History of the United States, v.2, by James Ford Rhodes, 1910 [c1892].

Chapter 9: Peace in Kansas through The English Bill

CHAPTER IX

"Peace has been restored to Kansas," said Buchanan in a jubilant speech after the October victory. "As a Pennsylvanian, I rejoice that this good work has been accomplished by two sons of our good old mother State, God bless her! We have reason to be proud of Colonel Geary and General Smith.1 We shall hear no more of bleeding Kansas. There will be no more shrieks for her unhappy destiny."2 Quiet continued, and on November 7th Geary telegraphed that he had made "an extended tour of observation through a large portion of this territory." He was glad to report that "the general peace of the territory remains unimpaired, confidence is being gradually restored, business is resuming its ordinary channels, citizens are preparing for winter, and there is a readiness among the good people of all parties to sustain my administration."3 At first the free-State people did not look upon Geary with favor; they were disposed to regard him as worse than Shannon.4 But when it appeared that his intention was to do justice, the influential portion of the free-State party gave him a cordial support. Lane and John Brown had left the territory, and the leadership fell again to Robinson,
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1 General Smith was put in command of the United States troops in Kansas, in the place of Colonel Sumner transferred. He was a pro-slavery man, but his prejudices did not interfere with a faithful and ready discharge of duty. See Geary and Kansas, Gihon, pp. 92, 298.
2 Curtis, vol. ii. p. 176.
3 Message and Documents, 1856-57, part i. p. 172.
4 Topeka correspondence of the New York Tribune, September 25th.

who had been released from prison. At the time that the President sent his annual message to Congress, Geary still retained the good will of the administration. Pierce, in announcing " the peaceful condition of things in Kansas," commended the "wisdom and energy of the present executive" of the territory.

The Republican journals began to record brighter news from Kansas.1 From Washington came the welcome report of the removal of Lecompte, between whom and that cruel and unjust judge whose career had been made familiar to American readers by the glowing pen of Macaulay a likeness was frequently drawn.2 Encouraged and incited by letters from Kansas, a large number of emigrants were preparing to move in the spring;3 and the general belief throughout the North found expression in the public statement of Granger, a Republican congressman from New York: "Kansas is to come in as a free State—easy." 4 Profoundly influenced by the large Republican vote, moderate Southern men, of whom Aiken was a type, were willing to give up the contest and let Kansas enter the Union with a free constitution.5

But the Kansas conspirators had no such intention. They were contending for political preferment and power. While they were, for the most part, adventurers without property or slaves, yet by espousing the pro-slavery cause they secured the powerful backing of the slave interest of the whole
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1 See New York Tribune, November 27th.
2 The comparison between Jeffreys and Lecompte is often made in Kansas literature. It was impressed upon the mind of John Sherman. He said in the House of Representatives, July 31st: "Let us stop the hounds of Judge Lecompte, lest our country be disgraced by another 'Campaign in the West, 'so infamous in English history; and beware lest a repetition of that historical crime shall bring again the fate of James II. and of Jeffreys." The removal of Lecompte was several times reported, and the President was on the point of making it, but it was not actually made.
3 New York Tribune, December 27th and 30th.
4 Washington correspondence, December 31st, and New York Tribune, January 7th, 1857. 5 Pike's First Blows of the Civil War, p. 363.

country. At an election in October, 1856, a delegate to Congress and a new territorial House of Representatives were chosen. The free-State people declined to vote, and the representatives elected were ignorant, besotted, and rabid, easily influenced by the little clique of pro-slavery agitators at Lecompton. The legislature was determined to force slavery on the territory; and as Geary sought" to do equal and exact justice to all men," 1 they came into violent collision. The pro-slavery faction denounced the governor's impartial policy; he was even threatened with assassination. All the federal officers of the territory hampered him by every means in their power. In February, 1857, a deputation with the surveyor-general of the territory, John Calhoun, at their head, went to Washington, and by various influences succeeded in prejudicing the administration against the governor. When they returned to Lecompton, their newspaper announced that Geary was certain to be removed. Meanwhile his despatches to Washington, giving a correct account of affairs, were not answered, and it became apparent to him that a policy of justice to Kansas was not what the party in power at Washington wanted. On the 4th of March he resigned his position. 2

Geary had exhibited executive talents of a high order. Combining courage, firmness, and discretion, he was an ideal governor of the territory whose agitations he had calmed.3 Had he been supported by the outgoing and incoming administrations, he could have settled the Kansas question with justice and success. It was a potent argument that Reeder and Geary, who had gone out to Kansas firm and consistent Democrats, should have ended their official career by leaning to the free-State side. It was one of many indications that the free-State party, in spite of its failings, deserved full sympathy from the North.
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1 Gov. Geary's Farewell Address.
2 See Geary and Kansas, Gihon; Spring's Kansas.
3 See The Kansas Conflict, Charles Robinson, pp. 332, 337, 341.

