Chapter 9

MEASURES OF ADJUSTMENT

When Congress assembled in December, 1849, statesmen of the old school, who could agree in nothing else, were of one mind in this: the Union was in peril. In the impressive words of Webster, "the imprisoned winds were let loose. The East, the North, and the stormy South combined to throw the whole sea into commotion, to toss its billows to the skies, and disclose its profoundest depths." Clay and Calhoun were equally apprehensive. Yet there were younger men who shared none of these fears. To be sure, the political atmosphere of Washington was electric. The House spent weeks wrangling over the Speakership, so that when the serious work of legislation began, men were overwrought and excitable. California with a free constitution was knocking at the door of the Union. President Taylor gave Congress to understand that at no distant day the people of New Mexico would take similar action. And then, as though he were addressing a body of immortals, he urged Congress to await calmly the action of the people of the Territories.

Douglas was among those unimpressionable younger men who would not believe the Union to be in danger. Perhaps by his Southern connections he knew better than most Northern men, the real temper of the South. Perhaps he did not give way to the prevailing hysteria, because he was diverted from the great issues by the pressing, particular interests of his constituents. At all events, he had this advantage over Clay, Webster, and Calhoun, that when he did turn his attention to schemes of compromise, his vision was fresh, keen, and direct. He escaped that subtle distortion of mental perception from which others were likely to suffer because of long-sustained attention. To such, Douglas must have seemed unemotional, unsensitive, and lacking in spiritual fineness.

Illinois with its North and its South was also facing a crisis. To the social and political differences that bisected the State, was added a keen commercial rivalry between the sections. While the State legislature under northern control was appropriating funds for the Illinois and Michigan canal, it exhibited far less liberality in building railroads, which alone could be the arteries of traffic in southern Illinois. At a time when railroads were extending their lines westward from the Atlantic seaboard, and reaching out covetously for the produce of the Mississippi Valley, Illinois held geographically a commanding position. No roads could reach the great river, north of the Ohio at least, without crossing her borders. The avenues of approach were given into her keeping. To those who directed State policy, it seemed possible to determine the commercial destinies of the Commonwealth by controlling the farther course of the railroads which now touched the eastern boundary. Well-directed effort, it was thought, might utilize these railroads so as to build up great commercial cities on the eastern shore of the Mississippi. State policy required that none of these cross-roads should in any event touch St. Louis, and thus make it, rather than the Illinois towns now struggling toward commercial greatness, the entrepôt between East and West. With its unrivalled site at the mouth of the Missouri, Alton was as likely a competitor for the East and West traffic, and for the Mississippi commerce, as St. Louis. Alton, then, must be made the terminus of the cross-roads.[327]

The people of southern Illinois thought otherwise. Against the background of such distant hopes, they saw a concrete reality. St. Louis was already the market for their produce. From every railroad which should cross the State and terminate at St. Louis, they anticipated tangible profits. They could not see why these very real advantages should be sacrificed on the altar of northern interests. After the opening of the northern canal, they resented this exclusive policy with increased bitterness.

Upon one point, and only one, the people of northern and southern Illinois were agreed: they believed that every possible encouragement should be given to the construction of a great central railroad, which should cross the State from north to south. Such a railroad had been projected as early as 1836 by a private corporation. Subsequently the State took up the project, only to abandon it again to a private company, after the bubble of internal improvements had been pricked. Of this latter corporation,--the Great Western Railroad Company,--Senator Breese was a director and the accredited agent in Congress. It was in behalf of this corporation that he had petitioned Congress unsuccessfully for pre-emption rights on the public domain.[328]

Circumstances enlisted Douglas's interest powerfully in the proposed central railroad. These circumstances were partly private and personal; partly adventitious and partly of his own making. The growing sectionalism in Illinois gave politicians serious concern. It was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain the integrity of political parties, when sectional issues were thrust into the foreground of political discussion. Yankee and Southerner did not mix readily in the caldron of State politics. But a central railroad which both desired, might promote a mechanical mixture of social and commercial elements. Might it not also, in the course of time, break up provincial feeling, cause a transfusion of ideas, and in the end produce an organic union?

