The Life of Stephen A. Douglas Part 10

Chapter XV. The Debates with Lincoln Continued.

The second debate was held at Freeport on August 27th. Lincoln opened his speech with a series of answers to the questions asked at Ottawa.

"I do not," he said, * * * "stand in favor of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave law. * * *

"I do not * * * stand pledged against the admission of any more slave States into the Union. * * * *

"I do not stand pledged against the admission of a new State. *

* * with such a Const.i.tutions as the people * * * may see fit to make. * * *

"I do not stand pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. * * *

"I'm impliedly, if not expressly, pledged to a belief in the right and duty of Congress to prohibit slavery in all the United States Territories. * * *

"I am not opposed to the honest acquisition of territory. * * * I would or would not oppose such acquisition accordingly as I might think such acquisition would or would not aggravate the slavery question among ourselves."

The questions asked and answered were, whether he was PLEDGED to any of these things. He was willing, however, to state what he really thought of them.

"I do not hesitate to say that * * * under the Const.i.tution of the United States the people of the Southern States are ent.i.tled to a Congressional Fugitive Slave Law. * * * The existing Fugitive Slave Law should have been so framed as to be free from some of the objections that pertain to it without lessening its efficiency. *

* * * In regard to the admission of any more slave States into the Union, I state to you frankly that I would be exceedingly sorry ever to be put in a position of having to pa.s.s upon that question.

I should be exceedingly glad to know that there would never be another slave State admitted into the Union; but I must add that, if slavery be kept out of the Territories during their territorial existence, * * * * and then the people shall * * * adopt a slave Const.i.tution, * * * I see no alternative but to admit them into the Union. * * * I should not be in favor of abolis.h.i.+ng slavery in the District of Columbia, unless upon the condition that abolition should be gradual; that it should be on the vote of a majority of the qualified voters of the District; and that compensation be made to unwilling owners. * * * What I am saying here I suppose I say to a vast audience as strongly tending to Abolitionism as any audience in the State of Illinois, and I believe I am saying that which, if it would be offensive to any persons and render them enemies to myself, would be offensive to persons in this audience."

He then asked Douglas four questions:

1st. "If the people of Kansas shall * * * adopt a State Const.i.tution and ask admission * * * * before they have the requisite number of inhabitants under the English bill, * * * will you vote to admit them?

2nd. "Can the people of a * * * Territory in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen, * * * exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a State Const.i.tution?

3rd. "If the Supreme Court * * * * shall decide that States cannot exclude slavery from their limits, are you in favor of acquiescing in, adopting and following such decision as a rule of political action?

4th. "Are you in favor of acquiring additional territory in disregard of how such action may affect the Nation on the slavery question?

When the Nebraska bill was introduced, he continued, it was declared the intent and meaning of the act not to legislate slavery into any State or Territory or to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people perfectly free to regulate their own domestic inst.i.tutions in their own way. Chase of Ohio introduced an amendment expressly declaring that the people of a Territory should have the power to exclude slavery if they saw fit. Douglas and those who agreed with him, voted it down. A little later the Supreme Court decided that a territorial legislature had no right to exclude slavery.

"For men who did intend that the people of the Territory should have the right to exclude slavery * * * * the voting down of Chase's amendment is wholly inexplicable. It is a puzzle, a riddle. But * * * with men who did look forward to such a decision * * * *

the voting down of that amendment would be perfectly rational and intelligible. It would keep Congress from coming into collision with the decision when it was made. * * * If there was an intention or expectation that such a decision was to follow, it would not be very desirable for the Democratic Supreme Court to decide one way when the party in Congress had decided the other. Hence it would be very rational for men expecting such a decision to keep the niche in that law clear for it. * * * It looks to me as though here was the reason why Chase's amendment was voted down. * * * If it was done for a different reason, * * * he knows what that reason was and can tell us what it was. * * * It will be vastly more satisfactory to the country for him to give some other intelligible, plausible reason why it was voted down than to stand upon his dignity and call people liars."

Ca.s.s, it was said, on behalf of the Democrats in the Senate, proposed to Chase that he so change his amendment as to provide that the people of a Territory should have power either to introduce or exclude slavery, and they would accept it. Chase, having conscientious scruples on the question of slavery, declined to do this and his amendment was voted down. But it was quite possible for them to have accepted Chase's amendment, forbidden by the Senate rule, but an amendment to the amended bill, which was permitted.