A keen observer at Washington reported that the prospects of Kansas were "bedimmed;"1 for the deputation from the territory had found abundant sympathy at the capital.2 Their cause was that of the pro-slavery cabal of which Jefferson Davis, by his ability and position, was the chief. As Secretary of War, having control of the troops in Kansas, his public despatches manifest that his feelings were heartily enlisted on the side of the border ruffians. Impartiality, such as would have befitted his office, was lacking. His one-sided view is apparent when contrasted with the instructions of Marcy to Geary. There is even a glimmer of fairness in the orders of the President when compared with the communications emanating from the War Department.

But what Pierce thought was now a matter of small importance. Assuming the presidential office with the best of intentions, he came to serve the slave power with faithfulness and zeal. Two Northern Presidents before him had been said to lean towards Southern interests, but Pierce went immeasurably beyond them. With him it was not a leaning; it was devotion.

Under his administration began that complete subserviency of the Democratic party to the South which, during the six years before the war, was its distinctive feature. It may be observed that Northern Democrats then began to hold the tenet that slavery was the proper and blessed condition of the negro.

The tendency of the Democratic party had for years been towards a better friendship to the South than that of the Whigs. Pierce, as a Democratic President, could not have resisted this tendency, while social influence and sympathy went also for much in bearing him swiftly with the tide. The open manner in which Southerners dispensed hospitality charmed his generous heart; his convivial habits,
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1 Letter of February 23d, Pike's First Blows of the Civil War, p. 363. 2 See The Kansas Conflict, Charles Robinson, p. 340.

offensive to New England people, were a recommendation to the free-hearted gentlemen of the South; while his grosser breaches of propriety, exceeding the calls of conviviality, were by them condoned.

All eyes were directed to the incoming chief. Two distinct lines of argument had been advocated to secure the election of Buchanan. One was that of the Southern extremists. Their opinion now found expression in the statement of the Richmond Enquirer that the result was "a striking evidence of the growing popularity of negro slavery ;" 1 in the message of the governor of South Carolina, recommending the reopening of the African slave-trade;2 and also in the advocacy of this policy by a portion of the Southern press and by the delegates of three States at the Southern Commercial convention.3 It is true that a majority of Southern Democrats did not approve this advanced position. The Southern convention, by a vote of 67 to 18, laid on the table a resolution requesting their representatives in Congress " to use their best efforts to procure a repeal of all laws interdicting the African slave-trade."4 In the national House of Representatives, moreover, only eight voted against a resolution declaring utter opposition to the reopening of the slave-trade.5 Yet for all this, it began to be apparent that the South was going with startling rapidity the whole length demanded by the principle, Slavery is right, and ought to be extended.6
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1 Cited by Von Hoist, vol. v. p. 465.
2 Message of November 21st, 1856, New York Tribune, December 6th, 1856.
3 De Bow's Review, vol. xxii. p. 91. It was held at Savannah, December 8th, 1856.
4 Ibid.
5 This was December 15th, 1856. 4 See the discussion at the commercial convention, De Bow's Review, vol. xxii. p. 216. The editor remarks: "The reopening of the African slave-trade has only been proposed as a subject of discussion among the Southern people, in order that its merits and demerits may be freely canvassed, and not as a subject upon which the existing facts and information would warrant at present a decided opinion."—Ibid., p. 663. See letter of Lieber to Allibone, Life of Lieber, p. 292. Lieber spent twenty-two years in Columbia.

