all ambiguity. The added provision was declaratory only, and did not expressly repeal the Act of 1820.

Mr. Dixon's proposed amendment.

At length, on the 16th, Mr. Dixon, of Kentucky, gave notice to the Senate that he should move, as an amendment to the bill, a provision expressly repealing the Act of 1820 in so far as it prohibited slavery in any of the Territories of the United States.

Mr. Blair's letter in reference to Mr. Seward's connection with Dixon's proposition.

In a letter of May 17th, 1873, to Mr. Gideon Welles, Mr. Montgomery Blair wrote of Mr. Seward: "I shall never forget how shocked I was at his telling me that he was the man who put Archy Dixon, the Whig Senator from Kentucky in 1854, up to moving the repeal of the Missouri compromise, as an amendment to Douglas' first Kansas [Nebraska?] bill, and had himself forced the repeal by that movement, and had thus brought to life the Republican Party. Dixon was to out-Herod Herod at the South, and he was to out-Herod Herod at the North."

If this be true, it was a most reprehensible trick of unscrupulous politics. Mr. Seward scoffed at the doctrine of "popular sovereignty" in the Territories as arrant nonsense, and knew that the assertion of any such doctrine as a principle of the law of the country in respect to Territorial organization would rouse the North to angry and bitter resistance. What he did, he did with his eyes open. His vision did not probably reach so far as to civil war, but he knew that the risks of another slavery agitation were very grave. Neither could the ambiguity in Mr. Douglas' bill, and the necessity for relieving it of this obscurity, palliate such an offense. If he desired to make Mr. Douglas' bill entirely plain he should have done this, not by holding out a temptation to the South to enter upon a new course of slavery extension, but by an amendment asserting the continuing validity of the slavery prohibition in the Act of 1820. Mr. Sumner did this very thing on the next day. It was, however, too late to chain the spirit which Dixon's fatal move had loosed.

Douglas and Dixon.

It is said that Mr. Douglas was surprised and disconcerted by Mr. Dixon's notice, and endeavored to dissuade him from carrying out his expressed intention, but was finally convinced by Mr. Dixon that the proposed amendment was only the fair and honest statement of constitutional principles, and of the legal results of the Compromise of 1850, and only made distinct and express what was unclear, though implied, in the bill.

Mr. Douglas' new bill.

On the 23rd, Mr. Douglas brought in a new bill, and offered it as a substitute for the original bill. The new bill contained a clause declaring that that part of the Act of 1820 prohibiting slavery in the Louisiana territory above thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes was inoperative, being contrary to, and superseded by, the principles of the legislation of 1850. Mr. Douglas' new bill changed the southern boundary from thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes to thirty-seven degrees, made the northern boundary run up to the forty-ninth parallel west of Minnesota Territory, and cut this vast domain of nearly five hundred thousand square miles in area into two Territories by the fortieth parallel of latitude, the one to the north of it to be called Nebraska, and the one to the south of it Kansas. Mr. Dixon immediately expressed himself as satisfied with the provisions of the new bill, and said that they fulfilled the purposes of the amendment which he had intended to offer, and that he should, therefore, withhold the same. The Senate agreed to take up the bill on the following Monday.

The Free-soil protest against the bill. Mr. Douglas' reply to the address.

