Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 / From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860

by James Gillespie Blaine

It would have been impossible to find any man of the same type able to meet him before the people of Illinois. Whoever attempted it would probably have been destroyed in the first encounter. But the man who was chosen to meet him, who challenged him to the combat, was radically different in every phase of character. Scarcely could two men be more unlike, in mental and moral constitutions, than Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas. Mr. Lincoln was calm and philosophic. He loved the truth for the truth's sake. He would not argue from a false premise, or be deceived himself or deceive others by a false conclusion. He had pondered deeply on the issues which aroused him to action. He had given anxious thought to the problems of free government, and to the destiny of the Republic. He had for himself marked out a path of duty, and he walked in it fearlessly. His mental processes were slower but more profound than those of Douglas. He did not seek to say merely the thing which was best for that day's debate, but the thing which would stand the test of time and square itself with eternal justice. He wished nothing to appear white unless it was white. His logic was severe and faultless. He did not resort to fallacy, and could detect it in his opponent, and expose it with merciless directness. He had an abounding sense of humor, and always employed it in illustration of his argument,—never for the mere sake of provoking merriment. In this respect he had the wonderful aptness of Franklin. He often taught a great truth with the felicitous brevity of an AEsop fable. His words did not flow in an impetuous torrent as did those of Douglas, but they were always well chosen, deliberate, and conclusive.

Thus fitted for the contest, these men proceeded to a discussion which at the time was so interesting so as to enchain the attention of the nation,—in its immediate effect so striking as to affect the organization of parties, in its subsequent effect so powerful as to change the fate of millions. Mr. Lincoln had opened his own canvass by a carefully prepared speech in which, after quoting the maxim that a house divided against itself cannot stand, he uttered these weighty words: "I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave, 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 farther 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 till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, north as well as south."

Mr. Lincoln had been warned by intimate friends to whom he had communicated the contents of his speech, in advance of its delivery, that he was treading on dangerous ground, that he would be misrepresented as a disunionist, and that he might fatally damage the Republican party by making its existence synonymous with a destruction of the government. But he was persistent. It was borne into his mind that he was announcing a great truth, and that he would be wronging his own conscience, and to the extent of his influence injuring his country, by withholding it, or in any degree qualifying its declaration. If there was a disposition to avoid the true significance of the contest with the South, he would not be a party to it. He believed he could discern the scope and read the destiny of the impending sectional controversy. He was sure he could see far beyond the present, and hear the voice of the future. He would not close the book; he would not shut his eyes; he would not stop his ears. He avowed his faith, and stood firmly to his creed.

Mr. Douglas naturally, indeed inevitably, made his first and leading speech against these averments of Mr. Lincoln. He had returned to Illinois, after the adjournment of Congress, with a disturbed and restless mind. He had one great ambition,—to re-instate himself as a leader of the national Democracy, and, as incidental and necessary to that end, to carry Illinois against Mr. Lincoln. The issue embodied in Mr. Lincoln's speech afforded him the occasion which he had coveted. His quick eye discerned an opportunity to exclude from the canvass the disagreeable features in his own political career by arraigning Mr. Lincoln as an enemy of the Union and as an advocate of an internecine conflict in which the free States and the slave States should wrestle in deadly encounter. Douglas presented his indictment artfully and with singular force. The two speeches were in all respects characteristic. Each had made a strong presentation of his case, but the superior candor and directness of Mr. Lincoln had made a deep impression on the popular mind.

THE LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS DEBATE.

In the seven public debates which were held as the result of these preliminary speeches, the questions at issue were elaborately and exhaustively treated. The friends of each naturally claimed the victory for their own champion. The speeches were listened to by tens of thousands of eager auditors; but absorbing, indeed unprecedented, as was the interest, the vast throngs behaved with moderation and decorum. The discussion from beginning to end was an amplification of the position which each had taken at the outset. The arguments were held close to the subject, relating solely to the slavery question, and not even incidentally referring to any other political issue. Protection, free trade, internal improvements, the sub-treasury, all the issues, in short, which had divided parties for a long series of years, and on which both speakers entertained very decided views, were omitted from the discussion. The public mind saw but one issue; every thing else was irrelevant. At the first meeting, Douglas addressed a series of questions to Mr. Lincoln, skillfully prepared and well adapted to entrap him in contradictions, or commit him to such extreme doctrine as would ruin his canvass. Mr. Lincoln's answers at the second meeting, held at Freeport, were both frank and adroit. Douglas had failed to gain a point by his resort to the Socratic mode of argument. He had indeed only given Mr. Lincoln an opportunity to exhibit both his candor and his skill. After he had answered, he assumed the offensive, and addressed a series of questions to Mr. Douglas which were constructed with the design of forcing the latter to an unmistakable declaration of his creed. Douglas had been a party to the duplex construction of the Cincinnati platform of 1856, in which the people of the South had been comforted with the doctrine that slavery was protected in the Territories by the Constitution against the authority of Congress and against the power of the Territorial citizens, until the period should be reached, when, under an enabling act to form a constitution for a State government, the majority might decide the question of slavery. Of this doctrine Mr. Breckinridge was the Southern representative, and he had for that very reason been associated with Mr. Buchanan on the Presidential ticket. On the other hand, the North was consoled, it would not be unfair to say cajoled, with the doctrine of popular sovereignty as defined by Mr. Douglas; and this gave to the people of the Territories the absolute right to settle the question of slavery for themselves at any time. The doctrine had, however, been utterly destroyed by the Dred Scott decision, and, to the confusion of all lines of division and distinction, Mr. Douglas had approved the opinion of the Supreme Court.

