Part 86

"The slavery agitation apparently had died away both in congress and throughout the country. This calm, however, was doomed to a sudden interruption. The prospect of … beneficent legislation was destroyed by the introduction of a measure which at once supplanted all other subjects in congress and in the political interests of the people. This was the novel and astounding proposal of Mr. Douglas [Senator Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois], in relation to the Kansas and Nebraska territories. … The measure … alluded to … was a provision in the bill for the organization of a territory in Nebraska, declaring that the states which might at any future time be formed in the new territory should leave the question of slavery to be decided by the inhabitants thereof on the adoption of their constitution,—[this being in accordance with the doctrine which its advocates styled 'Popular Sovereignty,' but which took the commoner name of 'Squatter Sovereignty' from its opponents]. This provision was, as explained by the bill itself, the application of the compromise policy of 1850 to Nebraska, and, as was evident, virtually repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which guarantied that slavery should be forever excluded from the territory in question. But, in order to bring the supporters of the bill and its opponents to a more decided test, an amendment was moved expressly annulling that portion of the Missouri Compromise which related to the subject. Mr. Douglas, after some deliberation, accepted the amendment, and modified his plan so far as to introduce a new bill for the organization of Nebraska and Kansas within the same limits, instead of the territory of Nebraska alone, according to the original programme. The administration lost no time in adopting this policy as their own. It was at first proposed to hasten the passage of the bill through both houses so rapidly as to prevent any remonstrance on the part of the people. But the opponents of the measure, including Mr. Seward, Mr. Chase, Mr. Sumner, Mr. Truman Smith, Mr. Wade, Mr. Everett, Mr. Bell, Mr. Houston, and Mr. Fessenden, combined against it such an earnest and effective resistance that the attention of the country was aroused, and an indignant protest called forth from the people of the free states. The bill, however, passed the senate on the 4th day of March, 1854, after a discussion which had occupied nearly every day of the session since the 23d of January. … {3394} On the 21st of March, Mr. Richardson of Illinois, in the house, moved to refer the bill, as it came from the senate, to the committee on territories, of which he was the chairman. Mr. Francis B. Cutting, of New York, moved that it be sent to the committee of the whole, where it could be freely discussed. His motion was carried, after a severe struggle, by a vote of 110 to 95. This was regarded as a triumph of the enemies of the bill and inspired hopes of its ultimate defeat in the house. On the 22d of May, after a most exciting contest, lasting nearly two months, in committee of the whole, Mr. Alex. H. Stephens of Georgia, by an extraordinary stratagem in parliamentary tactics, succeeded in closing the debate and bringing the bill to a vote in the house, where it finally passed, before adjournment, by a vote of 113 to 100." Returned to the senate, on account of amendments which had been made to it, it passed that body again "by vote of 35 to 13; and amid the firing of cannon and the shouting of its friends, it was sent to the president for his signature, at three o'clock in the morning of May 26, 1854. President Pierce promptly gave it his approval, and the odious measure became the law of the land. Thus was abrogated the Missouri Compromise—a law enacted thirty years before with all the solemnity of a compact between the free and the slave states—and a territory as large as the thirteen original states opened to slavery. The act was consummated by the cooperation of the north. Originating with a senator from a free state, it was passed by a congress containing in each branch a majority of members from the free states, and was sanctioned by the approval of a free state president. The friends of this legislation attempted to defend it on the pretence that it was not an original act, but only declaratory of the true intent and significance of the compromise measures of 1850."

_G. E. Baker, Memoir of William H. Seward (volume 4 of Seward's Works), pages 24-27._