On the same day that Mr. Douglas presented this second bill, there appeared in the National Era, the Abolition journal at Washington, and in several New York City papers, the noted address, signed by Messrs. Chase, Sumner, Wade, Smith, and De Witt, in which the Douglas bill was denounced in the most trenchant language as "a gross violation of a sacred pledge, as a criminal betrayal of precious rights, as a part and parcel of an atrocious plot to exclude from a vast unoccupied region immigrants from the Old World and free laborers from our own States, and convert it into a dreary region of despotism inhabited by masters and slaves." The contents of this celebrated paper constituted, it may be said, the first draft of the creed of the party to be founded on the doctrine of resistance to slavery extension, the Republican party. The propositions contained in it drove Mr. Douglas to a fierce diatribe against their authors, in which he included an elaborate argument in defence of his dictum, that the Measures of 1850 had rendered the slavery prohibition in the Act of 1820 inoperative. He contended that the fact that Congress had, in the joint resolution admitting Texas, provided that in Texan territory north of the line of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes slavery should be prohibited, proved that Congress and the people of the United States understood the legislation of 1820 to mean that the line of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes was to be run through any and all territory that might be subsequently acquired by the United States; that the refusal of Congress to do this in regard to the territory acquired from Mexico had made the establishment of a new principle in regard to slavery in the Territories necessary; that that principle, as established by the legislation of 1850, was the neutrality of Congress in the question, and the right of the residents in each Territory to settle the question for themselves; and that this new principle had superseded the old principle and rendered all legislation under the old principle inoperative.

Mr. Chase's amendment to the bill. The Southern Whigs aroused by Mr. Wade's accusations. The Douglas doctrine convincing to many. Mr. Chase's amendment lost.

Such jurisprudence in respect to the effect upon each other of statutes relating to different and distinct Territories had never been heard before, and it was easy to show it to be a tissue of sophistries from beginning to end. It was entirely evident that Mr. Douglas and his committee shrank from proposing a bare and bald repeal of the slavery prohibition in the Act of 1820, and sought to avoid the responsibility of doing so under the convenient claim that it had already been repealed. But Mr. Chase was determined to make them take this responsibility, and to expose their fallacies in their attempts to escape it. On February 3rd, Mr. Chase moved to remove from the bill the words referring to the Measures of 1850, and their effect upon the Act of 1820, and make the bill simply repeal the slavery prohibition of the Act of 1820, in so far as it applied to the Territories to be organized by the bill. Mr. Chase supported his amendment in a powerful speech, in which he demonstrated most clearly the fallacy and the duplicity of the doctrine which held that the legislation of 1850 in regard to Utah and New Mexico had repealed the legislation of 1820 in regard to the Louisiana territory north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes. Both he and his colleague, Mr. Wade, went, however, too far in denouncing the subterfuge as a conspiracy between the Southerners and the friends of Douglas to extend slavery. It was especially imprudent, to say the least, in Mr. Wade to do so. The Southern Whigs were highly incensed at the charge of conspiring with Northern Democrats, made by one of their own party, and they repudiated the accusation with great earnestness. Besides this, the Douglas idea of "popular sovereignty," or, as we now call it, home rule, in the Territories, had won many adherents. There is no question that a great many men, in both the North and the South, now began to feel that Mr. Douglas had discovered the true principle in regard to slavery in the Territories. Mr. Chase's amendment was lost by a vote of thirty to thirteen. The thirteen voting in favor of the amendment were all from the North. Of those voting against it, ten were from the North, and twenty from the South. Nineteen Senators, ten of whom were from the South, did not vote at all. The vote meant that the large majority of those voting held that, in some way or other, the legislation of 1850 had repealed the slavery prohibition in the legislation of 1820. This was execrable jurisprudence, and even Mr. Cass, who was really the father of the idea of home rule in the Territories, dissented from it, and voted for Mr. Chase's amendment.

Mr. Douglas' last change in the wording of the clause.

In spite of this support by the majority, Mr. Douglas was apparently disquieted by the attitude of Mr. Cass, and by the arguments against the correctness of his doctrine. He, himself, now moved to strike out of the bill the words: "which was superseded by the principles of the legislation of 1850, commonly called the Compromise Measures, and is hereby declared inoperative," and to insert instead thereof the words: "which being inconsistent with the principle of non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the States and Territories, as recognized by the legislation of 1850, commonly called the Compromise Measures, is hereby declared inoperative and void, it being the true intent and meaning of this Act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States."

Mr. Everett's views.

