The Great Conspiracy, Volume 1

by John Alexander Logan

The Constitution, with Slavery, was thus adopted by a vote of over 6,000. But in the meanwhile, at another general election held for the purpose, and despite all the frauds perpetrated by the Pro-Slavery men, a Free-State Legislature, and Free-State Delegate to Congress had been elected; and this Legislature submitted the Lecompton Pro-Slavery Constitution to the people, January 4, 1858, so that they could vote: "For the Lecompton Constitution with Slavery," "For the Lecompton Constitution without Slavery," or "Against the Lecompton Constitution." The consequence was that the Lecompton Constitution was defeated by a majority of over 10,000 votes—the Missouri Pro-Slavery colonists declining to recognize the validity of any further election on the subject.

Meanwhile, in part upon the issues growing out of this Kansas conflict, the political parties of the Nation had passed through another Presidential campaign (1856), in which the Democratic candidate Buchanan had been elected over Fremont the "Republican," and Fillmore the "American," candidates. Both Houses of Congress being now Democratic, Mr. Buchanan recommended them to accept and ratify the Lecompton Pro-Slavery Constitution.

In March, 1858, the Senate passed a Bill—against the efforts of Stephen A. Douglas—accepting it. In the House, however, a substitute offered by Mr. Montgomery (Douglas Democrat) known as the Crittenden-Montgomery Compromise, was adopted. The Senate refused to concur, and the report of a Committee of Conference—providing for submitting to the Kansas people a proposition placing limitations upon certain public land advantages stipulated for in the Lecompton Constitution, and in case they rejected the proposition that another Constitutional Convention should be held—was adopted by both Houses; and the proposition being rejected by the people of Kansas, the Pro-Slavery Lecompton Constitution fell with it.

In 1859 a Convention, called by the Territorial Legislature for the purpose, met at Wyandot, and framed a Free State Constitution which was adopted by the people in October of that year, and at the ensuing State election in December the State went Republican. In April, 1860, the House of Representatives passed a Bill admitting Kansas as a State under that Constitution, but the Democratic Senate adjourned without action on the Bill; and it was not until early in 1861 that Kansas was at last admitted.

In the meantime, the Free Trade Tariff of 1846 had produced the train of business and financial disasters that its opponents predicted. Instead of prosperity everywhere in the land, there was misery and ruin. Even the discovery and working of the rich placer mines of California and the consequent flow, in enormous volume, of her golden treasure into the Eastern States, could not stay the wide-spread flood of disaster. President Fillmore, who had succeeded General Taylor on the latter's death, frequently called the attention of Congress to the evils produced by this Free Trade, and to the necessity of protecting our manufactures "from ruinous competition from abroad." So also with his successor, President Buchanan, who, in his Message of 1857, declared that "In the midst of unsurpassed plenty in all the productions and in all the elements of national wealth, we find our manufactures suspended, our public works retarded, our private enterprises of different kinds abandoned, and thousands of useful laborers thrown out of employment and reduced to want." Further than this, the financial credit of the Nation was at zero. It was financially bankrupt before the close of Buchanan's Presidential term.

CHAPTER IV.
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.

But now occurred the great Presidential struggle of 1860—which involved not alone the principles of Protection, but those of human Freedom, and the preservation of the Union itself—between Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, the candidate of the Republican party, as against Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, the National or Douglas—Democratic candidate, John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, the Administration or Breckinridge—Democratic candidate, and John Bell of Tennessee, the candidate of the Bell-Union party. The great preliminary struggle which largely influenced the determination of the Presidential political conflict of 1860, had, however, taken place in the State of Illinois, two years previously. To that preliminary political contest of 1858, therefore, we will now turn our eyes—and, in order to fully understand it, it may be well to glance back over a few years. In 1851 the Legislature of Illinois had adopted—[The vote in the House being 65 yeas to 4 nays.]—the following resolution: "Resolved, That our Liberty and Independence are based upon the right of the people to form for themselves such a government as they may choose; that this great principle, the birthright of freemen, the gift of Heaven, secured to us by the blood of our ancestors, ought to be secured to future generations, and no limitation ought to be applied to this power in the organization of any Territory of the United States, of either Territorial Government or State Constitution, provided the government so established shall be Republican and in conformity with the Constitution of the United States." This resolution was a practical endorsement of the course of Stephen A. Douglas in supporting the Compromise measures of 1850, which he had defended as being "all founded upon the great principle that every people ought to possess the right to form and regulate their own domestic institutions in their own way," and that "the same principle" should be "extended to all of the Territories of the United States."