Senator Douglas' explanation of the reasons on which he grounded his Kansas-Nebraska Bill is given in a report made by Lieutenant-Colonel Cutts, of conversations held by him with the Senator in 1859, and taken down in writing at the time, in the exact language of Mr. Douglas. "There was," said Senator Douglas, "a necessity for the organization of the Territory, which could no longer be denied or resisted. … Mr. Douglas, as early as the session of 1843, had introduced a bill to organize the Territory of Nebraska, for the purpose of opening the line of communication between the Mississippi Valley and our possessions on the Pacific Ocean, known as the Oregon country, and which was then under the operation of the treaty of joint occupation, or rather non occupation, with England, and was rapidly passing into the exclusive possession of the British Hudson's Bay Fur Company, who were establishing posts at every prominent and commanding point in the country. … Mr. Douglas renewed the introduction of his bill for the organization of Nebraska Territory, each session of Congress, from 1844 to 1854, a period of ten years, and while he had failed to secure the passage of the act, in consequence of the Mexican war intervening, and the slavery agitation which ensued, no one had objected to it upon the ground that there was no necessity for the organization of the Territory. During the discussions upon our Territorial questions during this period, Mr. Douglas often called attention to the fact that a line of policy had been adopted many years ago, and was being executed each year, which was entirely incompatible with the growth and development of our country. It had originated as early as the administration of Mr. Monroe, and had been continued by Mr. Adams, General Jackson, Mr. Van Buren, Harrison, and by Tyler, by which treaties had been made with the Indians to the east of the Mississippi River, for their removal to the country bordering upon the States west of the Mississippi or Missouri Rivers, with guaranties in said treaties that the country within which these Indians were located should never be embraced within any Territory or State, or subjected to the jurisdiction of either, so long as grass should grow and water should run. These Indian settlements, thus secured by treaty, commenced upon the northern borders of Texas, or Red River, and were continued from year to year westward, until when, in 1844, Mr. Douglas introduced his first Nebraska Bill, they had reached the Nebraska or Platte River, and the Secretary of War was then engaged in the very act of removing Indians from Iowa, and settling them in the valley of the Platte River, with similar guaranties of perpetuity, by which the road to Oregon was forever to be closed. It was the avowed object of this Indian policy to form an Indian barrier on the western borders of Arkansas, Missouri, and Iowa, by Indian settlements, secured in perpetuity by a compact that the white settlements should never extend westward of that line. This policy originated in the jealousy, on the part of the Atlantic States, of the growth and expansion of the Mississippi Valley, which threatened in a few years to become the controlling power of the nation. … This restrictive system received its first cheek in 1844, by the introduction of the Nebraska Bill, which was served on the Secretary of War, by its author, on the day of its introduction, with a notice that Congress was about to organize the Territory, and therefore he must not locate any more Indians there. In consequence of this notice, the Secretary (by courtesy) suspended his operations until Congress should have an opportunity of acting upon the bill; and inasmuch as Congress failed to act that session, Mr. Douglas renewed his bill and notice to the Secretary each year, and thus prevented action for ten years, and until he could procure action on the bill. … When Congress assembled at the session of 1853-1854, in view of this state of facts, Mr. Douglas renewed his Nebraska Act, which was modified, pending discussion, by dividing into two Territories, and became the Kansas-Nebraska Act. … The jealousies of the two great sections of the Union, North and South, had been fiercely excited by the slavery agitation. The Southern States would never consent to the opening of those Territories to settlement, so long as they were excluded by act of Congress from moving there and holding their slaves; and they had the power to prevent the opening of the country forever, inasmuch as it had been forever excluded by treaties with the Indians, which could not be changed or repealed except by a two-third vote in the Senate. {3395} But the South were willing to consent to remove the Indian restrictions, provided the North would at the same time remove the Missouri restriction, and thus throw the country open to settlement on equal terms by the people of the North and South, and leave the settlers at liberty to introduce or exclude slavery as they should think proper." The same report gives a distinction which Senator Douglas drew between "Popular Sovereignty" and "Squatter Sovereignty," as follows: "The name of Squatter Sovereignty was first applied by Mr. Calhoun, in a debate in the United States Senate in 1848, between himself and General Cass, in respect to the right of the people of California to institute a government for themselves after the Mexican jurisdiction had been withdrawn from them, and before the laws of the United States had been extended over them. General Cass contended that in such a case the people had a right, an inherent and inalienable right, to institute a government for themselves and for their own protection. Mr. Calhoun replied that, with the exception of the native Californians, the inhabitants of that country were mere squatters upon the public domain, who had gone there in vast crowds, without the authority of law, and were in fact trespassers as well as squatters upon the public lands, and to recognize their right to set up a government for themselves was to assert the doctrine of 'Squatter Sovereignty.' The term had no application to an organized Territory under the authority of Congress, or to the powers of such organized Territory, but was applied solely to an unorganized country whose existence was not recognized by law. On the other hand, what is called 'Popular Sovereignty' in the Territories, is a phrase used to designate the right of the people of an organized Territory, under the Constitution and laws of the United States, to govern themselves in respect to their own internal polity and domestic affairs."