Douglas had little trouble in making answer in an ad captandum manner to all Mr. Lincoln's questions save one. The crucial test was applied when Mr. Lincoln asked him "if the people of a Territory can, in any lawful way, against the wishes of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from their limits prior to the formation of a State constitution?" In the first debate, when Douglas had the opening, he had, in the popular judgment, rather worsted Mr. Lincoln. His greater familiarity with the arts if not the tricks of the stump had given him an advantage. But now Mr. Lincoln had the opening, and he threw Mr. Douglas upon the defensive by the question which reached the very marrow of the controversy. Mr. Lincoln had measured the force of his question, and saw the dilemma in which it would place Douglas. Before the meeting he said, in private, that "Douglas could not answer that question in such way as to be elected both Senator and President. He might so answer it as to carry Illinois, but, in doing so, he would irretrievably injure his standing with the Southern Democracy." Douglas quickly realized his own embarrassment. He could not, in the face of the Supreme-Court decision, declare that the people of the Territory could exclude slavery by direct enactment. To admit, on the other hand, that slavery was fastened upon the Territories, —past all hope of resistance or protest on the part of a majority of the citizens—would be to concede the victory to Mr. Lincoln without further struggle. Between these impossible roads Douglas sought a third. He answered that, regardless of the decision of the Supreme Court, "the people of a Territory have the lawful means to introduce or exclude slavery as they choose, for the reason that slavery cannot exist unless supported by local police regulations. Those police regulations can only be established by the local legislature; and, if the people are opposed to slavery, they will, by unfriendly legislation, effectually prevent the introduction."

This was a lame, illogical, evasive answer; but it was put forth by Douglas with an air of sincerity and urged in a tone of defiant confidence. It gave to his supporters a plausible answer. But Mr. Lincoln's analysis of the position was thorough, his ridicule of it effective. Douglas's invention for destroying a right under the Constitution by a police regulation was admirably exposed, and his new theory that a thing "may be lawfully driven away from a place where it has a lawful right to go" was keenly reviewed by Mr. Lincoln. The debate of that day was the important one of the series. Mr. Lincoln had secured an advantage in the national relations of the contest which he held to the end. At the same time Douglas had escaped a danger which threatened his destruction in the State canvass, and secured his return to the Senate. As to the respective merits of the contestants, it would be idle to expect an agreement among contemporary partisans. But a careful reading of the discussion a quarter of a century after it was held will convince the impartial that in principle, in candor, in the enduring force of logic, Mr. Lincoln had the advantage. It is due to fairness to add that probably not another man in the country, with the disabilities surrounding his position, could have maintained himself so ably, so fearlessly, so effectively, as Douglas.

BUCHANAN'S OPPOSITION TO DOUGLAS.

Douglas was aided in his canvass by the undisguised opposition of the administration. The hostility of President Buchanan and his Southern supporters was the best possible proof to the people of Illinois that Douglas was representing a doctrine which was not relished by the pro-slavery party. The courage with which he fought the administration gave an air of heroism to his canvass and prestige to his position. It secured to him thousands of votes that would otherwise have gone to Mr. Lincoln. For every vote which the administration was able to withhold from Douglas, it added five to his supporters. The result of the contest was, that, while Douglas was enabled to secure a majority of eight in the Legislature in consequence of an apportionment that was favorable to his side, Mr. Lincoln received a plurality of four thousand in the popular vote. In a certain sense, therefore, each had won a victory, and each had incurred defeat. But the victory of Douglas and the means by which it was won proved to be his destruction in the wider field of his ambition. Mr. Lincoln's victory and defeat combined in the end to promote his political fortunes, and to open to him the illustrious career which followed.