Douglas, in his reply, with admirable readiness, addressed himself to Lincoln's four questions. "In reference to Kansas," he said, "it is my opinion that, as she has population enough to const.i.tute a slave State, she has people enough for a free State. * * * The next question is, 'Can the people of a Territory * * * exclude slavery prior to the formation of a State Const.i.tution?' * * * In my opinion they can. * * * It matters not in what way the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to the abstract question whether slavery may or may not go into a Territory under the Const.i.tution, the people have the lawful means to introduce it or exclude it as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist a day or an hour anywhere, unless it is 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 elect representatives to that body who will, by unfriendly legislation, effectually prevent the introduction of it into their midst. If on the contrary they are for it, their legislation will favor its extension. Hence, no matter what the decision of the Supreme Court may be on that abstract question, still the right of the people to make a slave Territory or a free Territory, is perfect and complete under the Nebraska bill."

This bill provided that the legislative power of the Territory should extend to all rightful subjects of legislation. It made no exception as to slavery, but gave full power to introduce or exclude it. What more could Chase's amendment do? Chase offered it for the purpose of having it rejected. He expected it to be capital for small politicians, and he was not mistaken. He was amazed that Lincoln should ask his third question. He had denounced in the Senate an article in the Was.h.i.+ngton Union claiming that any provision in the laws or Const.i.tutions of the free States excluding slavery was in conflict with the Const.i.tution of the United States.

Senator Toombs, on behalf of the South, had utterly repudiated the doctrine. The question cast an imputation upon the Supreme Court.

Such a decision was not possible. It would be an act of moral treason that no man on the bench could ever descend to.

"As to Lincoln's fourth question," he said: "I answer, that whenever it becomes necessary in our growth and progress to acquire more territory, I am in favor of it without reference to the question of slavery; and when we have acquired it I would leave the people free to do as they please, either to make it slave or free territory as they preferred. * * * I tell you, increase, multiply and expand is the law of this Nation's existence. * * * Just as fast as our interests and our destiny require additional territory in the North, in the South or on the islands of the ocean, I am for it; and, when we acquire it, will leave the people * * * free to do as they please on the question of slavery and every other question."

At all the Republican Congressional Conventions held in Illinois in 1854, the resolutions adopted declared that the continued aggressions of slavery were destructive of the best rights of a free people and must be resisted by the united political action of all good men; Kansas and Nebraska must be made free Territories, the Fugitive Slave Law repealed, slavery restricted to the States in which it then existed, no more slave States admitted, slavery excluded from the Territories and no more Territories acquired unless slavery therein were prohibited; and no man must be supported for office unless positively pledged to support these principles.

"Yet Lincoln denies that he stands on this platform and declares that he would not like to be placed in a position where he would have to vote for these things. * * * I do not think there is much danger of his being placed in such a position. * * * I propose, out of mere kindness, to relieve him from any such necessity."

When the legislature elected in 1854 came to choose between Lincoln and Trumbull for Senator, before a ballot was taken, Lovejoy, the Abolitionist introduced resolutions declaring that slavery must be excluded from all the territory then owned or thereafter acquired by the United States; that no more slave States should be admitted and that the Fugitive Slave Law should be unconditionally repealed.

On the following day every man who had voted for these resolutions, with two exceptions, voted for Lincoln. Members so voting were all pledged to vote for no man who was not pledged to support their platform. "Either Lincoln was committed to these propositions, or your members violated their faith. Take either horn of the dilemma you choose. There is no dodging the question; I want Lincoln's answer. He is altogether undecided on these grave questions and does not know what to think or do. If elected Senator he will have to decide. Do not put him in a position that would embarra.s.s him so much. He does not know whether he would vote for the admission of more slave States, yet he has declared his belief that this Union cannot endure with slave States in it. I do not think that the people of Illinois desire a man to represent them who would like to be put to the test on the performance of a high const.i.tutional duty.

"I will retire in shame from the Senate of the United States when I am not willing to be put to the test in the performance of my duty.