_S. A. Douglas, Brief Treatise upon Constitutional and Party Questions (reported by J. M. Cutts), pages 86-92, and 123-124._

"The repeal of the Missouri Compromise was the beginning of the end, the fatal step of the South on its road to destruction. Throughout the North the conviction grew that Union and slavery could not exist much longer together. On the 4th of July, 1854, Garrison publicly burned a copy of the Constitution of the United States with the words, 'The Union must be dissolved!' He represented only an extreme sentiment. But the people at large began to calculate the value of this Union for which so many sacrifices had been made. Slavery became odious to many persons hitherto indifferent to the subject, on the ground that it persistently and selfishly placed the Union in peril."

_B. Tuckerman, William Jay and the Constitutional Movement for the Abolition of Slavery, chapter 7._

ALSO IN: _M. Van Buren, Inquiry into the Origin and Course of Political Parties, chapter 8._

_G. T. Curtis, Life of James Buchanan, chapter 9._

_S. A. Douglas, Popular Sovereignty in the Territories (Harper's Magazine, September, 1859)._

_H. von Holst. Constitutional and Political History of the United States, volume 4, chapters 6-8._

_H. Greeley, History of the Struggle for Slavery Extension, chapter 14._

_J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States from 1850, chapter 5._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1854. The Ostend Manifesto.

See CUBA: A. D. 1845-1860.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1854-1855. Solidification of Anti-slavery sentiment in the North. The birth of the new Republican Party.

"The determined purpose of the Slave Power to make slavery the predominating national interest was never more clearly revealed than by the proposed repeal of the Missouri compromise. This was a deliberate and direct assault upon freedom. Many, indeed, under the pleas of fraternity and loyalty to the Union, palliated and apologized for this breach of faith; but the numbers were increasing every hour, as the struggle progressed, who could no longer be deceived by these hollow pretences. … Pulpits and presses which had been dumb, or had spoken evasively and with slight fealty to truth, gave forth no uncertain sound. … To the utterances of the sacred desk were added the action of ecclesiastical bodies, contributions to the press, and petitions to State legislatures and to Congress. … These discussions from pulpit, platform, and press, all pointed to political action as the only adequate remedy. In the Northern States there were Abolitionists, Free-Soilers, anti-slavery Whigs, anti-Nebraska Democrats, and anti-slavery members of the American party, which had just come into existence. … As the conflict progressed, large and increasing numbers saw that no help could be reasonably hoped but through the formation of a new party that could act without the embarrassment of a Southern wing. But the formation of a national and successful party from materials afforded by the disintegration of hitherto hostile organizations was a work of great delicacy and difficulty. Such a party could not be made;—it must grow out of the elements already existing. It must be born of the nation's necessities and of its longings for relief from the weakness, or wickedness, of existing organizations. The mode of organizing this new party of freedom varied according to the varying circumstances of different localities and the convictions of different men. … One of the earliest, if not the earliest, of the movements that contemplated definite action and the formation of a new party, was made in Ripon, Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, in the early months of 1854." A public meeting, held in one of the churches of the town, was followed by a second meeting, on the 20th of March, at which definite proceedings were taken. "By formal vote the town committees of the Whig and Free Soil parties were dissolved, and a committee of five, consisting of three Whigs, one Free-Soiler, and one Democrat, was chosen. 'The work done on that evening,' says Mr. Bovey [one of its originators], 'was fully accepted by the Whig and Free Soil parties of all this section immediately; and very soon—that is to say, in a few months—by those parties throughout the entire State.' A State convention was held in July, by which the organization of the party was perfected for the State, a majority of the delegation was secured for the next Congress, and a Free-Soiler, Charles Durkee, was elected to the Senate of the United States. At the meeting of the 20th of March, Mr. Bovey, though stating his belief that the party should and probably would take the name of 'Republican,' advised against such a christening at that time and by that small local body of men. He, however, wrote to the editor of the New York 'Tribune,' suggesting the name. … But that 'little eddy' on that far-off margin was only one of many similar demonstrations,—signs of a turn of the tide in the great sea of American politics. {3396} In Washington, on the morning after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, there was a meeting of some thirty members of the House at the rooms of Thomas D. Eliot and Edward Dickinson, of Massachusetts, called at the instance of Israel Washburn, Jr., of Maine, for consultation in regard to the course to be adopted in the exigencies of the case. The hopelessness of any further attempts through existing organizations was generally admitted; though a few still counselled adherence to the Whig party, in the expectation of securing its aid for freedom. But most present had become convinced that in a new party alone lay any reasonable hope of successful resistance to the continued aggressions of the arrogant and triumphant Slave Power. The name 'Republican' was suggested, discussed, and finally agreed upon as appropriate for the new organization. … But, whatever suggestions others may have made, or whatever action may have been taken elsewhere, to Michigan belongs the honor of being the first State to form and christen the Republican Party." A mass convention of Whigs and Free Soilers in that State was held on the 6th of July, at which the name was formally adopted, along with a "platform" of principles opposing the extension of slavery and demanding its abolition in the District of Columbia. "Though the Republican Party was not immediately organized in all the free States, its spirit inspired and its ideas largely pervaded the North. Within one year eleven Republican Senators were elected and fifteen States had secured anti-Nebraska majorities. Out of 142 Northern members of the House, 120 were opposed to the iniquitous measure. They were in sufficient numbers not only to control the election of Speaker, but they were able, by a majority of 15, to declare that 'in the opinion of this House, the repeal of the Missouri compromise of 1820, prohibiting slavery north of 36° 30', was an example of useless and factious agitation of the slavery question, unwise and unjust to the American people.' Several States which had failed to organize a Republican Party in 1854 did so in 1855."

