The one vital and portentous question—in some one of its many phases—was that of human slavery. This institution—until its final extinction amid the flames of war—cast its ominous shadow over our nation's pathway from the beginning. From the establishment of the Government under the Federal Constitution to the period mentioned, it had been the constant subject of compromise and concession.
Henry Clay was first known as "the great pacificator" by his tireless efforts in the exciting struggle of 1820, over the admission of Missouri—with its Constitution recognizing slavery—into the Federal Union. Bowed with the weight of years, the Kentucky statesman, from the retirement he had sought, in recognition of the general desire of his countrymen, again returned to the theatre of his early struggles and triumphs. The fires of ambition had burned low by age and bereavement, but with earnest longing that he might again pour oil upon the troubled waters, he presented to the Senate, as terms of final peaceable adjustment of the slavery question, the once famous compromise measures of 1850.
The sectional agitation then at its height was measurably the result of the proposed disposition of territory acquired by the then recent treaty with Mexico. The advocates and opponents of slavery extension were at once in bitter antagonism, and the intensity of feeling such as the country had rarely known.
The compromise measures—proposed by Mr. Clay in a general bill —embraced the establishment of Territorial Governments for Utah and New Mexico, the settlement of the Texas boundary, an amendment to the Fugitive Slave Law, and the admission of California as a free State. In entire accord with each proposition, Douglas had—by direction of the Committee on Territories, of which he was the chairman—reported a bill providing for the immediate admission of California under its recently adopted free State Constitution. Separate measures embracing the other propositions of the general bill were likewise duly reported. These measures were advocated by the Illinois Senator in a speech that at once won him recognized place among the great debaters of that illustrious assemblage. After many weeks of earnest, at times vehement, debate, the bills in the form last mentioned were passed, and received the approval of the President. Apart from the significance of these measures as a peace offering to the country, their passage closed a memorable era in our history. During their discussion Clay, Calhoun, and Webster —"the illustrious triumvirate"—were heard for the last time in the Senate. Greatest of the second generation of our statesmen, associated in the advocacy of measures that in the early day of the Republic had given us exalted place among the nations, within brief time of each other, "shattered by the contentions of the Great Hall, they passed to the chamber of reconciliation and of silence."
Chief in importance of his public services to his State was that of Senator Douglas in procuring from Congress a land grant to aid in the construction of the Illinois Central Railroad. It is but justice to the memory of his early colleague, Senator Breese, to say that he had been the earnest advocate of a similar measure in a former Congress. The bill, however, which after persistent opposition finally became a law, was introduced and warmly advocated by Senator Douglas. This act ceded to the State of Illinois—subject to the disposal of the Legislature thereof—"for the purpose of aiding in the construction of a railroad from the southern terminus of the Illinois and Michigan Canal to a point at or near the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, with a branch of the same to Chicago, and another to Dubuque, Iowa, every alternate section of land designated by even numbers for six sections in width on each side of said road, and its branches." It is difficult at this day to realize the importance of this measure to the then sparsely settled State. The grant in aggregate was near three million acres, and was directly to the State. After appropriate action by the State Legislature, the Illinois Central Railroad Company was duly organized—and the road eventually constructed.
A recent historian has truly said:
"For this, if for no other public service to his State, the name of Douglas was justly entitled to preservation by the erection of that splendid monumental column which, overlooking the blue waters of Lake Michigan, also overlooks for long distance that iron highway which was in no small degree the triumph of his legislative forecast and genius."
The measure now to be mentioned aroused deeper attention—more anxious concern—throughout the entire country than any with which the name of Douglas had yet been closely associated. It pertained directly to slavery, the "bone of contention" between the North and the South, the one dangerous quantity in our national politics from the establishment of the Government. Beginning with its recognition—though not in direct terms—in the Federal Constitution, it had through two generations, in the interest of peace, been the subject of repeated compromise.
As chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories, Douglas in the early days of 1854 reported a bill providing for the organization of the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas. This measure, which so suddenly arrested public attention, is known in our political history as the "Kansas-Nebraska Bill." Among its provisions was one repealing the Missouri Compromise or restriction of 1820. The end sought by the repeal was, as stated by Douglas, to leave the people of said Territories respectively to determine the question of the introduction or exclusion of slavery for themselves; in other words, "to regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States." The principle strenuously contended for was that of "popular sovereignty" or non-intervention by Congress, in the affairs of the Territories. In closing the protracted and exciting debate just prior to the passage of the bill in the Senate, he said:
"There is another reason why I desire to see this principle recognized as a rule of action in all time to come. It will have the effect to destroy all sectional parties and sectional agitation. If you withdraw the slavery question from the halls of Congress and the political arena, and commit it to the arbitrament of those who are immediately interested in and alone responsible for its consequences, there is nothing left out of which sectional parties can be organized. When the people of the North shall all be rallied under one banner, and the whole South marshalled under another banner, and each section excited to frenzy and madness by hostility to the institutions of the other, then the patriot may well tremble for the perpetuity of the Union. Withdraw the slavery question from the political arena and remove it to the States and Territories, each to decide for itself, and such a catastrophe can never happen."