"The victory of Buchanan," wrote Francis Lieber from Columbia, S. C, "the victory of Southern bullyism, the acknowledgment of Northern men that, right or wrong, they yield because the South threatens to secede, will inflame and inflate pro slavery to such enormity and tyranny over the free States, and madden it in its ungodly course of extending slavery within the United States and into neighboring countries where it had been extinguished. . . . Such a course will be pursued that civilization herself will avert her face and weep."1 An evidence of Lieber's statement was the undisguised Southern sympathy with William Walker, who had gone on a filibustering expedition to Nicaragua, made himself president of that republic, and issued a decree which repealed all laws against slavery, thus legally establishing it on soil that had been free thirty-two years. He was impelled to this action by the belief that the peculiar institution of the South needed extension for its security, and he likewise thought that such a policy would raise up for his scheme of dominion a powerful support in the slave States.2

The line of argument which secured the doubtful Northern States for Buchanan was that which, as has been said before, found its aptest expression in the letter of Rufus Choate. Buchanan, he had asserted, "has large experience in public affairs; his commanding capacity is universally acknowledged; his life is without a stain. . . . He seems at this moment, by the concurrence of circumstances, more completely than any other, to represent that sentiment of nationality, tolerant, warm, and comprehensive, without which— without increase of which—America is no longer America." 3 Choate argued, moreover, that a policy "easy, simple, and
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1 Letter of October 23d to Hillard, Life of Lieber, p. 290.
2 See Von Hoist, vol. v. chap. x.; The Story of the Filibusters, Roche; The War in Nicaragua, written by Gen. William Walker; Walker's Expedition to Nicaragua, by W. V. Wells.
3 Letter of Choate to Maine Whig Committee, Life of Choate, Brown, p. 327.

just" would make Kansas a free State. In December, Edward Everett wrote Buchanan, telling him frankly, "I did not vote for you," but congratulating him on his election, and sincerely wishing him success. "The policy of the present administration," Everett continued, "has greatly impaired (as you are well aware) the conservative feeling of the North, has annihilated the Whig party, and seriously weakened the Democratic party in all the free States. . . . You may, even in advance of the 4th of March, do much to bring about a better state of things in Kansas, and prevent the enemies of the Constitution from continuing to make capital out of it."1 The hope of Everett was undoubtedly the hope of most of the men who had voted for Fillmore; and the belief of Choate was practically that of all intelligent and disinterested Northern Democrats.

Would the new President incline to the Southern extremists, or would his course meet the expectations of Northern conservatives, of whom Everett and Choate were types? It was to a certain extent an arithmetical problem. The slave States had given Buchanan 112 electoral votes, and the free States 62. The Southern press did not cease to emphasize the fact that the South had elected him, and we may be sure that this argument was persistently urged by all the Southern statesmen who visited Wheatland2 between the election and the coming of Buchanan to Washington.

While the hopes of the Everett and Choate conservatives ran high, the Republicans expected nothing from the new President. They had not given up the cause of free Kansas, but they saw no reason for believing that his policy would be favorable to it. They felt that the problem must be worked out by the free-State party in the territory, and by the Republicans in the Northern States.3
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1 Letter of December 8th, 1856, Life of Buchanan, Curtis, vol. ii. p. 185.
2 The name of Buchanan's home, near Lancaster, Pa.
3 See the files of the New York Tribune and the Independent from November, 1856, to February, 1857, inclusive.

Just before the new year, Buchanan wrote John Y. Mason at Paris: " The great object of my administration will be to arrest, if possible, the agitation of the slavery question at the North, and to destroy sectional parties." 1 Had the contents of that private letter been disclosed to Everett and Choate, they would have said, It means free Kansas; for to them it was patent that only by the "easy, simple, and just" policy of making Kansas free could the slavery agitation at the North be arrested. If that were the notion of Buchanan when he penned those words, he changed his mind before the inauguration day. The "bedimmed prospects" of Kansas in February arose from the treatment of Geary by the Pierce administration; but it then became apparent that Buchanan would use no influence on the side of freedom before he took the reins of office. Moreover, the leaders of the South, who shaped the policy of the Democrats, were still determined to have Kansas a slave State; and it seemed plain to Republican observers that unless Buchanan were an uncommon man, he would be a tool in their hands, as had been his predecessor.2

Choate and Everett overrated his capacity and firmness. The idea one gets of the Buchanan of 1857 from the faithful story of his life by Curtis is that of a man of fair talents working in a groove, filling many public positions respectably, but none brilliantly. Politically, he was always ready to serve his party and willing to follow other leaders. He never desired to branch off independently. While in Congress he did not show ability as a parliamentary leader, and his nature unfitted him to be a vehement advocate. He was an ordinary Secretary of State; he filled the position of minister to England honorably and discreetly, as have many gentlemen before and since.3 Cold, measured, and
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1 Letter, December 29th, 1856, Curtis, vol. ii. p. 185.
2 See New York Tribune, December 10th, 1856, January 7th, 1857; Pike to Tribune, February 23d, First Blows of the Civil War, p. 363.
3 His great indiscretion was signing the Ostend Manifesto.See Bryant's estimate of Buchanan, letter of January 22d, 1858, Life of Bryant, Godwin, vol. ii. p. 105.

reticent, he acquired a reputation for sagacity because he never committed himself until pushed for an answer.