In the summer of 1847, Senator-elect Douglas took up his residence in Chicago, and identified himself with its commercial interests by investing in real estate.[329] Few men have had a keener instinct for speculation in land.[330] By a sort of sixth sense, he foresaw the growth of the ugly but enterprising city on Lake Michigan. He saw that commercially Chicago held a strategic position, commanding both the lake traffic eastward, and the interior waterway gulfward by means of the canal. As yet, however, these advantages were far from realization. The city was not even included within the route of the proposed central railroad. Influential business men, Eastern capitalists, and shippers along the Great Lakes were not a little exercised over this neglect. In some way the claims of Chicago must be urged upon the promoters of the railroad. Just here Douglas could give invaluable aid. He pointed out that if the railroad were to secure a land grant, it would need Eastern votes in Congress. The old Cairo-Galena line would seem like a sectional enterprise, likely to draw trade down the Mississippi and away from the Atlantic seaports. But if Chicago were connected with the system, as a terminal at the north, the necessary congressional support might be secured.[331]

During the summer, Douglas canvassed the State, speaking repeatedly in behalf of this larger project. For a time he hoped that Senator Breese would co-operate with him. Numerous conferences took place both before and after Congress had assembled; but Douglas found his colleague reluctant to abandon his pre-emption plan. Regardless of the memorials which poured in upon him from northern Illinois, Breese introduced his bill for pre-emption rights on the public domain, in behalf of the Holbrook Company, as the Great Western Railway Company was popularly called. Thereupon Douglas offered a bill for a donation of public lands to aid the State of Illinois in the construction of a central railroad from Cairo to Galena, with a branch from Centralia to Chicago.[332] Though Breese did not actively oppose his colleague, his lack of cordiality no doubt prejudiced Congress against a grant of any description. From the outset, Douglas's bill encountered obstacles: the opposition of those who doubted the constitutional power of Congress to grant lands for internal improvements of this sort; the opposition of landless States, which still viewed the public domain as a national asset from which revenue should be derived; and, finally, the opposition of the old States to the new. Nevertheless, the bill passed the Senate by a good majority. In the House it suffered defeat, owing to the undisguised opposition of the South and of the landless States both East and West. The Middle States showed distrust and uncertainty. It was perfectly clear that before such a project could pass the House, Eastern and Southern representatives would have to be won over.[333]

After Congress adjourned, Douglas journeyed to the State of Mississippi, ostensibly on a business trip to his children's plantation. In the course of his travels, he found himself in the city of Mobile--an apparent digression; but by a somewhat remarkable coincidence he met certain directors of the Mobile Railroad in the city. Now this corporation was in straits. Funds had failed and the construction of the road had been arrested. The directors were casting about in search of relief. Douglas saw his opportunity. He offered the distraught officials an alliance. He would include in his Illinois Central bill a grant of land for their road; in return, they were to make sure of the votes of their senators and representatives.[334] Such, at least, is the story told by Douglas; and some such bargain may well have been made. Subsequent events give the color of veracity to the tale.

When Douglas renewed his Illinois Central bill in a revised form on January 3, 1850, Senator Breese had been succeeded by Shields, who was well-disposed toward the project.[335] The fruits of the Mobile conference were at once apparent. Senator King of Alabama offered an amendment, proposing a similar donation of public lands to his State and to Mississippi, for the purpose of continuing the projected central railroad from the mouth of the Ohio to the port of Mobile. Douglas afterward said that he had himself drafted this amendment, but that he had thought best to have Senator King present it.[336] Be that as it may, the suspicion of collusion between them can hardly be avoided, since the amendment occasioned no surprise to the friends of the bill and was adopted without division.

The project now before Congress was of vastly greater consequence than the proposed grant to Illinois. Here was a bill of truly national importance. It spoke for itself; it appealed to the dullest imagination. What this amended bill contemplated, was nothing less than a trunk line connecting the Great Lakes with the Gulf of Mexico. Now, indeed, as Douglas well said, "nationality had been imparted to the project," At the same time, it offered substantial advantages to the two landless States which would be traversed by the railroad, as well as to all the Gulf States. As thus devised, the bill seemed reasonably sure to win votes.