I have been put to severe tests. I have stood by my principles in fair weather and foul, in the suns.h.i.+ne and in the rain. I have defended the great principles of self-government here among you when Northern sentiment ran in a torrent against me, and I have defended that same great principle when Southern sentiment came down like an avalanche upon me. I was not afraid of any test they put me to. I knew my principles were right; I knew my principles were sound; I knew that the people would see in the end hat I had done right and I knew that the G.o.d of heaven would smile upon me if I was faithful in the performance of my duty. * * *

At the time the Nebraska bill was introduced, Lincoln says there was a conspiracy between the Judges of the Supreme Court, President Pierce, President Buchanan and myself, that bill and the decision of the court to break down the barriers and establish slavery all over the Union. * * *

"Mr. Buchanan was at that time in England and did not return for a year or more after. That fact proves the charge to be false as against him. * * * The Dred Scott case was not then before the Supreme Court at all; * * * * and the Judges in all probability knew nothing of it. * * * * As to President Pierce, his high character as a man of integrity and honor is enough to vindicate him from such a charge; and as to myself I p.r.o.nounce the charge an infamous lie whenever and wherever made and by whomsoever made."

Lincoln closed the debate. As to the discrepancy between the various Republican resolutions adopted in local conventions in 1854 and the views stated in his opening speech, he said that at the beginning of the Nebraska agitation a new era in American politics began.

"In our opposition to that measure we did not agree with one another in everything. * * * * These meetings which the Judge has alluded to and the resolutions he has read from were local. * * * We at last met together in 1856 from all parts of the State and agreed upon a common platform. * * * We agreed then upon a platform for the party throughout the entire State and now we are all bound to that platform. * * * If any one expects that I will do anything not signified by our Republican platform and my answers here to-day, I will tell you very frankly that person will be deceived. I do not ask for the vote of anyone who supposes that I have secret purposes or pledges that I dare not speak out. * * * Douglas says if I should vote for the admission of a slave State I would be voting for the dissolution of the Union, because I hold that the Union cannot permanently exist half slave and half free. * * * It does not at all follow that the admission of a single slave State will permanently fix the character and establish this as a universal slave Nation."

In March, 1856, Douglas, speaking in the Senate upon an article published, apparently by authority, in the Was.h.i.+ngton Union, the organ of the Administration, charged a conspiracy between the President, his cabinet and the Lecompton Convention to establish the proposition that all State laws and Const.i.tutions, which prohibited the citizens of one State from settling in another with their slave property, were violations of the Const.i.tution of the United States. He declared that a fatal blow was being struck at the sovereignty of the States. Charges of conspiracy were not entirely unheard of when the one was made at Springfield so sharply condemned by Douglas.

"But his eye is farther South now than it was last March. His hope then rested on the idea of visiting the great black Republican party and making it the tail of his new kite. He was then expected from day to day to turn Republican and place himself at the head of our organization. He has found that these despised black Republicans estimate him, by a standard which he has taught them, none to well. Hence he is crawling back into the old camp and you will find him eventually installed in full fellows.h.i.+p among those whom he was then battling and with whom he still pretends to be at such fearful variance."

There is an interesting and well authenticated tradition, perhaps too strongly established to be questioned, that Lincoln's second interrogatory was designed as a snare for Douglas and that he was forced by it to proclaim his unfortunate doctrine of unfriendly legislation, which gave such deep offense to the South. It is related on the highest authority that on the night before the Freeport debate, "Lincoln was catching a few hours' rest at a railroad center named Mendota, to which place the converging trains brought, after midnight, a number of excited Republican leaders on their way to attend the great meeting at the neighboring town of Freeport. *

* * * Lincoln's bedroom was invaded by an improvised caucus, and the ominous question was once more brought under consideration.

The whole drift of advice ran against putting the interrogatory (number two) to Douglas, but Lincoln persisted in his determination to force him to answer it. Finally his friends in a chorus cried: 'If you do, you can never be Senator.'

"'Gentlemen,' replied Lincoln, 'I am killing larger game. If Douglas answers, he can never be President, and the battle of 1860 is worth a hundred of this.'"

Whatever may be the truth as to the Mendota conference, it is unjust to Douglas to say that he was surprised by the question, or that his answer was a mere extemporized feat of ingenuity to meet an embarra.s.sing exigency. Long before this and on many occasions he had announced his opinion that the people of a Territory could by unfriendly legislation, in defiance of the Const.i.tution, the Supreme Court and Congress, effectually prevent slavery among themselves.

It was one of his most deliberately formed, openly avowed and widely known opinions. It is incredible that Lincoln and his advisors were in doubt how he would answer the question. Whatever may be our view of the soundness of his doctrine, it is not just to the ablest debater and foremost statesman of the time to say that he was taken by surprise and driven into a corner by a question which, as he was taken by surprise and driven into a corner by a question which, as he said then, he had answered a hundred times from every stump in Illinois.