Yet he was a voluminous letter-writer, and filled pages with platitudes and wearisome repetitions. Decorous in manner, he may fitly be called a gentleman of the old school; but he was not a man of culture. Not a gleam of learning appears in his familiar letters. Spending much time in Europe, enjoying the society of distinguished and educated men, the scientific development of his century and the noble literature of his language were to him sealed books. He was inferior in intelligence and power of reasoning to Jefferson Davis, in statesmanship and parliamentary talent to Douglas, in correctness and vigor of judgment to Marcy, while in decision and force of character he was inferior to them all.1

When Buchanan wrote his inaugural at Wheatland, he was probably wavering between the policy represented by Jefferson Davis and that represented by Everett and Choate, with an inclination towards the latter. When, after coming to Washington, he inserted a clause in his address referring to the expected decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case,2 he may have been still wavering, but the leaning was in the direction of the Southern idea.3

He spoke to the sixty-two electoral votes of the doubtful Northern States when he said that he was convinced that he owed his "election to the inherent love for the Constitution and the Union which still animates the hearts of the American people;" and also when he declared that, "having determined not to become a candidate for re-election, I
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1 See Foote's Casket of Reminiscences, and Forney's Anecdotes of Public Men.
2 Life of Buchanan, Curtis, vol. ii. p. 187.
3 New York Tribune and Times, March 5th, 1857; Pike's First Blows of the Civil War, p. 365.

shall have no motive to influence my conduct in administering the government except the desire ably and faithfully to serve my country, and to live in the grateful memory of my countrymen."

He spoke to the one hundred and twelve electoral votes of the South when he said: "A difference of opinion has arisen in regard to the point of time when the people of a territory shall decide this question [of slavery] for themselves. This is happily a matter of but little practical importance. Besides, it is a judicial question, which legitimately belongs to the Supreme Court of the United States, before whom it is now pending, and will, it is understood, be speedily and finally settled. To their decision, in common with all good citizens, I shall cheerfully submit, whatever this may be, though it has ever been my individual opinion that, under the Kansas-Nebraska act, the appropriate period will be when the number of actual residents in the territory shall justify the formation of a constitution with a view to its admission as a State into the Union."

Buchanan showed astounding complacency when he said: "The whole territorial question being thus settled upon the principle of popular sovereignty—a principle as ancient as free government itself—everything of a practical nature has been decided. . . . May we not, then, hope that the long agitation on this subject [of slavery] is approaching its end, and that the geographical parties to which it has given birth, so much dreaded by the Father of his country, will speedily become extinct?"

Two days after the inauguration the nominations for the cabinet were sent to the Senate. Cass was Secretary of State; Howell Cobb, of Georgia, had the Treasury department; Floyd, whose chief recommendation seemed to be that he belonged to the first families of Virginia, was Secretary of War; Toucey, of Connecticut, whose senatorial term had just expired and whose strong Southern sympathies had debarred him from any further political preferment which was dependent on the popular voice, was made Secretary of the Navy; Thompson, a Mississippi states-rights man, had the Interior department; Brown, of Tennessee, was Postmaster-General; and Jeremiah S. Black, one of the judges of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, a jurist of uncommon talent and a man of vigorous mind, was appointed Attorney-General. The new cabinet was far inferior in capacity to the retiring one.

In point of political ability, Howell Cobb dominated his associates, and it was at once prophesied that he would be the master-spirit of the administration. He was a Unionist in 1850, and deemed by the Northern Whigs "sagacious and conservative."' He was frank and genial; but it remained a question whether he would like the drudgery of the Treasury department, and it was on all sides admitted that it would be difficult for him to equal the brilliant administration of his predecessor, who had been a master of finance.

Only one member of the cabinet could be said to reflect in any way the Northern conservative feeling typified by Everett and Choate, and that was Cass; but he was nearly seventy-five, and was believed to be an indolent man. Moreover, his speeches in the Senate did not promise a safe and judicious conduct of foreign affairs; still, there seems to have been no alarm on this point, for it was understood that Buchanan would be his own Secretary of State, and Cass merely a first assistant. Cass, like Toucey, was a senator repudiated by his own State. The place he had held for two terms was now filled by a Republican, Zachariah Chandler.

Three members of the cabinet were from the free States, and four from the slave States. The Republicans expected nothing for the cause of freedom from such a cabinet, or from a President whose proclivities were shown in their appointment.

Considering that one Democratic President had succeeded
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1 Letter of B. R. Curtis to Geo. Ticknor, February 27th, 1857, Life of B. R. Curtis, vol. i. p. 192.

another, the scramble for office was surprising. In less than two months after the election, the conviction was forced upon Buchanan that the pressure would be nearly as great as if he had succeeded a Whig. Rotation in office was advocated as a true Democratic principle. "I cannot mistake," wrote Buchanan in a private letter, "the strong current of public opinion in favor of changing public functionaries, both abroad and at home, who have served a reasonable time. They say, and that too with considerable force, that if the officers under a preceding Democratic administration shall be continued by a succeeding administration of the same political character, this must necessarily destroy the party." 1

Soon after the inauguration it was evident that Buchanan had committed himself to the principle of rotation in office, and the report went: "The ins look blue, the outs hopeful."2 When an officer was reappointed it was considered an exception, and reasons were given in the press why a change was not made. Marcy was said to have dryly remarked: "They have it that I am the author of the office-seeker's doctrine that 'to the victors belong the spoils,' but I certainly should never recommend the policy of pillaging my own camp."3 Northern Democratic senators were active in urging a distribution of the patronage where it would do them the most good, for the current of Northern opinion admonished them that much management was needed to retain their places.

When the great American question of the century had to be grappled with, Buchanan and his cabinet were devoting their time, strength, and ability to investigating the merits of candidates for postmasters, collectors, and tide-waiters.
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1 Buchanan to John Y. Mason, December 29th, 1856, Curtis, vol. ii. p. 185.
2 Simonton from Washington to New York Times, March 9th. See also the Times, March 13th; the New York Herald of March 9th, 11th, 19th, 23d, and the Tribune of March 28th and April 18th.
3 New York Herald, March 23d.

It would not have been so pitiable had the search been simply to find men of business ability and integrity for the positions; but that was not the problem. How could the interest of the Democratic party in this State or that district best be promoted? What could be done with the patronage in the way of preserving the political life of this Northern senator or that Northern representative? These were the questions put to the President for solution. In a short time, Buchanan, who was the very picture of health when he left Wheatland, looked haggard and worn out, largely on account of the pressure from the hungry horde of office-seekers.1

We have seen in the course of this work many attempts of the national legislature and the executive to settle the slavery question. We have now to consider a grave attempt in the same line by the United States Supreme Court. The reverence for this unique and most powerful judicial tribunal of the world was profound. It is possible that from the time of the decision of the Dartmouth College case to the death of Chief Justice Marshall, the court held a loftier place in public opinion than in 1857; for Marshall was one of the world's great judges, and he had forcibly impressed his wonderful legal mind upon the country's jurisprudence. At that time De Tocqueville had written: In the hands of the Supreme Court "repose unceasingly the peace, the prosperity, the existence even, of the Union."2 But in 1857 the reverence for the Supreme Court was greater than now.3 In much of the political literature of
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1 Buchanan had what was known as the National-Hotel disease, which was the beginning of his physical disability. "The National-Hotel disease, a disorder which, from no cause that we could then discover, had attacked nearly every guest at the house, and from the dire effects of which many never wholly recovered."—Curtis, vol. ii. p. 188, account of J. B. Henry.
2 De la Democratic en Amerique, vol. i. p. 252. See also Lectures on the English People, Freeman, p. 191, and American Commonwealth, Bryce, chap. xxiv. '1892.

the day it is regarded almost as a fetich; it was looked upon as something beyond the pale of ordinary human institutions. When men became Supreme Court judges, they were believed to be no longer actuated by the prejudices and passions of common humanity. During the slavery agitation there had been propositions of various kinds to refer disputed questions to this court, on the theory that there a wholly impartial and severely just decision might be had. The Democrats who disagreed about the construction of the Kansas-Nebraska act concurred in the proposal to leave the question to the highest judicial tribunal.

In 1857, the Supreme Court was composed of Chief Justice Taney, Justices Wayne, Daniel, Catron, Campbell, Democrats from the slave States; Grier and Nelson, Democrats, and McLean, a Republican, and Curtis, a Whig, from the free States. From the importance of their personality, two of these judges deserve special notice.

Chief Justice Taney belonged to one of the old Roman Catholic families of Maryland, and was himself a devout adherent of that religion. A good student of law, he devoted much time to history and letters; and the thoughts, words, and style of great writers had for him a powerful charm. He especially loved Shakespeare and Macaulay. He rose to eminence at the Maryland bar; he was an untiring worker, and allowed nothing to distract him from his professional duties and domestic life. Of a passionate nature, he had very decided political opinions. President Jackson appointed him Attorney-General, and he soon became the President's trusted and confidential adviser. When Duane, the Secretary of the Treasury, refused to withdraw the government deposits from the United States Bank, Jackson removed him and put Taney in his place. Taney understood banking and finance, and, being a man after Jackson's own heart, supported the President unreservedly in his war against the bank. The Senate refused to confirm Taney as Secretary of the Treasury, and Jackson appointed him Justice of the Supreme Court. Chief Justice Marshall, though
disliking the President and his policy, had a good opinion of Taney's legal ability, and made an effort to secure his confirmation; but action on his nomination was indefinitely postponed. In July, 1835, Marshall died, and Jackson appointed Taney Chief Justice. As the political complexion of the Senate had changed, he did not fail of confirmation, although he had for opponents Webster and Clay.

To fill the place of Chief Justice Marshall was a difficult task, and Taney suffered continually by comparison with his great predecessor; yet as the years went on, he gained solid reputation by accurate knowledge of law, clearness of thought, and absolute purity of life. His written opinions are characterized by vigor of style, reflecting the hours he passed with the masters of our literature.1

Curtis had the rich New England culture. By nature a lawyer, he had received at the Harvard law school, sitting at the feet of Judge Story, the training which those who thirsted for legal knowledge could acquire from the instructions of such a teacher. He was thoroughly read in English history. He owed his appointment as justice to Webster, who, when Secretary of State, recommended him most highly to President Fillmore.2 Curtis was an absolutely impartial judge. His reasoning was clear to laymen and a delight to lawyers. Though his style was a model of compression, he never forgot a point nor failed to be perspicuous. His course on the bench was a fine testimonial to the choice of Webster, whom New England lawyers regarded as the master of their profession. 3 In the Dred Scott case the opposing principles of slavery and freedom came sharply into conflict in the judicial opinions
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1 See Memoir of R. B. Taney, Tyler; Sumner's Jackson.
2 Fillmore had also formed a very high opinion of Curtis, see correspondence between Fillmore and Webster, Life of Webster, Curtis, vol. ii. p. 531.
3 See Life and Writings of B. R. Curtis; Life of R. H. Dana, by C. F. Adams, vol. ii.

of Taney and Curtis. The negro Dred Scott had several years previously sued for the freedom of himself and family, and the case came up to the Supreme Court in a regular way. The detailed history of the affair has for our purpose no importance; it went through various stages, and many collateral points were involved. While the freedom or slavery of four negroes was at stake, the interest in their fate is completely overshadowed by the importance of the questions to which the suit gave rise. As a matter of fact, Dred Scott, after being remanded to slavery by the Supreme Court, was emancipated by his master;' but he had served as a text for weighty constitutional and political arguments.

Standing out beyond the merits of the case and all other points involved, two questions of vast importance were suggested by the facts. Could a negro whose ancestors had been sold as slaves become a citizen of one of the States of the Union? For if Dred Scott were not a citizen of Missouri, where he had mostly lived, he had no standing in the United States Court.

The second question, Was the Missouri Compromise constitutional? came up in this manner. Dred Scott had been taken by his master, an army surgeon, to Fort Snelling, which was in the northern part of the Louisiana territory, now Minnesota, and had remained there for a period of about two years. In this territory slavery was forever prohibited by the Missouri Compromise, and the counsel for Dred Scott maintained that by virtue of the restriction, residence there conferred freedom on the slave. Thus might arise the question, Was the Missouri Compromise constitutional? and this carried with it the more practical question, Had Congress the power to prohibit slavery in the territories? On the basis of the assertion of this power, the
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1 See Seward's speech, United States Senate, March 3d, 1858. By inheritance Dred Scott became the slave of the family of a Massachusetts congressman, who emancipated him, his wife, and daughters. See History of Lincoln, Nicolay and Hay, vol. ii. p. 81, note.

Republican party was builded; and if this power did not inhere in Congress, the Republican party had constitutionally no reason for existence.

The case was first argued in the spring of 1856. Justice Curtis wrote Ticknor, April 8th, the result of the conferences of the judges: "The court will not decide the question of the Missouri-Compromise line—a majority of the judges being of opinion that it is not necessary to do so. (This is confidential.) The one engrossing subject in both houses of Congress, and with all the members, is the presidency; and upon this everything done and omitted, except the most ordinary necessities of the country, depends." 1

At the term of court, December, 1856, the case was reargued, and the counsel discussed all the questions involved. Still, the judges decided to view the matter only in its narrow aspect, and in its particular bearing on the status of Dred Scott and his family. To Justice Nelson, of New York, was assigned the duty of writing the opinion of the court. He astutely evaded the determination whether the Missouri Compromise act was constitutional; nor did he consider it necessary to pass upon the citizenship of the negro, but in arguing the case on its merits the decision was reached that Dred Scott was still a slave. Had this been the conclusion of the matter, the Dred Scott case would have excited little interest at the time, and would hardly have demanded more than the briefest notice from the historian.

But there now began a pressure on the Southern judges, who constituted a majority of the court, to decide the weighty constitutional question involved in the case. The unceasing inculcation of Calhoun's doctrine regarding slavery in the territories had now brought Southern Democrats, and among them the five Southern judges, round to that notion. Of course the pressure was adroit and considerate, for the judges were honest men impressed with the dignity of their position. The aim was simply to induce
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1 Memoir of B. R. Curtis, vol. I .p. 180.

them to promulgate officially what they privately thought. It is a tradition that Justice Campbell held back. This is to a certain degree confirmed by a letter of his written long after the event;1 but if three Southern judges were decidedly in favor of pronouncing a judgment on the constitutional question, it needed only to gain the chief justice to carry along with them Campbell, and perhaps the two Democratic judges from the North. Before the Dred Scott decision was pronounced, Taney, both in character and ability, stood much higher than any other member of the court.

The chief justice was gained. The bait held out to his patriotic soul was that the court had the power and opportunity of settling the slavery question. He had now nearly reached the age of eighty, and, had he been younger, he might have detected the flaws in the reasoning which led him to so decided a position. "Our aged chief justice," wrote Curtis, February 27th, 1857, in a private letter, "grows more feeble in body, but retains his alacrity and force of mind wonderfully," though he "is not able to write much."2 Certainly the Dred Scott opinion of Taney shows no weakness of memory or abated power of reasoning; but it may have been that age had enfeebled the will and made him more susceptible to influences that were brought to bear upon him.

Before Justice Nelson read his opinion in conference, Justice Wayne, of Georgia, at a meeting of the judges, stated that the case had excited public interest, and that it was expected that the points discussed by counsel would be considered by the court. He therefore moved that the chief justice should "write an opinion on all of the questions as the opinion of the court."3 This was agreed to, but some of the judges reserved the privilege of qualifying their
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1 See Memoir of Taney, Tyler, p. 382.
2 Curtis to Ticknor, Memoir, vol. i. p. 192.
3 Letter of Justice Campbell, Memoir of Taney, Tyler, p. 382.

assent. Justice Wayne had worked industriously to bring this about, and his efforts had an important influence in persuading the chief justice, and Judges Grier, of Pennsylvania, and Catron, of Tennessee, of the expediency of such a course.1 This determination, though shrouded in the secrecy of Supreme Court consultations, leaked out. Reverdy Johnson, whose constitutional argument had a profound influence on Taney, made his plea December 18th, 1856, and on New Year's Day of 1857, Alexander Stephens wrote to his brother: "The decision [of the Dred Scott case] will be a marked epoch in our history. I feel a deep solicitude as to how it will be. From what I hear, sub rosa, it will be according to my own opinion on every point, as abstract political questions. The restriction of 1820 will be held to be unconstitutional. The judges are all writing out their opinions, I believe, seriatim. The chief justice will give an elaborate one."2 On the 5th of January, Pike wrote the New York Tribune that the rumor was current in Washington that the Supreme Court had decided that Congress had no constitutional power to prohibit slavery in the territories. 3