Yet it must not be inferred that the bill passed smoothly to a third reading. There was still much shaking of heads among senators of the strict construction school. Many were conquered by expediency and threw logic to the winds; some preferred to be consistent and spoil a good cause. The bill did not sail on untroubled seas, even after it had been steered clear of constitutional shoals. It narrowly ran foul of that obstinate Western conviction, that the public lands belonged of right to the home-seeker, to whose interests all such grants were inimical, by reason of the increased price of adjoining sections of land.[337]

The real battleground, however, was not the Senate, but the House. As before, the bill passed the upper chamber by an ample margin of votes.[338] In the lower house, there was no prolonged debate upon the bill. Constitutional scruples do not seem to have been ruffled. The main difficulty was to rivet the attention of the members. Several times the bill was pushed aside and submerged by the volume of other business. Finally, on the same day that it passed the last of the compromise measures, on the 17th of September, 1850, the House passed the Illinois Central Railroad bill by a vote of 101 to 75.[339]

A comparison of this vote with that on the earlier bill shows a change of three votes in the Middle States, one in the South, ten in the Gulf States, and five in Tennessee and Kentucky.[340] This was a triumphant vindication of Douglas's sagacity, for whatever may have been the services of his colleagues in winning Eastern votes,[341] it was his bid for the vote of the Gulf States and of the landless, intervening States of Kentucky and Tennessee which had been most effective. But was all this anything more than the clever manoeuvering of an adroit politician in a characteristic parliamentary game? A central railroad through Illinois seemed likely to quell factional and sectional quarrels in local politics; to merge Northern and Southern interests within the Commonwealth; and to add to the fiscal resources of State and nation. It was a good cause, but it needed votes in Congress. Douglas became a successful procurator and reaped his reward in increased popularity.

There is an aspect of this episode, however, which lifts it above a mere log-rolling device to secure an appropriation. Here and there it fired the imagination of men. There is abundant reason to believe that the senior Senator from Illinois was not so sordid in his bargaining for votes as he seemed. Above and apart from the commercial welfare of the Lake Region, the Mississippi Valley, and the Gulf Plains, there was an end subserved, which lay in the background of his consciousness and which came to expression rarely if ever. Practical men may see visions and dream dreams which they are reluctant to voice. There was genuine emotion beneath the materialism of Senator Walker's remarks (and he was reared in Illinois), when he said: "Anything that improves the connection between the North and the South is a great enterprise. To cross parallels of latitude, to enable the man of commerce to make up his assorted cargo, is infinitely more important than anything you can propose within the same parallels of latitude. I look upon it as a great chain to unite North and South."[342] Senator Shields of Illinois only voiced the inmost thought of Douglas, when he exclaimed, "The measure is too grand, too magnificent a one to meet with such a fate at the hands of Congress. And really, as it is to connect the North and South so thoroughly, it may serve to get rid of even the Wilmot Proviso, and tie us together so effectually that the idea of separation will be impossible."[343]

The settlement of the West had followed parallels of latitude. The men of the Lake Plains were transplanted New Englanders, New Yorkers, Pennsylvanians; the men of the Gulf Plains came from south of Mason and Dixon's line,--pioneers both, aggressive, bold in initiative, but alienated by circumstances of tremendous economic significance. If ever North should be arrayed against South, the makeweight in the balance would be these pioneers of the Northwest and Southwest. It was no mean conception to plan for the "man of commerce" who would cross from one region to the other, with his "assorted cargo,"[344] for in that cargo were the destinies of two sections and his greatest commerce was to consist in the exchange of imponderable ideas. The ideal which inspired Douglas never found nobler expression, than in these words with which he replied to Webster's slighting reference to the West:

"There is a power in this nation greater than either the North or the South--a growing, increasing, swelling power, that will be able to speak the law to this nation, and to execute the law as spoken. That power is the country known as the great West--the Valley of the Mississippi, one and indivisible from the gulf to the great lakes, and stretching, on the one side and the other, to the extreme sources of the Ohio and Missouri--from the Alleghanies to the Rocky mountains. There, Sir, is the hope of this nation--the resting place of the power that is not only to control, but to save, the Union. We furnish the water that makes the Mississippi, and we intend to follow, navigate, and use it until it loses itself in the briny ocean. So with the St. Lawrence. We intend to keep open and enjoy both of these great outlets to the ocean, and all between them we intend to take under our especial protection, and keep and preserve as one free, happy, and united people. This is the mission of the great Mississippi Valley, the heart and soul of the nation and the continent."[345]

Meantime Congress was endeavoring to avert the clash of sections by other measures of accommodation. The veteran Clay, in his favorite rôle of peacemaker, had drafted a series of resolutions as a sort of legislative programme; and with his old-time vigor, was pleading for mutual forbearance. All wounds might be healed, he believed, by admitting California with her free constitution; by organizing territorial governments without any restriction as to slavery, in the region acquired from Mexico; by settling the Texas boundary and the Texas debt on a fair basis; by prohibiting the slave trade, but not slavery, in the District of Columbia; and by providing more carefully for the rendition of fugitive slaves. Clay, Calhoun, and Webster had spoken with all the weight of their years upon these propositions, before Douglas was free to address the Senate.

