While the inhabitants of the Eastern and Western States applied themselves to every development of industrial pursuits, art, and letters, the Southerners lived by agricultural slave-labour, and were entirely devoted to acquiring political power. The contest was unequal, and the result was that, before the Rebellion, the slave-holders—who, with their slaves, only constituted one-third of the population of the United States—had secured two-thirds of all the offices—civil, military, or naval—and had elected two-thirds of the Presidents. Law after law was passed, giving the slave-holders every advantage, until Governor Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, declared in Congress that slavery should pour itself abroad, and have no limit but the Southern Ocean. He also asserted that the best way to meet or answer Abolition arguments was with death. His house was afterwards, during the war, used for a negro school, under care of a New England Abolitionist. Large pecuniary rewards were offered by Governors of slave states for the persons—i.e., the lives—of eminent Northern anti-slavery men. Direct efforts were made to re-establish the slave-trade between Africa and the Southern States.
In 1839 the Abolition party was formed, which advocated the total abolition of slavery. This was going too far for the mass of the North, who hoped to live at peace with the South. But still there were many in both the Whig and Democratic parties who wished to see the advance of the slave power checked; and their delegates, meeting at Buffalo in June, 1848, formed the Free Soil party, opposed to the further extension of slavery, which rapidly grew in power. The struggle became violent. When the territory acquired by war from Mexico was to be admitted to the Union in 1846, David Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, offered a proviso to the Bill accepting the territory, to the effect that slavery should be unknown in it. There was a fierce debate for two years over this proviso, which was finally rejected. The most desperate legislation was adopted to make California a slave state, and when she decided by her own will to be free, the slave-holders opposed her admission to the Union. Finally, in 1850, the celebrated Compromise Measures were adopted. These were to the effect that California should be admitted free—that in New Mexico and Utah the people should decide for themselves as to slavery—and that such of Texas as was above latitude 36° 30´ should be free. To this, however, was tacked a new and more cruel fugitive slave law,[23] apparently to humiliate and annoy the free states, and to keep irritation alive.
But, on the 4th January, 1854, Judge Douglas introduced into the Senate of the United States a Bill known as the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, proposing to set aside the Missouri Compromise. This was passed, after a tremendous struggle, on May 22nd and the slave-party triumphed. Yet it proved their ruin, for it was the first decisive step to the strife which ended in civil war. It eventually destroyed Mr. Douglas, its originator. He is said to have repented the deed; and when it became evident that the Union was aroused, and that the Republican would be the winning party, Douglas went over to it. “He had long before invoked destruction on the ruthless hand which should disturb the compromise, and now he put forth his own ingenious hand to do the deed and to take the curse, in both of which he was eminently successful.” He was defeated by the honester and wiser Lincoln, and died a disappointed man.
To suit the slave-party, it was originally agreed, in 1820, that in future they, though so greatly inferior in number, should have half the territory of the Union. But as they found in time that population increased most rapidly in the free territories, the compromise of 1850 was arranged, by which the inhabitants of the new states were to decide for themselves in the matter. The result was an immediate and terrible turmoil. The legitimate dwellers in Kansas were almost all steady, law-abiding farmers who hated slavery. But, from Missouri and the neighbouring slave states, there was poured in, by means of committees and funds raised in the South, a vast number of “Border ruffians,” or desperadoes, who would remain in Kansas only long enough to vote illegally, or to rob and ravage, and then retire. The North, on the other hand, exasperated by these outrages, sent numbers of emigrants to Kansas to support the legitimate settlers, and the result was a virtual civil war, which was the more irritating because President Buchanan did all in his power to aid the Border ruffians, and crush the legitimate settlers. Day by day it became evident that the Kansas-Nebraska Bill had been passed for the purpose of enabling the South to quit the Union, and ere long this was openly avowed by the slave-holding press and politicians. The entire North was now fiercely irritated. Judge Douglas, returning westwards, tried to speak at Chicago, but was hissed down. At the state fair in Springfield, Illinois, Oct. 4th, 1854, he spoke in defence of the Nebraska Bill, but was replied to by Lincoln “with such power as he had never exhibited before.” He was no longer the orator he had been, “but a newer and greater Lincoln, the like of whom no one in that vast multitude had ever heard.” “The Nebraska Bill,” says W. H. Herndon, “was shivered, and, like a tree of the forest, was torn and rent asunder by hot bolts of truth.” Douglas was crushed, and his brief reply was a spiritless failure. From this time forth, Lincoln’s speeches were as unexceptional in form as they were vigorous and logical. Never was there a man of whom it could be said with so much truth that he always rose to the occasion, however great, however unprecedented its demands on his power might be.