In a most able argument, remarkable both for its strong logic and its admirable temper, Mr. Everett demonstrated the weakness of Mr. Douglas' proposition in its last form, the declaration of inconsistency between the legislation of 1820 and that of 1850. He showed conclusively that, in place of an inconsistency, here were simply two policies in reference to different Territories, in which different conditions and relations obtained. He predicted that the insistence upon the same policy for all the Territories would lead to the struggle for determining whether they should be all slave or all free, and he demonstrated that "popular sovereignty" in the Territories was an illusion, since Congress could not by any act of its own divest itself of its duty, laid upon it by the Constitution, to legislate for the Territories. Mr. Everett was a member of the committee on Territories, from which the bill had proceeded, and his views should, on this account, have possessed an added weight.

Mr. Houston's opposition to the bill.

Mr. Houston, of Texas, another member of the committee, now declared himself against the bill, on the ground, among other reasons, that it would reopen the slavery question by the destruction of one of the great measures upon which the settlement of that question rested.

Mr. Bell's attitude toward the bill.

It was furthermore suspected that Mr. Bell, of Tennessee, another member of the committee, was opposed to the bill. This suspicion turned out to be true. The bill can hardly be regarded therefore as having been reported by the committee at all. The committee consisted of six Senators, and it was at last found that it had, at no time, received the support of more than three. Of these three, two were from the North, Douglas, of Illinois, and Jones, of Iowa, and one was from the South, Johnson, of Arkansas.

Mr. Douglas' amendment passed by the Senate.

The vote upon this amendment was taken on February 15th. Thirty-five Senators voted for it, and ten against it. Of those voting for it, twenty-four were from the North and eleven from the South. Of those voting against it, nine were from the North and one, Mr. Houston, was from the South. Mr. Bell voted for the amendment for the reason, as he afterwards explained, that he thought Mr. Douglas ought to be allowed to perfect his bill.

Mr. Chase's second amendment. Mr. Pratt's amendment to Mr. Chase's amendment.

Mr. Chase now suspected that there might be some catch concealed in the last words of the amendment just adopted. These words, it will be remembered, were: "subject only to the Constitution of the United States." Mr. Chase, therefore, moved to add the words: "under which the people of the Territory, through their appropriate representatives, may, if they see fit, prohibit the existence of slavery therein." Mr. Chase now put the home rule principle in regard to slavery in the Territories to the test, for if the people of a Territory could not, under the Constitution of the United States, prohibit slavery in the Territories, then was the Douglas doctrine a mere deception, a mere jugglery of words. Mr. Chase put his proposition, however, in a form which appeared one-sided, and Mr. Badger, of North Carolina, the best constitutional lawyer from the South in the Senate, contended that Mr. Chase's amendment would have the effect of denying to the Territories the power to admit slavery, and thus destroy, from that side, the home rule principle of the bill. To remedy this defect, Mr. Pratt moved to amend Mr. Chase's proposition so as to make it read that the people might introduce or prohibit slavery in the Territories. But this was an amendment to Mr. Chase's amendment to Mr. Douglas' amendment, and was held to be unparliamentary, unless Mr. Chase would accept it, and incorporate it into his amendment. This he refused to do, on the ground, first, that he did not believe that the Territories could, under the Constitution, introduce slavery, and, second, on the ground that the union of his proposition and that of Mr. Pratt in a single amendment would unite those who did not believe that the people of a Territory could introduce slavery with those who did not believe they could prohibit slavery against the entire amendment, and probably defeat it, while, if the two propositions could be voted on separately, they would both probably pass, and the bill would be cleared of all ambiguity.

Mr. Chase's amendment lost.

Mr. Chase's attitude toward Mr. Pratt's motion compelled the Senate to vote upon his proposition separately, and the amendment was lost by a vote of thirty-six to ten.

Mr. Badger's amendment.

Just before the close of the debate on Mr. Chase's motion, Mr. Walker, of Wisconsin, startled the Senate by the declaration that the repeal of the Act of 1820 prohibiting slavery would revive the old French law legitimizing slavery in all of the territory acquired from France. Both Mr. Benjamin and Mr. Badger said it would not have that effect, but on different grounds. In order to quiet apprehension on this point, and remove the difficulty out of the way of the passage of the bill, Mr. Badger gave notice that so soon as the vote should be taken on Mr. Chase's motion, he should move an amendment to the bill providing that "nothing contained in this Act shall be construed to revive or put in force any law or regulation, which may have existed prior to 1820, either protecting, establishing, prohibiting, or abolishing slavery." After the vote upon Mr. Chase's motion, Mr. Badger offered this amendment, and it was voted, without debate, by a very large majority.

Mr. Chase's third amendment.

Mr. Chase now turned his assaults upon other points of the bill. Mr. Douglas had been impressed by the taunts of the opponents of the bill that home rule was to be granted to the people of the Territories only upon the subject of slavery, but that they were to continue in all other respects subject to the control of the general Government, and he now moved to strike out the veto power of Congress over Territorial legislation, in the cases in hand, and to so modify the usual veto power of the Territorial governors as to allow a two-thirds majority of the Territorial legislatures to overcome it. These propositions were voted without debate. Whereupon Mr. Chase moved that the governors, secretaries, and judges of the two Territories be elected by the people instead of being appointed by the President. This was logical, but it made the "squatter-sovereignty" doctrine ridiculous. It was, therefore, rejected with a considerable show of spirit.

Mr. Chase's fourth amendment.

Mr. Chase now moved that the whole country should be organized as one Territory instead of two. He seemed to anticipate that if two should be established at the same time, the slaveholders would claim one. This proved to be a correct suspicion. It was subsequently declared throughout the South that the purpose in forming two Territories was to give one to the North and the other to the South. And when the North made the fight for Kansas, it was really felt in the South by the mass of the people that a tacit agreement had been violated. The Senators in favor of the bill had now come to think that Mr. Chase was simply endeavoring to discredit the bill, and they quickly voted this motion down by a large majority.

Mr. Bell's argument against the bill.

Down to this juncture, the bill had been considered in the Senate as a committee of the Whole. It was now reported to the Senate as amended by this committee, and, on March 3rd, it came to the vote upon its final passage. It was at this point that Mr. Bell revealed his opposition to the bill, and made his great argument, the greatest effort of his long and useful life, against it. The speech was chiefly a logical and an eloquent elaboration of the three propositions, that popular sovereignty could not be established in the Territories by an Act of Congress, that the passage of the bill before the Senate attempting it would produce a vast development of the anti-slavery sentiment at the North, and that no practical benefits whatsoever could accrue to the South by the repeal of the restriction upon slavery extension in the Act of 1820. But the Southerners would not listen to these words of wisdom from their own greatest colleague.

Mr. Douglas' final argument.

Mr. Douglas is generally represented as having closed the debate, although Mr. Houston spoke briefly after him in opposition to the measure. Mr. Douglas' argument was masterful from every point of view but the highest. His chief proposition was, that, when his committee were charged with the duty of framing the bill, they were forced to choose between the principle of Congressional intervention in the Territories, in the matter of slavery, on the one hand, the principle of 1820, the principle which had, for thirty years, filled the land with agitation and conflict, and had been a standing menace to the existence of the Union, and the principle of Congressional non-intervention, on the other hand, the principle of the Measures of 1850, the principle which had tranquillized the country and cemented anew the Union, the principle which both of the two great political parties had unequivocally approved in their platforms of 1852, and which the people of the whole country had just as unequivocally approved in the elections of 1852. And his conclusion from this proposition was, that, as servants of the people who had established this principle of Congressional non-intervention, his committee were morally obligated to make it the principle of the bill presented by them for the organization of the new Territories, and that whoever arraigned him and his committee for so doing virtually arraigned the people of the United States. It was a most excellent and refined bit of demagogy, and it fell upon an audience whose mental niveau was not quite high enough to distinguish between it and sound reasoning. He enforced this argument by another piece of catching demagogism, which, though not quite so refined, was equally effective. It was the proud and boastful assertion that American citizens were capable of self-government anywhere, whether in "States" or Territories, and under all conditions, whether aided by long established customs, or without any such guides to steady them in their progress. It was evident that his opponents preferred to avoid this point, and that he was sure he had them upon it. He was so thoroughly democratic in his own feelings that he entertained no doubt as to the triumph of his argument when stated in this form.