It was characteristic of Douglas that he chose to speak on the concrete question raised by the application of California for admission into the Union. His opening words betrayed no elevation of feeling, no alarmed patriotism transcending party lines, no great moral uplift. He made no direct reference to the state of the public mind. Clay began with an invocation; Webster pleaded for a hearing, not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a Northern man, but as an American and as a Senator, with the preservation of the Union as his theme; Douglas sprang at once to the defense of his party. With the brush of a partisan, he sketched the policy of Northern Democrats in advocating the annexation of Texas, repudiating the insinuations of Webster that Texas had been sought as a slave State. He would not admit that the whole of Texas was bound to be a slave Territory. By the very terms of annexation, provision had been made for admitting free States out of Texas. As for Webster's "law of nature, of physical geography,--the law of the formation of the earth," from which the Senator from Massachusetts derived so much comfort, it was a pity that he could not have discovered that law earlier. The "law of nature" surely had not been changed materially since the election, when Mr. Webster opposed General Cass, who had already enunciated this general principle.[346]

In his reply to Calhoun, Douglas emancipated himself successfully from his gross partisanship. Planting himself firmly upon the national theory of the Federal Union, he hewed away at what he termed Calhoun's fundamental error--"the error of supposing that his particular section has a right to have a 'due share of the territories' set apart and assigned to it." Calhoun had said much about Southern rights and Northern aggressions, citing the Ordinance of 1787 as an instance of the unfair exclusion of the South from the public domain. Douglas found a complete refutation of this error in the early history of Illinois, where slavery had for a long time existed in spite of the Ordinance. His inference from these facts was bold and suggestive, if not altogether convincing.

"These facts furnish a practical illustration of that great truth, which ought to be familiar to all statesmen and politicians, that a law passed by the national legislature to operate locally upon a people not represented, will always remain practically a dead letter upon the statute book, if it be in opposition to the wishes and supposed interests of those who are to be affected by it, and at the same time charged with its execution. The Ordinance of 1787 was practically a dead letter. It did not make the country, to which it applied, practically free from slavery. The States formed out of the territory northwest of the Ohio did not become free by virtue of the ordinance, nor in consequence of it ... [but] by virtue of their own will."[347]

Douglas was equally convinced that the Missouri Compromise had had no practical effect upon slavery. So far from depriving the South of its share of the West, that Compromise had simply "allayed an unfortunate excitement which was alienating the affections of different portions of the Union." "Slavery was as effectually excluded from the whole of that country, by the laws of nature, of climate, and production, before, as it is now, by act of Congress."[348] As for the exclusion of the South from the Oregon Territory, the law of 1848 "did nothing more than re-enact and affirm the law which the people themselves had previously adopted, and rigorously executed, for the period of twelve years." The exclusion of slavery was the deliberate act of the people of Oregon: "it was done in obedience to that great Democratic principle, that it is wiser and better to leave each community to determine and regulate its own local and domestic affairs in its own way."[349]

An amendment to the Constitution to establish a permanent equilibrium between slave and free States, Douglas rightly characterized as "a moral and physical impossibility." The cause of freedom had steadily advanced, while slavery had receded. "We all look forward with confidence to the time when Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, and probably North Carolina and Tennessee, will adopt a gradual system of emancipation. In the meantime," said he, with the exultant spirit of the exuberant West, "we have a vast territory, stretching from the Mississippi to the Pacific, which is rapidly filling up with a hardy, enterprising, and industrious population, large enough to form at least seventeen new free States, one half of which we may expect to see represented in this body during our day. Of these I calculate that four will be formed out of Oregon, five out of our late acquisition from Mexico, including the present State of California, two out of the territory of Minnesota, and the residue out of the country upon the Missouri river, _including Nebraska_. I think I am safe in assuming, that each of these will be free territories and free States whether Congress shall prohibit slavery or not. Now, let me inquire, where are you to find the slave territory with which to balance these seventeen free territories, or even any one of them?"[350] Truer prophecy was never uttered in all the long controversy over the extension of slavery.