From Springfield Lincoln followed Douglas to Peoria, where he delivered, in debate, another great speech. Not liking slavery in itself, Lincoln was willing to let it alone under the old compromise, but he would never suffer its introduction to new territories, and he made it clear as day that Douglas, by opening the flood-gate of slavery on free soil, had let loose a torrent which, if unchecked, would sweep everything to destruction. He had previously, at Springfield, disclosed the fallacy of Douglas’s “great principle” by a single sentence. “I admit that the emigrant to Kansas is competent to govern himself, but I deny his right to govern any other person without that person’s consent.” Such arguments were overwhelming, and Douglas, the Giant of the West and the foremost politician in America, felt that he had met his master at his own peculiar weapons—oratory and debate. He sent for Lincoln, and proposed that both should refrain from speaking during the campaign, and Lincoln, conscious of superior strength, agreed. Douglas did speak once more, however, but Lincoln remained silent.
At the end of this campaign, Lincoln was elected to the Legislature of Illinois. As the Legislature was about to elect a United States Senator, Lincoln resigned to become a candidate. But at the election—there being three candidates—Lincoln, finding that by resigning he could make it sure that an anti-Nebraska man (Judge Trumbull) could be elected, and that there was some uncertainty as to his own success, resigned, in the noblest manner, in favour of his principles and party. It had been the ambition of his life to become a United States Senator. The result of this sacrifice, says Holland, was that, when the Republican party was soon after regularly organised, Lincoln became their foremost man.
Meanwhile, the strife in Kansas grew more desperate. One Governor after another was appointed to the state, for the express purpose of turning it over to slavery; but the outrageous frauds practised at the election were too much for Mr. Reeder and his successor, Shannon, and even for his follower, Robert J. Walker, a man not over-scrupulous. Walker, like many other Democrats, adroitly turned with the tide, but too late.
During 1855, the old parties were breaking up, and the new Republican one was gathering with great rapidity. Two separate governments or legislatures had formed in Kansas, one manifestly and boldly fraudulent in favour of slavery, and the other settled at Topeka, headed by Governor Reeder, consisting of legitimate settlers. At this time, Aug. 24th, 1855, Lincoln wrote to his friend Speed a letter, in which he discussed slavery with great shrewdness. In answer to the standing Southern argument, that slavery did not concern Northern people, and that it was none of their business, he replied—
“In 1841, you and I had together a tedious low-water trip on a steamboat, from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember as well as I do that, from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio, there were on board ten or a dozen slaves shackled with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me, and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border. It is not fair for you to assume that I have no interest in a thing which has, and continually exercises, the power of making me miserable. You ought rather to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the Constitution and the Union. I do oppose the extension of slavery, because my judgment and feelings so prompt me; and I am under no obligations to the contrary. If for this you and I must differ, differ we must.”
On May 29th, 1856, Lincoln attended a meeting at Bloomington, Illinois, where, with his powerful assistance, the Republican party of the state was organised, and delegates were appointed to the National Republican Convention which was to be held on the 17th of the following month at Philadelphia. The speech which he made on this occasion was of extraordinary power. From this day he was regarded by the Republicans of the West as their leader. Therefore, in the Republican National Convention of 1856, at Philadelphia, the Illinois delegation presented his name for the Vice-Presidency. He received a complimentary vote of 110 votes, the successful candidate, Dayton, having 259. This, however, was his formal introduction to the nation. At this convention, John C. Fremont, a plausible political pretender, was nominated for the Presidency. As a candidate for Presidential elector, Lincoln again took the field. He made a thorough and energetic canvass, and his greatly improved powers of oratory now manifested themselves. Probably no man in the country, says Lamon, discussed the main questions at issue in a manner more original and persuasive. Buchanan, the Democratic candidate, was elected by a small majority. The Republican vote was largely increased by many offensive and inhuman enforcements of the fugitive slave law,[24] for it seemed at this time as if the South had gone mad, and was resolved to do all in its power to irritate the North into war.