These utterances of little more than half a century ago, fall strangely upon our ears at this day. In the light of all that has occurred in the long reach of years, how significant the words, "No man is wiser than events"! Likewise, "The actions of men are to be judged by the light surrounding them at the time—not by the knowledge that comes after the fact." The immediate effect of the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was directly the reverse of that so confidently predicted by Douglas. The era of concord between the North and the South did not return. The slavery question—instead of being relegated to the recently organized Territories for final settlement—at once assumed the dimensions of a great national issue. The country at large—instead of a single Territory—became the theatre of excited discussion. The final determination was to be not that of a Territory, but of the entire people.
One significant effect of the passage of the bill was the immediate disruption of the Whig party. As a great national organization —of which Clay and Webster had been eminent leaders, and Harrison and Taylor successful candidates for the Presidency—it now passes into history. Upon its ruins, the Republican party at once came into being. Under the leadership of Fremont as its candidate, and opposition by Congressional intervention to slavery extension as its chief issue, it was a formidable antagonist to the Democratic party, in the Presidential contest of 1856. Mr. Buchanan had defeated Douglas in the nominating convention of his party that year. His absence from the country as Minister to England, during the exciting events just mentioned, it was thought would make him a safer candidate than his chief competitor, Douglas. He had been in no manner identified with the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, or the stormy events which immediately followed its passage. In his letter of acceptance, however, Mr. Buchanan had given his unqualified approval of his party platform, which recognized and adopted "the principle contained in the organic law establishing the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas as embodying the only sound and safe solution of the slavery question." Upon the principle here declared, issue was joined by his political opponents, and the battle fought to the bitter end.
Although Douglas had met personal defeat in his aspiration to the Presidency, the principle of non-intervention by Congress in the affairs of the Territories, for which he had so earnestly contended, had been triumphant both in the convention of the party, and at the polls. This principle, in its application to Kansas, was soon to be put to the test. From its organization, that Territory had been a continuous scene of disorder, often of violence. In rapid succession three Governors appointed by the President had resigned and departed the Territory, each confessing his inability to maintain public order. The struggle for mastery between the Free State advocates and their adversaries arrested the attention of the entire country. It vividly recalled the bloody forays read of in the old chronicles of hostile clans upon the Scottish border.
The parting of the ways between Senator Douglas and President Buchanan was now reached. The latter had received the cordial support of Douglas in the election which elevated him to the Presidency. His determined opposition to the re-election of Douglas became apparent as the Senatorial canvass progressed. The incidents now to be related will explain this hostility, as well as bring to the front one of the distinctive questions upon which much stress was laid in the subsequent debates between Douglas and Lincoln.
A statesman of national reputation, the Hon. Robert J. Walker, was at length appointed Governor of Kansas. During his brief administration a convention assembled without his co-operation at Lecompton, and formulated a Constitution under which application was soon made for the admission of Kansas into the Union. This convention was in part composed of non-residents, and in no sense reflected the wishes of the majority of the bona fide residents of the Territory. The salient feature of the Constitution was that establishing slavery. The Constitution was not submitted to the convention to popular vote, but in due time forwarded to the President, and by him laid before Congress, accompanied by a recommendation for its approval, and the early admission of the new State into the Union.
When the Lecompton Constitution came before the Senate, it at once encountered the formidable opposition of Senator Douglas. In unmeasured terms he denounced it as fraudulent, as antagonistic to the wishes of the people of Kansas, and subversive of the basic principle upon which the Territory had been organized. In the attitude just assumed, Douglas at once found himself in line with the Republicans, and in opposition to the administration he had helped place in power. The breach thus created was destined to remain unhealed. Moreover, his declaration of hostility to the Lecompton Constitution was the beginning of the end of years of close political affiliation with Southern Democratic statesmen. From that moment Douglas lost prestige as a national leader of his party. In more than one-half of the Democratic States he ceased to be regarded as a probable or even possible candidate for the Presidential succession. The hostility thus engendered followed him to the Charleston convention of 1860, and throughout the exciting Presidential contest which followed. But the humiliation of defeat —brought about, as he believed, by personal hostility to himself— was yet in the future. In the attempted admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution, Douglas was triumphant over the administration and his former political associates from the South. Under what was known as the "English Amendment," the obnoxious Constitution was referred to the people of Kansas, and by them overwhelmingly rejected.
The close of this controversy in the early months of 1858 left Douglas in a position of much embarrassment. He had incurred the active hostility of the President, and in large measure of his adherents, without gaining the future aid of his late associates in the defeat of the Lecompton Constitution. His Senatorial term was nearing its close, and his political life depended upon his re-election. With a united and aggressive enemy, ably led, in his front; his own party hopelessly divided—one faction seeking his defeat—it can readily be seen that his political pathway was by no means one of peace. Such, in brief outline, were the political conditions when, upon the adjournment of Congress, Douglas returned to Illinois in July, 1858, and made public announcement of his candidacy for re-election.
In his speech at Springfield, June 17, accepting the nomination of his party for the Senate, Mr. Lincoln had uttered the words which have since become historic. They are quoted at length, as they soon furnished the text for his severe arraignment by Douglas in debate. The words are:
"We are now far into this fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this country cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South."
This, at the time, was a bold utterance, and, it was believed by many, would imperil Mr. Lincoln's chances for election. Mr. Blaine in his "Twenty Years of Congress," says: