When the document which embodied the labors of the convention was made public, the free-State party awoke from its late complacence to find itself tricked by a desperate game. The constitution was not to be submitted to a full and fair vote; but only the article relating to slavery. The people of Kansas were to vote for the "Constitution with slavery" or for the "Constitution with no slavery." By either alternative the constitution would be adopted. But should the constitution with no slavery be ratified, a clause of the schedule still guaranteed "the right of property in slaves now in this Territory."[[624]] The choice offered to an opponent of slavery in Kansas was between a constitution sanctioning and safeguarding all forms of slave property,[[625]] and a constitution which guaranteed the full possession of slaves then in the Territory, with no assurances as to the status of the natural increase of these slaves. Viewed in the most charitable light, this was a gambler's device for securing the stakes by hook or crook. Still further to guard existing property rights in slaves, it was provided that if the constitution should be amended after 1864, no alteration should be made to affect "the rights of property in the ownership of slaves."[[626]]
The news from Lecompton stirred Douglas profoundly. In a peculiar sense he stood sponsor for justice to bleeding Kansas, not only because he had advocated in abstract terms the perfect freedom of the people to form their domestic institutions in their own way, but because he had become personally responsible for the conduct of the leader of the Lecompton party. John Calhoun, president of the convention, had been appointed surveyor general of the Territory upon his recommendation. Governor Walker had retained Calhoun in that office because of Douglas's assurance that Calhoun would support the policy of submission.[[627]] Moreover, Governor Walker had gone to his post with the assurance that the leaders of the administration would support this course.
Was it likely that the pro-slavery party in Kansas would take this desperate course, without assurance of some sort from Washington? There were persistent rumors that President Buchanan approved the Lecompton constitution,[[628]] but Douglas was loth to give credence to them. The press of Illinois and of the Northwest voiced public sentiment in condemning the work of the Lecomptonites.[[629]] Douglas was soon on his way to Washington, determined to know the President's mind; his own was made up.
The interview between President Buchanan and Douglas, as recounted by the latter, takes on a dramatic aspect.[[630]] Douglas found his worst fears realized. The President was clearly under the influence of an aggressive group of Southern statesmen, who were bent upon making Kansas a slave State under the Lecompton constitution. Laboring under intense feeling, Douglas then threw down the gauntlet: he would oppose the policy of the administration publicly 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."
The Chicago Times, reporting the interview, intimated that there had been a want of agreement, but no lack of courtesy or regard on either side. Douglas was not yet ready to issue an ultimatum. The situation might be remedied. On the night following this memorable encounter, Douglas was serenaded by friends and responded with a brief speech, but he did not allude to the Kansas question.[[631]] It was generally expected that he would show his hand on Monday, the opening day of Congress. The President's message did not reach Congress, however, until Tuesday. Immediately upon its reading, Douglas offered the usual motion to print the message, adding, as he took his seat, that he totally dissented from "that portion of the message which may fairly be construed as approving of the proceedings of the Lecompton convention." At an early date he would state the reasons for his dissent.[[632]]
On the following day, December 9th, Douglas took the irrevocable step. For three hours he held the Senate and the audience in the galleries in rapt attention, while with more than his wonted gravity and earnestness he denounced the Lecompton constitution.[[633]] He began with a conciliatory reference to the President's message. He was happy to find, after a more careful examination, that the President had refrained from making any recommendation as to the course which Congress should pursue with regard to the constitution. And so, he added adroitly, the Kansas question is not to be treated as an administration measure. He shared the disappointment of the President that the constitution had not been submitted fully and freely to the people of Kansas; but the President, he conceived, had made a fundamental error in supposing that the Nebraska Act provided for the disposition of the slavery question apart from other local matters. The direct opposite was true. The main object of the Act was to remove an odious restriction by which the people had been prevented from deciding the slavery question for themselves, like all other local and domestic concerns. If the President was right in thinking that by the terms of the Nebraska bill the slavery question must be submitted to the people, then every other clause of the constitution should be submitted to them. To do less would be to reduce popular sovereignty to a farce.
But Douglas could not maintain this conciliatory attitude. His sense of justice was too deeply outraged. He recalled facts which every well-informed person knew. "I know that men, high in authority and in the confidence of the territorial and National Government, canvassed every part of Kansas during the election of delegates, and each one of them pledged himself to the people that no snap judgment was to be taken. Up to the time of the meeting of the convention, in October last, the pretense was kept up, the profession was openly made, and believed by me, and I thought believed by them, that the convention intended to submit a constitution to the people, and not to attempt to put a government in operation without such submission."[[634]] How was this pledge redeemed? All men, forsooth, must vote for the constitution, whether they like it or not, in order to be permitted to vote for or against slavery! This would be like an election under the First Consul, when, so his enemies averred, Napoleon addressed his troops with the words: "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? I have asked a very large number of the gentlemen who framed the constitution ... and I have received the same answer from every one of them.... They say if they allowed a negative vote the constitution would have been voted down by an overwhelming majority, and hence the fellows shall not be allowed to vote at all."
"Will you force it on them against their will," he demanded, "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 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?" It is no answer, he argued, that the constitution is unobjectionable. "You have no right to force an unexceptionable constitution on a people." The pro-slavery clause was not the offense in the constitution, to his mind. "If Kansas wants a slave-State 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." The whole affair looked to him "like a system of trickery and jugglery to defeat the fair expression of the will of the people."[[635]]
The vehemence of his utterance had now carried Douglas perhaps farther than he had meant to go.[[636]] He paused to plead for a fair policy which would redeem party pledges:
"Ignore Lecompton, ignore Topeka; treat both those party movements as irregular and void; pass a fair bill—the one that we framed ourselves when we were acting as a unit; have a fair election—and you will have peace in the Democratic party, and peace throughout the country, in ninety days. The people want a fair vote. They never will be satisfied without it. They never should be satisfied without a fair vote on their Constitution....
"Frame any other bill that secures a fair, honest vote, to men of all parties, and carries out the pledge that the people shall be left free to decide on their domestic institutions for themselves, and I will go with you with pleasure, and with all the energy I may possess. But if this Constitution is to be forced down our throats, in violation of the fundamental principle of free government, under a mode of submission that is a mockery and insult, I will resist it to the last. I have no fear of any party associations being severed. I should regret any social or political estrangement, even temporarily; but if it must be, if I can not act with you and preserve my faith and my honor, I will stand on the great principle of popular sovereignty, which declares the right of all people to be left perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way. I will follow that principle wherever its logical consequences may take me, and I will endeavor to defend it against assault from any and all quarters. No mortal man shall be responsible for my action but myself. By my action I will compromit no man."[[637]]