The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill by the Senate.

A few minutes before five o'clock on the morning of March 4th, after a continuous session of seventeen hours, the vote upon the bill was taken, resulting in thirty-seven voices in its favor and fourteen against it. Eleven Senators had not voted. Of these, three sent word that, if they could have been present, they would have voted for the bill, and one that he would have voted against it. There were also two vacancies at the moment, one in the Vermont delegation, and one in that of North Carolina. This reduced the number of those who actually refrained from voting, though present, to five. These gentlemen were Mr. Everett, of Massachusetts, Mr. Wright, of New Jersey, Mr. Cooper, of Pennsylvania, Mr. Clayton, of Delaware, and Mr. Pearce, of Maryland, all Whigs with the exception of Mr. Wright.

Analysis of the vote upon the bill.

Counting the names of those who announced how they would have voted had they been able to be present, and considering the Commonwealths in whose delegations there were vacancies as represented fully by the one member from each, we may say that, in the Senate, New Hampshire, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, California, Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Arkansas, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and Louisiana voted for the bill; that Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, New York, Ohio, and Wisconsin voted against the bill; that Connecticut, Tennessee, and Texas were divided; and that Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland were doubtful. Not a single Northern Whig voted for the bill, and only two Northern Whigs failed to vote against it. One Southern Whig, Mr. Bell, voted against it, and two Southern Whigs, Mr. Clayton and Mr. Pearce, failed to vote for it. Every Southern Democrat, except only Mr. Houston, voted for the bill, while, even if we count Mr. Chase and Mr. Sumner as Democrats, only six Northern Democrats voted against it. The bill may thus be fairly considered to have been a Western and Southern measure, and a Democratic measure. The Western Democracy, with its crude and radical notions about local self-government, invited the South into a position which turned out to be a snare and a pitfall. It is not meant by this that the Western Democracy was insincere, but only that it was crude and vulgarly over self-confident. And it is not meant that the South was insincere, but only too eager to vindicate its honor and dignity, by obliterating the inequality with the North in regard to the common territory of the Union, under which it fancied it had suffered since the restriction placed upon slavery extension by the Act of 1820.

Development of popular opposition to the bill.

If the bill had been subjected to the plebiscite on February 1st, it is very probable that the people in the Northern Commonwealths would have sustained the positions taken by their respective Senators. Had this been done on March 1st, it is probable that this would not have been the case in some of the Northern Commonwealths, whose Senators voted for the measure. And had it been done on April 1st, it is practically certain that it would not have been. After February 1st, there was developed throughout the North a very strong opposition to the bill among the people. The most influential newspapers denounced it. Numerous meetings, largely attended, protested against it. The legislatures of several of the Commonwealths passed resolutions condemning it. And the clergy generally arraigned it as immoral, inhuman, and irreligious. The movements against it seem to have been spontaneous and to have been connected with each other only by the common sentiment against the extension of slavery. It is, however, probable that the Address to the people, issued by Mr. Chase and his Free-soil friends in the latter part of January, furnished the necessary excitant. The Address seems to have been the text from which most of these articles, protests, memorials, speeches, and sermons were drawn. When the bill was sent to the House of Representatives, it was thus evident to all impartial observers that its growing unpopularity at the North would be a very great obstacle to its passage by the House. Its friends felt that they must get it through speedily or see it lost altogether.

Already, on January 31st, Mr. Richardson, of Illinois, Mr. Douglas' lieutenant in the House of Representatives, had reported from the House committee on Territories a bill for the organization of the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, which was the same in substance and language as that reported by Mr. Douglas to the Senate. It had been discussed a little in the committee of the Whole House, but had slumbered there after February 15th.

The Kansas-Nebraska bill in the House.

On March 7th, the Senate bill was sent into the House for concurrence. It was taken up for consideration on the twenty-first, and, after some parliamentary passes, was referred to the House committee on Territories.

The relation of the Administration to the bill.

Some of the historians teach that this would have been the end of the bill, except for the interference of President Pierce and his two most trusted advisers, Mr. Caleb Cushing and Mr. Jefferson Davis. Mr. Davis relates his connection with the matter in his own book. He says that, on Sunday morning, January 22nd, gentlemen from the two Congressional committees on Territories called at his house and asked his aid in obtaining an interview with the President; that he went with them to the executive mansion, and secured for them the desired access to the President; that the President listened patiently to the reading of the bill for organizing Kansas and Nebraska; and that the President decided that the bill "rested upon sound constitutional principles, and recognized in it only a return to that rule which had been infringed by the Compromise of 1820, and the restoration of which had been foreshadowed by the legislation of 1850." Mr. Davis furthermore specifically denies that the measure was inspired by President Pierce or any member of his Cabinet. Of course, though not inspired, it may have been aided on the way of its passage through Congress by the Administration. The proof upon which these historians chiefly rely, in their assertion that it was so aided, was the fact that the editorials in the Washington Union supported the bill, and the claim that this paper was the organ of the Administration. But Mr. Sidney Webster, President Pierce's private secretary at the time, has recently declared that the Washington Union was not President Pierce's organ in the Kansas-Nebraska matter, or in any other matter; that President Pierce had no organ.

President Pierce and Mr. Davis.

The character of President Pierce was that of a punctilious gentleman. Mr. Davis resembled him much in this general trait. In fact, it was said to have been this likeness which drew them so closely together in their friendship for each other. Men of such character are not inclined to meddle, and a strong positive evidence is necessary to substantiate any such charge against them. There is no doubt that the President's view of the doctrine of the bill was well known. There is no doubt that there were members of Congress who made a chief point of coinciding with the Administration upon every subject, and who thought that such servility would give weight to their recommendations for official positions. And there is no doubt that the President appointed some persons to office recommended by such members. But no satisfactory evidence has been as yet produced to prove that President Pierce gave or promised any patronage to any member for supporting the bill, or withheld any to punish any member for not supporting it. In fact, the President's attitude toward the two factions of the Democratic party in New York in the matter of appointments, making selections from both in almost equal numbers, without regard to the Free-soil sentiments of the "Softs," manifests a quite different spirit from that with which these historians represent him to have been animated in meddling with the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill.

The President's consistency.

And, finally, the inconsistency which these historians find between the President's message of December preceding and his attitude toward the Kansas-Nebraska bill can be so explained as to appear a perfect consistency. What the President said in his message was that the acquiescence of distinguished citizens in the Compromise Measures of 1850 had given renewed vigor to our institutions, and restored a sense of repose and security to the public mind throughout the Union, and that this repose should suffer no shock during his official term. If, now, we consider these measures of 1850 as containing the principle of home rule in the Territories in regard to the question of slavery, and if we attribute the repose of the public mind upon this subject to that principle, would it not be maintaining that repose to apply this principle in the organization of the new Territories, and would it not be destructive of that repose to undertake to settle the slavery question in the new Territories by an act of Congress, either original or confirmatory? This view is certainly intelligible. It was professed and advanced by all the supporters of the bill. It was unquestionably the view which the President took of the matter. It proved to be an erroneous view, but the views which mortal men hold, and conscientiously hold, are very frequently erroneous.

