Expansion and Conflict

by William Edward Dodd

The outlook was so dark that New England leaders returned regretfully to the proposition of John Quincy Adams of 1843, and recommended Northern nullification and secession. Massachusetts had passed an act in 1855 which inflicted a penalty of five years of imprisonment upon any man who aided in the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law of the United States. The Supreme Court of Wisconsin had declared the same law unconstitutional in 1854; in 1857 the legislature indorsed this view, and in 1859 it claimed the right of immediate secession in case the State was overruled by the Federal Supreme Court, or in case any attempt should be made to enforce the obnoxious act by the General Government. Nearly every other Northern State passed personal liberty laws which were designed to prevent the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act, and their constitutional justification was found in the supremacy of the States and bolstered by the opinion of Judge Story, delivered in 1842,[11] which said that no private citizen need obey an unconstitutional law, state or national, but he takes the risk of having the courts decide it constitutional and of being punished if he acts on his own judgment before the proper court has adjudged the act unconstitutional.

It was not unnatural, then, that Charles Sumner should indorse the abolitionist campaign against the Union, or that Benjamin F. Wade should eulogize the Wisconsin threats to secede. Richard H. Dana, of Boston, said that men who had called him a traitor a few years before now stopped him on the street to talk treason. N. P. Banks, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, said in Maine: “I am not one of the class who cry for the perpetuation of the Union.” The Worcester convention of January 15, 1857, did actually and by big majorities pass resolutions calling for a dissolution of the Federal Government, and its call for a convention of all the free States, looking to the same end, was signed by seven hundred men of all walks of life; many of them were men of eminence. The political abolitionists and the anti-slavery men of pronounced views were on the point of going over to the Garrison party, which had always proclaimed that the Union was a “league with hell,” and so strong was the campaign against the Union that Governor Wise, of Virginia, and others recommended a war upon New England in order to bring the abolitionists to subjection.

But the darkest hour comes just before dawn. When Buchanan recommended in the message of December, 1857, the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton constitution, Senator Douglas, to the bewilderment of thousands, openly denounced the President, and in the most effective speech of his life led a secession of the Northwestern Democrats from the dominant Southern party. He showed that the application of his popular sovereignty doctrine in Kansas would solve the problem of slavery in the Territories, and that the Administration was violating the platform on which it held office in espousing the cause of the pro-slavery men. It was a remarkable situation. In 1854 Douglas had defeated Davis and Pierce in their far-reaching plans for the development of the Southwest; Chase and his allies had defeated Douglas in his counter-scheme for the growth of the Northwest in 1854-55; and now Douglas broke the solidarity of the Democratic party and gave hope and courage to the North, where the idea of secession was fast winning the minds of leading men. If Douglas joined the Republicans, the overthrow of the South was assured; if he became an independent candidate for the Presidency, the Republicans were made certain of an easy victory. It was this that prompted Greeley to indorse Douglas in 1857, and caused Seward to say a good word for his rival and opponent.

Buchanan read Douglas out of the party. Jefferson Davis denounced him as worse than a demagogue. Judges of the Supreme Court expressed their contempt for “the ambitious perpetual candidate.” No settlement of the Kansas question was possible under these circumstances. Douglas returned to Illinois in the summer of 1858 to open his campaign for reëlection to the Senate. He had never been so popular before. Chicagoans who had denounced and spurned him as a traitor to his country in 1854 now gave him the greatest ovation that city had ever given to any one. Big business men, railroad builders, and laboring men hastened to give him assurance of their favor. Even partisan opponents went over to the “new” Douglas. In fact, the people saw that his popular sovereignty idea had been misunderstood. It was already working out Northwestern or Free-State control of the Territories, and the fear of losing the Territories had been the motive for following Chase and Sumner in 1854.

But the Republicans of the Northwest had been planning to make an end of the “Little Giant,” the man who was the most feared of all the public leaders of the time. Abraham Lincoln was to be his successor in the Senate. Norman B. Judd, Joseph Medill, and John Wentworth were the astute advisers of the new party in their section. Seward, Weed, and even John J. Crittenden, the popular successor of Henry Clay in the United States Senate, advised the Illinois Republicans not to oppose Douglas, since Douglas was already doing the Democrats more mischief than any new Republican Senator could hope to do. The Eastern leaders were concerned about the campaign of 1860, and naturally they cultivated the differences of their opponents.