_H. Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, volume 2, chapter 31._

"The refusal of the Whigs in many States to surrender their name and organization, and more especially the abrupt appearance of the Know-Nothings on the field of parties, retarded the general coalition between the Whigs and the Free-soilers which so many influences favored. As it turned out, a great variety of party names were retained or adopted in the Congressional and State campaigns of 1854, the designation of 'anti-Nebraska' being perhaps the most common, and certainly for the moment the most serviceable, since denunciation of the Nebraska bill was the one all-pervading bond of sympathy and agreement among men who differed very widely on almost all other political topics. This affiliation, however, was confined exclusively to the free States. In the slave States, the opposition to the Administration dared not raise the anti-Nebraska banner, nor could it have found followers; and it was not only inclined but forced to make its battle either under the old name of Whigs, or as became more popular, under the new appellation of 'Americans,' which grew into a more dignified synonym for Know-Nothings. … While the measure was yet under discussion in the House in March, New Hampshire led off by an election completely obliterating the eighty-nine Democratic majority in her Legislature. Connecticut followed in her footsteps early in April. Long before November it was evident that the political revolution among the people of the North was thorough, and that election day was anxiously awaited merely to record the popular verdict already decided. The influence of this result upon parties, old and new, is perhaps best illustrated in the organization of the Thirty-fourth Congress, chosen at these elections during the year 1854, which witnessed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Each Congress, in ordinary course, meets for the first time about one year after its members are elected by the people, and the influence of politics during the interim needs always to be taken into account. In this particular instance this effect had, if anything, been slightly reactionary, and the great contest for the Speakership during the winter of 1855-1856 may therefore be taken as a fair manifestation of the spirit of politics in 1854. The strength of the preceding House of Representatives, which met in December, 1853, had been: Whigs, 71; Free-soilers, 4; Democrats, 159—a clear Democratic majority of 84. In the new Congress there were in the House, as nearly as the classification could be made, about 108 anti-Nebraska members, nearly 40 Know-Nothings, and about 75 Democrats; the remaining members were undecided. The proud Democratic majority of the Pierce election was annihilated."

_J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay, Abraham Lincoln, volume 1, chapter 20._

ALSO IN: _J. D. Long, editor, The Republican Party: its History, etc._

_A. Holmes, Parties and their Principles, pages 274-278._

_J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States from 1850, chapter 7 (volume 2)._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1854-1856. The beginning of the struggle for Kansas. Free-state settlers against Missouri "Border-ruffians."

See KANSAS: A. D. 1854-1859.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1854-1866. The Canadian Reciprocity Treaty and its abrogation.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION, &c. (UNITED STATES AND CANADA): A. D. 1854-1866.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1855-1856. Long contest for the Speakership of the House. Election of Mr. Banks, Republican. Mr. Giddings' account.