SENATOR BRODERICK'S DEATH.
Senator Broderick of California imparted largely of his own courage and enthusiasm to Douglas at the critical juncture, and perhaps saved him from a surrender of his proud position. Throughout the entire contest Broderick showed remarkable vigor and determination. Considering the defects of his intellectual training in early life, he displayed unusual power as a political leader and public speaker. He was a native of Washington, born of Irish parents, and was brought up to the trade of a stone-mason. He went to California among the pioneers of 1849, and soon after took part in the fierce political contests of the Pacific coast. Though a Democrat, he instinctively took the Northern side against the arrogant domination of the Southern wing of the party, led by William H. Gwin. Broderick was elected to the United States Senate as Gwin's colleague in 1856, and at once joined Douglas in opposition to the Lecompton policy of the administration. His position aroused fierce hostility on the part of the Democratic leaders of California. The contest grew so bitter in the autumn of 1859, when Broderick was canvassing his State, as to lead to a duel with Judge Terry, a prominent Democrat of Southern birth. Broderick was killed at the first fire. The excitement was greater in the country than ever attended a duel, except when Hamilton fell at the hands of Burr in 1804. The Graves and Cilley duel of 1838, with its fatal ending, affected the whole nation, but not so profoundly as did the death of Broderick. The oration of Senator Baker, delivered in San Francisco at the funeral, so stirred the people that violence was feared. The bloody tragedy influenced political parties, and contributed in no small degree to Lincoln's triumph in California the ensuing year.
In the peculiar position in which Douglas was placed, still maintaining his membership of the Democratic party while opposing the administration on the Lecompton question, he naturally resorted to arguments which were not always of a character to enlist the approval of men conscientiously opposed to slavery. The effect of the arguments, however, was invaluable to those who were resisting the imposition of slavery upon Kansas against the wish of a majority of her people, and Republicans could be content with the end without justifying the means. Douglas frankly avowed that he did not care whether slavery was voted up or voted down, but he demanded that an honest, untrammeled ballot should be secured to the citizens of the Territory. Without the aid of Douglas, the "Crime against Kansas," so eloquently depicted by Mr. Sumner, would have been complete. With his aid, it was prevented.
The Lecompton Bill passed the Senate by a vote of 33 to 25. Besides Broderick, Douglas carried with him only two Democratic senators, —Stuart of Michigan, and Pugh of Ohio. The two remaining members of the old Whig party from the South, who had been wandering as political orphans since the disastrous defeat of 1852,—Bell of Tennessee, and Crittenden of Kentucky,—honored themselves and the ancient Whig traditions by voting against the bill. In view of the events of the preceding four years, it was a significant spectacle in the Senate when Douglas voted steadily with Seward and Sumner and Fessenden and Wade against the political associations of a lifetime. It meant, to the far-seeing, more than a temporary estrangement, and it foretold results in the political field more important than any which had been developed since the foundation of the Republican party.
The resistance to the Lecompton Bill in the House was unconquerable. The Administration could not, with all its power and patronage, enforce its passage. Anxious to avert the mortification of an absolute and unqualified defeat, the supporters of the scheme changed their ground, and offered a new measure, moved by Mr. William H. English of Indiana, submitting the entire constitution to a vote of the people. If adopted, the constitution carried with it a generous land grant to the new State. If rejected, the alternative was not only the withdrawal of the land grant, but indefinite postponement of the whole question of admission. It was simply a bribe, cunningly and unscrupulously contrived, to induce the people of Kansas to accept a pro-slavery constitution. It was not so outrageous as it would have been to force the constitution upon the people without allowing them to vote upon it at all, and it gave a shadow of excuse to certain Democrats, who did not wish to separate from their party, for returning to the ranks. The bill was at last forced through the House by 112 votes to 103. Twelve Democrats, to their honor be it said, refused to yield. Douglas held all his political associates from Illinois, while the President failed to consolidate the Democrats from Pennsylvania. John Hickman and Henry Chapman honorably and tenaciously held their ground to the last against every phase of the outrage. In New York, John B. Haskin and Horace F. Clarke refused to yield, though great efforts were made to induce them to support the administration. The Senate promptly concurred in the English proposition.
LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION REJECTED.
But Kansas would not sell her birthright for a mess of pottage. She had fought too long for freedom to be bribed to the support of slavery. She had at last a free vote, and rejected the Lecompton Constitution, land grant and all, by a majority of more than ten thousand. The struggle was over. The pro-slavery men were defeated. The North was victorious. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise had not brought profit or honor to those who planned it. It had only produced strife, anger, heart-burning, hatred. It had added many drops to the cup of bitterness between North and South, and had filled it to overflowing. It produced evil only, and that continually. The repeal, in the judgment of the North, was a great conspiracy against human freedom. In the Southern States it was viewed as an honest effort to recover rights of which they had been unjustly deprived. Each section held with firmness to its own belief, and the four years of agitation had separated them so widely that a return to fraternal feeling seemed impossible. Confidence, the plant of slowest growth, had been destroyed. Who could restore it to life and strength?
Douglas had, in large degree, redeemed himself in the North from the obloquy to which he had been subjected since the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The victory for free Kansas was perhaps to an undue extent ascribed to him. The completeness of that victory was everywhere recognized, and the lawless intruders who had worked so hard to inflict slavery on the new Territory gradually withdrew. In the South, Douglas was covered with maledictions. But for his influence, Southern men felt that Kansas would have been admitted with a pro-slavery constitution, and the senatorial equality of the South firmly re-established. Northern Republicans, outside of Illinois, were in a forgiving frame of mind toward Douglas; and he had undoubtedly regained a very large share of his old popularity. But Illinois Republicans were less amiable towards him. They would not forget that he had broken down an anti-slavery barrier which had been reared with toil and sanctified by time. He had not, as they alleged, turned back from any test exacted by the South, until he had reached the point where another step forward involved political death to himself. They would not credit his hostility to the Lecompton Constitution to any nobler motive than the instinct of self-preservation. This was a harsh judgment, and yet a most natural one. It inspired the Republicans of Illinois, and they prepared to contest the return of Douglas to the Senate by formally nominating Abraham Lincoln as an opposing candidate.
The contest that ensued was memorable. Douglas had an herculean task before him. The Republican party was young, strong, united, conscious of its power, popular, growing. The Democratic party was rent with faction, and the Administration was irrevocably opposed to the return of Douglas to the Senate. He entered the field, therefore, with a powerful opponent in front, and with defection and betrayal in the rear. He was everywhere known as a debater of singular skill. His mind was fertile in resources. He was master of logic. No man perceived more quickly than he the strength or the weakness of an argument, and no one excelled him in the use of sophistry and fallacy. Where he could not elucidate a point to his own advantage, he would fatally becloud it for his opponent. In that peculiar style of debate, which, in its intensity, resembles a physical contest, he had no equal. He spoke with extraordinary readiness. There was no halting in his phrase. He used good English, terse, vigorous, pointed. He disregarded the adornments of rhetoric,—rarely used a simile. He was utterly destitute of humor, and had slight appreciation of wit. He never cited historical precedents except from the domain of American politics. Inside that field his knowledge was comprehensive, minute, critical. Beyond it his learning was limited. He was not a reader. His recreations were not in literature. In the whole range of his voluminous speaking it would be difficult to find either a line of poetry or a classical allusion. But he was by nature an orator; and by long practice a debater. He could lead a crowd almost irresistibly to his own conclusions. He could, if he wished, incite a mob to desperate deeds. He was, in short, an able, audacious, almost unconquerable opponent in public discussion.