Lincoln was also making plans for 1860, and a defeat of Douglas in his own State would be a political event of the first magnitude. And there was much promise of success. Had they not elected Lyman Trumbull in 1855 in spite of all the “great man” could do? Moreover, the Administration had withdrawn all patronage from Douglas, and postmasters' heads were falling fast in Illinois. Indeed, Buchanan was just then putting up anti-Douglas tickets in many of the counties, in the expectation of electing a legislature hostile to Douglas if not friendly to the Washington authorities. Was there ever a better chance for the new group of leaders? Contrary to Eastern advice they nominated Lincoln as the opponent of Douglas, and that shrewd man and able logician challenged the Senator to a joint debate, and the most important political discussion in our history followed.

Lincoln had declared in a recent speech that “a house divided against itself could not stand,” and the United States he likened to the divided house. Douglas seized upon this to show the country what a radical abolitionist Lincoln was, for was it not a disruption of the Union of which he spoke so cogently, and which the abolitionists were just now urging? Nothing was more unpopular in the Northwest than disunion. All the papers of the country now printed what Lincoln had said, and with Douglas's disparaging comment. The business interests of the East shuddered at the Lincoln parable.

But Lincoln took occasion at Freeport to make Douglas even more unpopular in the South than he already was, by asking him if he did not support the Dred Scott decision; also if he still adhered to the popular sovereignty doctrine as a means of settling the slavery problem in the Territories. Douglas answered in the affirmative to both queries. Whereupon Lincoln showed that if the Dred Scott decision held, Congress must protect slavery in all the Territories and if the popular sovereignty idea prevailed, the squatters of any Territory might by popular vote prohibit slavery in any Territory. Hence, according to Douglas, slavery could be lawfully maintained and lawfully abolished at the same time and place. Douglas recognized his predicament; but he replied that, in spite of the court's decision, the settlers of a new Territory might by “unfriendly” local legislation make slavery impossible. When the papers of the country published this lame reply, Southern men everywhere denounced in unmeasured terms “the demagogue who promised one thing in Congress and another in Illinois.” The Lincoln-Douglas campaign continued all the autumn, and the country became acquainted with the obscure lawyer who had persisted in his purpose to run against Douglas contrary to the counsels of the leaders of his party. However, Douglas was reëlected to the Senate, to the great chagrin of both Lincoln and the President.

After the excitement following the break of Douglas with his party, the Republican newspapers, which had urged Douglas as their candidate for 1860, returned to their partisan attitude. To most people it seemed clear that Seward should be the Republican candidate in the next campaign, and Seward was also convinced that his own nomination was necessary and inevitable. The conservative wing of the party in the East, and especially New England, was devoted to him. As time went on the prize seemed more and more certain, though there were other competitors in the field. Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, Chase, of Ohio, Lincoln, of Illinois, and Edward Bates, of Missouri, were “favorite sons.” For the Democrats the outlook was anything but cheering. The “regulars” could not speak of Douglas but with imprecations. Although Douglas controlled absolutely all the Democratic organizations in eight Northwestern States, if we include Missouri, a most strenuous campaign was waged from Washington against him in the hope of getting control of the general committee of the next convention. John Slidell, of Louisiana, and August Belmont, agent of the Rothschilds, in New York, guided the maneuvers. In December, 1859, when Douglas entered upon his new term with an air of triumph, the Senate majority, led by Jefferson Davis, promptly removed him from the chairmanship of the Committee on Territories, which was the signal for the opening of the fierce political war that preceded the assembling of the Democratic Convention in Charleston.

Meanwhile John Brown, influenced by the political currents then running in favor of the North, led a small band of men into western Virginia. The object was to start a slave insurrection and in the end set free all the negroes of the South. Brown received or was promised $25,000 and was supported by men of the first respectability. On October 16, 1859, Brown seized the United States Arsenal at Harper's Ferry and called upon the slaves to rise against their masters. In the fighting which ensued Colonel Washington, a grand-nephew of General Washington, was wounded; but few took notice of names in that first onset of the Civil War or thought of the common history of the sections. Governor Wise, of Virginia, hastened the militia to the scene, and Captain Robert E. Lee led a small force of United States troops to the relief of the endangered community. Brown failed in his efforts to arouse the negroes, who were not the restless and resentful race they were thought to be. He was soon surrounded and captured. A few people were killed, but the institution of slavery was not touched.