The bill taken up in the committee of the Whole of the House of Representatives. Mr. A. H. Stephens' management of the bill. The bill passed and signed by the President.

The Senate bill slept in the committee of the Whole of the House of Representatives from March 21st until May 8th. During this period its friends were undoubtedly working for it, and its opponents against it. By the latter date the leaders in favor of the bill knew that they had a reliable majority in the House, and, on that day, Mr. Richardson moved that the House go into committee of the Whole, for the purpose of taking up the House Kansas-Nebraska bill for consideration. After much parliamentary fencing, this was accomplished. Mr. Richardson then proposed to substitute the Senate bill, shorn of the provision in it confining suffrage and office-holding in these Territories to American citizens, for the House bill. The opponents of the bill now entered upon a course of obstruction, and, although there was a safe majority of about twenty in favor of the bill, they prevented such a vote being taken in the committee of the Whole, as would bring the matter to a crisis, for about two weeks. By this time Mr. Richardson seems to have been completely demoralized, and Mr. Alexander H. Stephens came forward and took the management of the bill into his own hands. He moved to strike out the enacting clause of the House bill. According to the rules of the House, this motion took the precedence of all motions to amend, and the effect of it would be, if passed, equivalent to the rejection of the bill, upon the happening of which the committee must rise and report its action to the House. The House could then refuse to concur with the report of the committee of the Whole, upon the happening of which Mr. Richardson could then offer the Senate bill, as a substitute, in the House, and in the House the obstructive tactics of the opposition could be dealt with as they could not be in the committee of the Whole. Mr. Stephens explained his tactics to the committee, in order that the friends of the bill might know how to vote. The opponents of the bill called this procedure a new "gag," but Mr. Stephens remained firm, and drove the Senate bill in this manner through the House by a vote of one hundred and thirteen to one hundred. The Senate concurred in the omission of the provision limiting suffrage and office-holding in the Territories to American citizens; and the President signed the bill, on May 30th.

Analysis of the vote on the bill in the House.

Eighty-seven members from the North, of whom forty-five were Whigs, counting the Free-soilers as Whigs, and forty-two of whom were Democrats, voted against the bill; while only forty-four members from the North, all Democrats, voted for it. Sixty-nine members from the South, of whom fifty-seven were Democrats and twelve were Whigs, voted for the bill; while seven Whigs and two Democrats from the South voted against it.

What the figures taught.

These figures pretty well disposed of the claim that the bill was a tender from the North to the South. It was simply a Western and Southern Democratic measure. Taken together with the vote in the Senate, these figures also showed that the Whig party was a party opposed to slavery extension, unanimously so in the North, and in some degree in the South. They revealed that the Whig party in the North was to be merged in a Northern party with the Free-soil element of the Democratic party, and was to be overwhelmed in the South by the union of the proslavery-extension Whigs with the Democrats. They indicated that one sectional party was soon to hold the majority in the North, and another in the South; and gave thus the fearful warning that the North was, at last, to be arrayed against the South upon the subject which was of greater interest to the South, in the minds of the slaveholders, than the Union itself.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act a stupendous fallacy.

From the point of view of the present, we are compelled to regard the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act as probably the greatest error which the Congress of the United States ever committed, and the arguments by which it was supported as among the most specious fallacies that have ever misled the minds of men. We must take this ground, unless we assume that we could not have solved the slavery problem in any other way than we did, and at any less cost. If we make this assumption, we may then consider this Act as providential, in that it precipitated a crisis, which was bound to come, and which would only have been made more terrible by delay. While, however, we of the succeeding generation may explain the place of this Act in our history in this way, no considerations of this kind can justify the men who produced it, and placed it upon the statute-book. That God should "make the wrath of man to praise him" does not excuse the wrath of man.