The third debate was held at Jonesboro, near the southern boundary of the State, on September 15th.

Douglas, in his opening speech, stated anew his now familiar argument that the Republican party was sectional, threatening to disrupt the Union by its slavery agitation, while the Democratic party was national, with a wholesome creed, alike applicable in all lat.i.tudes. Lincoln and Trumbull had conspired to abolitinize the old parties and secure seats in the Senate. Lincoln's doctrine of the house divided against itself was examined and the implied threat emphasized that Southern inst.i.tutions must be overthrown and a dead level of uniformity reached in order that the Government should stand. The finality of the Dred Scott decision and the exclusion of negroes from the Declaration of Independence were insisted on. Much of the speech was devoted to the local and transient questions of Illinois politics.

Lincoln, replying to the charge that the slavery agitation was the result of the aggressive att.i.tude of Northern Abolitionists, again insisted that the propagandists of slavery were the aggressors, having attempted to change it from a local and declining inst.i.tution and spread it through all the Territories, removing it "from the basis on which the fathers left it to the basis of its perpetuation and nationalization." The agitation began with the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.

"Who," he asked, "did that? Why, when we had peace under the Missouri Compromise, could you not have left it alone?"

He quoted Douglas' speech in the Senate on June 9th, 1856, in which he had declared that "whether the people could exclude slavery prior to the formation of a Const.i.tution or not, was a question to be decided by the Supreme Court. * * * * When he says, after the Supreme Court has decided the question, that the people may yet exclude slavery by any means whatever, he does virtually say that it is not a question for the Supreme Court. * * * the proposition that slavery cannot enter a new country without police regulations is historically false. * * * Slavery was originally planted upon this continent without these police regulations. * * * How came the Dred Scott decision to be made? It was made upon the case of a negro being taken and actually held in slavery in Minnesota Territory, claiming his freedom because the act of Congress prohibited his being so held there. Will the Judge pretend that Dred Scott was not held there without police regulations? * * * * This shows that there is vigor enough in slavery to plant itself in a new country, even against unfriendly legislation. It takes not only law, but the enforcement of the law, to keep it out. This is the history of this country upon the subject. * * * The first thing a Senator does is swear to support the Const.i.tution of the United States. Suppose a Senator believes, as Douglas does, that the Const.i.tution guarantees the right to hold slaves in a Territory.

How can he clear his oath unless he supports such legislation as is necessary to enable the people to enjoy their property? Can you, if you swear to support the Const.i.tution, and believe that the Const.i.tution establishes a right, clear your oath without giving it support? * * * * There can be nothing in the words, 'support the Const.i.tution,' if you may run counter to it by refusing to support it. * * * * And what I say here will hod with still more force against the Judge's doctrine of unfriendly legislation. * *

* Is not Congress itself bound to give legislative support to any right that is established in the United States Const.i.tution? A Member of Congress swears to support the Const.i.tution * * * and if he sees a right established by that Const.i.tution which needs specific legislative protection, can he clear his oath without giving that protection. * * * If I acknowledge * * * that this (Dred Scott) decision properly construes the Const.i.tution, I cannot conceive that I would be less than a perjured man if I should refuse in Congress to give such protection to that property as in its nature is needed."

He then stated his fifth interrogatory: If slave-holding citizens of the United States Territory should need and demand congressional legislation for the protection of their slave property in such Territory, would you as a Member of Congress, vote for or against such legislation?

Douglas in his reply took up Lincoln's rather evasive answer to his second interrogatory submitted at Ottawa. "Lincoln," he said, "would be exceedingly sorry to be put in a position where he would have to vote on the question of the admission of slave States. Why is he a candidate for the Senate if he would be sorry to be put in that position? * * * * If Congress keeps out slavery by law while it is a Territory and then the people should have a fair chance and should adopt slavery, he supposes he would have to admit the State. Suppose Congress should not keep slavery out during their territorial existence, then how would he vote when the people applied for admission with a slave Const.i.tution? That he does not answer; and that is the condition of every Territory we have now got. His answer only applies to a given case which he knows does not exist in any Territory. But Mr. Lincoln does not want to be held responsible for the black Republican doctrine of no more slave States. Why are men running for Congress in the northern Distracts and taking that Abolition platform for their guide when Mr. Lincoln does not want to be held to it down here in Egypt? His party in the northern part of the State hold to that Abolition platform, and if they do not in the south, they present the extra-ordinary spectacle of 'a house divided against itself' and hence 'cannot stand.'"