With a bit of brag, which was perhaps pardonable tinder the circumstances, Douglas reminded the Senate of his efforts to secure the admission of California and of his prediction that the people of that country would form a free State constitution. A few months had sufficed to vindicate his position at the last session. And yet, strangely enough, the North was still fearful lest slavery should be extended to New Mexico and Utah. "There is no ground for apprehension on this point," he stoutly contended. "If there was one inch of territory in the whole of our acquisition from Mexico, where slavery could exist, it was in the valleys of the Sacramento and San Joaquin, within the limits of the State of California. It should be borne in mind, that climate regulates this matter, and that climate depends upon the elevation above the sea as much as upon parallels of latitude." Why then leave the question open for further agitation? Give the people of California the government to which they are entitled. "The country is now free by law and in fact--it is free according to those laws of nature and of God, to which the Senator from Massachusetts alluded, and must forever remain free. It will be free under any bill you may pass, or without any bill at all."[351]

Though he did not discuss the compromise resolutions nor commit himself to their support, Douglas paid a noble tribute to the spirit in which they had been offered. He spoke feelingly of "the self-sacrificing spirit which prompted the venerable Senator from Kentucky to exhibit the matchless moral courage of standing undaunted between the two great hostile factions, and rebuking the violence and excesses of each, and pointing out their respective errors, in a spirit of kindness, moderation, and firmness, which made them conscious that he was right." Clay's example was already, he believed, checking the tide of popular excitement. For his part, he entertained no fears as to the future. "The Union will not be put in peril; California will be admitted; governments for the territories must be established; and thus the controversy will end, and I trust forever." A cheerful bit of Western optimism to which the country at large was not yet ready to subscribe.

With his wonted aggressiveness Douglas had a batch of bills ready by March 25th, covering the controverted question of California and the Territories. The origin of these bills is a matter of no little interest. A group of Southern Whigs in the House, led by Toombs and Stephens of Georgia, had taken a determined stand against the admission of California, until assurances were given that concessions would be made to the South in the organization of the new Territories.[352]

With both Toombs and Stephens, Douglas was on friendly terms, despite their political differences. Perhaps it was at his suggestion that McClernand of Illinois approached these gentlemen with an olive branch. At all events, a conference was arranged at the Speaker's house, at which Douglas was represented by his friends McClernand, Richardson, and Linn Boyd of Kentucky. Boyd was chairman of the House Committee on Territories; and Richardson a member of the committee. McClernand announced that he had consulted with Douglas and that they were in entire agreement on the points at issue. Douglas had thought it better not to be present in person. The Southerners stated their position frankly and fully. They would consent to the admission of California only upon condition that, in organizing the territorial governments, the power should be given to the people to legislate in regard to slavery, and to frame constitutions with or without slavery. Congress was to bind itself to admit them as States, without any restrictions upon the subject of slavery. The wording of the territorial bills, which would compass these ends, was carefully agreed upon and put in writing. On the basis of this agreement Douglas and McClernand drafted bills for both the Senate and the House Committees.[353]

But the suggestion had already been made and was growing in favor, that a select committee should be intrusted with these and other delicate questions, in order to secure a basis of compromise in the spirit of Clay's resolutions. Believing that such a course would indefinitely delay, and even put in jeopardy, the measure that lay nearest to his heart,--the admission of California,--Douglas resisted the appointment of such a committee. If it seemed best to join the California bill with others now pending, he preferred that the Senate, rather than a committee, should decide the conditions. But when he was outvoted, Douglas adopted the sensible course of refusing to obstruct the work of the Committee of Thirteen by any instructions. He was inclined to believe the whole project a farce: well, if it was, the sooner it was over, the better; he was not disposed to wrangle and turn the farce into a tragedy.[354]

Douglas was not chosen a member of the select Committee of Thirteen. He could hardly expect to be; but he contributed not a little to its labors, if a traditional story be true. In a chance conversation, Clay, who was chairman of the committee, told Douglas that their report would recommend the union of his two bills,--the California and the Territorial bills,--instead of a bill of their own. Clay intimated that the committee felt some delicacy about appropriating Douglas's carefully drawn measures. With a courtesy quite equal to Clay's, Douglas urged him to use the bills if it was deemed wise. For his part, he did not believe that they could pass the Senate as a single bill. In that event, he could then urge the original bills separately upon the Senate. Then Clay, extending his hand, said, "You are the most generous man living. I _will_ unite the bills and report them; but justice shall nevertheless be done you as the real author of the measures." A pretty story, and not altogether improbable. At all events, the first part of "the Omnibus Bill," reported by the Committee of Thirteen, consisted of Douglas's two bills joined together by a wafer.[355]

There was one highly significant change in the territorial bills inside the Omnibus. Douglas's measures had been silent on the slavery question; these forbade the territorial legislatures to pass any measure in respect to African slavery, restricting the powers of the territorial legislatures at a vital point. Now on this question Douglas's instructions bound him to an affirmative vote. He was in the uncomfortable and hazardous position of one who must choose between his convictions, and the retention of political office. It was a situation all the more embarrassing, because he had so often asserted the direct responsibility of a representative to his constituents. He extricated himself from the predicament in characteristic fashion. He reaffirmed his convictions; sought to ward off the question; but followed instructions when he had to give his vote. He obeyed the letter, but violated the spirit of his instructions.

In the debates on the Omnibus Bill, Douglas reiterated his theory of non-interference with the right of the people to legislate for themselves on the question of slavery. He was now forced to further interesting assertions by some pointed questions from Senator Davis of Mississippi. "The Senator says that the inhabitants of a territory have a right to decide what their institutions shall be. When? By what authority? How many of them?" Douglas replied: "Without determining the precise number, I will assume that the right ought to accrue to the people at the moment they have enough to constitute a government.... Your bill concedes that a representative government is necessary--a government founded upon the principles of popular sovereignty, and the right of the people to enact their own laws; and for this reason you give them a legislature constituted of two branches, like the legislatures of the different States and Territories of the Union; you confer upon them the right to legislate upon all rightful subjects of legislation, except negroes. Why except negroes?"[356] Forced to a further explanation, he added, "I am not, therefore, prepared to say that under the constitution, we have not the power to pass laws excluding negro slaves from the territories.... But I do say that, if left to myself to carry out my own opinions, I would leave the whole subject to the people of the territories themselves.... I believe it is one of those rights to be conceded to the territories the moment they have governments and legislatures established for them."[357] In short, this was a policy dictated by expediency, and not--as yet--by any constitutional necessity. Douglas was not yet ready to abandon the high national ground of supreme, Federal control over the Territories.

But the restrictive clause in the territorial bills satisfied the radical Southerners as little as it pleased Douglas. Berrien wished to make the clause more precise by forbidding the territorial legislatures "to establish or prohibit African slavery"; but Hale, with his preternatural keenness for the supposed intrigues of the slave power, believed that even with these restrictions the legislatures might still recognize slavery as an already established institution; and he therefore moved to add the word "allow." Douglas voted consistently; first against Berrien's amendment, and then, when it carried, for Hale's, hoping thereby to discredit the former.[358] Douglas's own amendment removing all restrictions, was voted down.[359] True to his instructions, he voted for Seward's proposition to impose the Wilmot Proviso upon the Territories, but he was happy to find himself in the minority.[360] And so the battle went on, threatening to end in a draw.

A motion to abolish and prohibit peon slavery elicited an apparently spontaneous and sincere expression of detestation from Douglas of "this revolting system." Black slavery was not abhorrent to him; but a species of slavery not confined to any color or race, which might, because of a trifling debt, condemn the free white man and his posterity to an endless servitude--this was indeed intolerable. If the Senate was about to abolish black slavery, being unwilling to intrust the territorial legislature with such measures, surely it ought in all consistency to abolish also peonage. But the Senate preferred not to be consistent.[361]

By the last of July, the Omnibus--in the words of Benton--had been overturned, and all the inmates but one spilled out. The Utah bill was the lucky survivor, but even it was not suffered to pass without material alterations. Clay now joined with Douglas to secure the omission of the clause forbidding the territorial legislature to touch the subject of slavery. In this they finally succeeded.[362] The bill was thus restored to its original form.[363]

Everyone admitted that the compromise scheme had been wrecked. It was highly probable, however, that with some changes the proposals of the committee could be adopted, if they were considered separately. Such was Douglas's opinion. The eventuality had occurred which he had foreseen. He was ready for it. He had promptly called up his original California bill and had secured its consideration, when the Utah bill passed to a third reading. Then a bill to settle the Texan boundary controversy was introduced. The Senate passed many weary days discussing first one and then the other. The Texas question was disposed of on August 9th; the California bill, after weathering many storms, came to port four days later; and two days afterward, New Mexico was organized as a Territory under the same conditions as Utah. That is to say, the Senate handed on these bills with its approval to the lower house, where all were voted. It remained only to complete the compromise programme piece-meal, by abolishing the slave trade in the District of Columbia and by providing a more stringent fugitive slave law. By the middle of September, these measures had become law, and the work of Congress went to its final review before the tribunal of public opinion.

Douglas voted for all the compromise measures but the Fugitive Slave Law. This was an unfortunate omission, for many a Congressman had sought to dodge the question.[364] The partisan press did not spare him, though he stated publicly that he would have voted for the bill, had he not been forced to absent himself. Such excuses were common and unconvincing. Irritated by sly thrusts on every side, Douglas at last resolved to give a detailed account of the circumstances that had prevented him from putting himself on record in the vote. This public vindication was made upon the floor of the Senate a year later.[365] A "pecuniary obligation" for nearly four thousand dollars was about to fall due in New York. Arrangements which he had made to pay the note miscarried, so that he was compelled to go to New York at once, or suffer the note to be protested. Upon the assurance of his fellow senators that the discussion of the bill would continue at least a week, he hastened to New York. While dining with some friends from Illinois, he was astounded to hear that the bill had been ordered engrossed for a third reading. He immediately left the city for Washington, but arrived too late. He was about to ask permission then to explain his absence, when his colleague dissuaded him. Everyone knew, said Shields, that he was in favor of the bill; besides, very probably the bill would be returned from the House with amendments.

The circumstantial nature of this defense now seems quite unnecessary. After all, the best refutation of the charge lay in Douglas's reputation for courageous and manly conduct. He was true to himself when he said, "The dodging of votes--the attempt to avoid responsibility--is no part of my system of political tactics."

If it is difficult to distribute the credit--or discredit--of having passed the compromise measures, it verges on the impossible to fix the responsibility on any individual. Clay fathered the scheme of adjustment; but he did not work out the details, and it was just this matter of details which aggravated the situation. Clay no longer coveted glory. His dominant feeling was one of thankfulness. "It was rather a triumph for the Union, for harmony and concord." Douglas agreed with him: "No man and no party has acquired a triumph, except the party friendly to the Union." But the younger man did covet honor, and he could not refrain from reminding the Senate that he had played "an humble part in the enactment of all these great measures."[366] Oddly enough, Jefferson Davis condescended to tickle the vanity of Douglas by testifying, "If any man has a right to be proud of the success of these measures, it is the Senator from Illinois."[367]

Both Douglas and Toombs told their constituents that Congress had agreed upon a great, fundamental principle in dealing with the Territories. Both spoke with some degree of authority, for the two territorial bills had passed in the identical form upon which they had agreed in conference. But what was this principle? Toombs called it the principle which the South had unwisely compromised away in 1820--the principle of non-interference with slavery by Congress, the right of the people to hold slaves in the common Territories. Douglas called the great principle, "the right of the people to form and regulate their own internal concerns and domestic institutions in their own way."[368] So stated the principle seems direct and simple. But was Toombs willing to concede that the people of a Territory might exclude slavery? He never said so; while Douglas conceded both the positive power to exclude, and the negative power to permit, slavery. Here was a discrepancy.[369] And it was probably because they could not agree on this point, that a provision was added to the territorial bills, providing that cases involving title to slaves might be appealed to the Supreme Court. Whether the people of Utah and New Mexico might exclude slaves, was to be left to the judiciary. In any case Congress was not to interfere with slavery in the Territories.

One other question was raised subsequently. Was it intended that Congress should act on this principle in organizing future Territories? In other words, was the principle, newly recovered, to be applied retroactively? There was no answer to the question in 1850, for the simple reason that no one thought to ask it.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 327: See the chapter on "State Policy" in Davidson and Stuvé, History of Illinois.]

[Footnote 328: Davidson and Stuvé, History of Illinois, pp. 573-574; Ackerman, Early Illinois Railroads, in Fergus Historical Series, p. 32.]

[Footnote 329: Letter of Breese to Douglas, Illinois _State Register_, February 6, 1851.]

[Footnote 330: Forney, Anecdotes, I, pp. 18-20.]

[Footnote 331: Letter of Douglas to Breese, _State Register_, January 20, 1851.]

[Footnote 332: _Ibid._, January 20, 1851.]

[Footnote 333: Sanborn, Congressional Grants of Land in Aid of Railways, Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, pp. 27-30.]

[Footnote 334: Cutts, Constitutional and Party Questions, pp. 193-194.]

[Footnote 335: Douglas renewed his bill in the short session of 1848-1849, but did not secure action upon it.]

[Footnote 336: Cutts, Constitutional and Party Questions, p. 195. There is so much brag in this account that one is disposed to distrust the details.]

[Footnote 337: Sanborn, Congressional Grants, pp. 31-34.]

[Footnote 338: _Globe,_31 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 904. The vote was 26 to 14.]

[Footnote 339: _Ibid._, p. 1838.]

[Footnote 340: Sanborn, Congressional Grants, p. 35.]

[Footnote 341: John Wentworth, in his _Congressional Reminiscences_, hints at some vote-getting in the East by tariff concessions; but Douglas insisted that it was the Chicago branch, promising to connect with Eastern roads, which won votes in New York, Pennsylvania and New England. See Illinois _State Register_, March 13, 1851. The subject is discussed by Sanborn, Congressional Grants, pp. 35-36.]

[Footnote 342: _Globe_, 31 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 853.]

[Footnote 343: _Ibid._, p. 869.]

[Footnote 344: The economic significance of the Illinois Central Railroad appears in a letter of Vice-President McClellan to Douglas in 1856. The management was even then planning to bring sugar from Havana directly to the Chicago market, and to take the wheat and pork of the Northwest to the West Indies _via_ New Orleans.]

[Footnote 345: _Globe_, 31 Cong., 1 Sess., App., p. 365.]

[Footnote 346: _Globe_, 31 Cong., 1 Sess., App., p. 366.]

[Footnote 347: _Globe_, 31 Cong., 1 Sess., App., pp. 369-370.]

[Footnote 348: _Globe,_ 31 Cong., 1 Sess., App., p. 370.]

[Footnote 349: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 350: _Globe_, 31 Cong., 1 Sess., App., p. 371. I have italicized one phrase because of its interesting relation to the Kansas-Nebraska Act.]

[Footnote 351: _Globe_, 31 Cong., 1 Sess., App., p. 373.]

[Footnote 352: Stephens, Const. View of the War between the States, II, pp. 178 ff.]

[Footnote 353: For an account of this interesting episode, see Stephens, War Between the States, II, pp. 202-204. Boyd, not McClernand, was chairman of the House Committee, but the latter introduced the bills by agreement with Richardson.]

[Footnote 354: _Globe_, 31 Cong., 1 Sess., pp. 662, 757.]

[Footnote 355: See Sheahan, Douglas, pp. 132-134. See also Douglas's speech in the Senate, Dec. 23, 1851, and the testimony of Jefferson Davis, _Globe_, 31 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 1830.]

[Footnote 356: _Globe_, 31 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 1115.]

[Footnote 357: _Ibid._, p. 1116.]

[Footnote 358: _Globe_, 31 Cong., 1 Sess., pp. 1134-1135.]

[Footnote 359: _Ibid._, p. 1135.]

[Footnote 360: _Ibid._, p. 1134.]

[Footnote 361: _Ibid._, pp. 1143-1144.]

[Footnote 362: _Globe_, 36 Cong., 1 Sess., App., pp. 305-306; also Cutts, Constitutional and Party Questions, pp. 80-81.]

[Footnote 363: _Globe_, 31 Cong., 1 Sess., App., pp. 1480-1481. Rhodes, History of the United States, I, p. 181.]

[Footnote 364: Rhodes, History of the United States, I, pp. 182-183.]

[Footnote 365: _Globe_, 32 Cong., 1 Sess., App., p. 66.]

[Footnote 366: _Globe_, 31 Cong., 1 Sess., pp. 1829-1830.]

[Footnote 367: _Ibid._, p. 1830.]

[Footnote 368: See his speech in Chicago; Sheahan, Douglas, p. 169.]

[Footnote 369: When Douglas reported the bills, he announced that there was a difference of opinion in the committee on some points, in regard to which each member reserved the right of stating his own opinion and of acting in accordance therewith. See _Globe_, 31 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 592.]