Two days after the inauguration of Buchanan, Chief Justice Taney delivered the opinion of the court. He stated that one of the questions to be decided was: "Can a negro whose ancestors were imported into this country and sold as slaves become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights and privileges and immunities guaranteed by that instrument to the citizen?" The answer is no. Negroes "were not intended to be included under the word ' citizens'
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1 Memoir of B. R. Curtis, vol. i. p. 206; see also letter of Campbell just cited, and opinion of Justice Wayne; also Pike's First Blows of the Civil War, p. 352.
2 Life of Stephens, Johnston and Browne, p. 318; Stephens was a disciple of Calhoun.
3 Pike's First Blows of the Civil War, p. 355.

in the Constitution, and therefore can claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to the citizens of the United States." Moreover, "In the opinion of the court, the legislation and histories of the times, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument.

"It is difficult, at this day, to realize the state of public opinion in relation to that unfortunate race which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution was framed and adopted. But the public history of every European nation displays it in a manner too plain to be mistaken.

"They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect, and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever a profit could be made by it. The opinion was at that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race. It was regarded as an axiom in morals as well as in politics, which no one thought of disputing, or supposed to be open to dispute; and men in every grade and position in society daily and habitually acted upon it in their private pursuits, as well as in matters of public concern, without doubting for a moment the correctness of this opinion."

Citing the famous clause of the Declaration of Independence which asserted "that all men are created equal," the chief justice said: "The general words above quoted would seem to embrace the whole human family, and if they were used in a similar instrument at this day would be so understood. But it is too clear for dispute that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration."

The chief justice put the other constitutional question plainly: Was Congress authorized to pass the Missouri Compromise act "under any of the powers granted to it by the Constitution?" The Louisiana territory " was acquired by the general government, as the representative and trustee of the people of the United States, and it must therefore be held in that character for their common and equal benefit. .. . It seems, however, to be supposed that there is a difference between property in a slave and other property, and that different rules may be applied to it in expounding the Constitution of the United States." But "the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution. . . . And no word can be found in the Constitution which gives Congress a greater power over slave property, or which entitles property of that kind to less protection than property of any other description." It is the opinion of the court, therefore, that the Missouri Compromise act "is not warranted by the Constitution, and is therefore void."

All of the judges read opinions. The four Southern judges and Grier distinctly agreed with the chief justice that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional; and they concurred sufficiently in the other points to constitute his conclusions the opinion of the court, as it was officially called. It thus received the assent of two-thirds of the judges. Justice Nelson read the opinion he had prepared when it was decided to confine the judgment of the court to the merits of the case, while Justices McLean and Curtis dissented from the determination of the court. As Curtis covered more fully and cogently the ground, we have now to consider his opinion.

"I dissent," he began, "from the opinion pronounced by the chief justice. . . . The question is, whether any person of African descent whose ancestors were sold as slaves in the United States can be a citizen of the United States. . . . One mode of approaching this question is to inquire who were citizens of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution.

"Citizens of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution can have been no other than citizens of the United States under the confederation. ... It may safely be said that the citizens of the several States were citizens of the United States under the confederation. . . . To determine whether any free persons descended from Africans held in slavery were citizens of the United States under the confederation, and consequently at the time of the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, it is only necessary to know whether any such persons were citizens of either of the States under the confederation at the time of the adoption of the Constitution.

"Of this there can be no doubt. At the time of the ratification of the Articles of Confederation, all free native-born inhabitants of the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and North Carolina, though descended from African slaves, were not only citizens of those States, but such of them as had the other necessary qualifications possessed the franchise of electors, on equal terms with other citizens. ... I shall not enter into an examination of the existing opinions of that period respecting the African race, nor into any discussion concerning the meaning of those who asserted in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. My own opinion is that a calm comparison of these assertions of universal abstract truths, and of their own individual opinions and acts, would not leave these men under any reproach of inconsistency; that the great truths they asserted on that solemn occasion they were ready and anxious to make effectual whenever a necessary regard to circumstances, which no statesman can disregard without producing more evil than good, would allow; and that it would not be just to them, nor true in itself, to allege that they intended to say that the Creator of all men had endowed the white race exclusively with the great natural rights which the Declaration of Independence asserts. But this is not the place to vindicate their memory. As I conceive, we should deal here . . . with those substantial facts evinced by the written constitutions of States, and by notorious practice under them. And they show, in a manner which no argument can obscure, that in some of the original thirteen States free colored persons, before and at the time of the formation of the Constitution, were citizens of those States." Therefore, " my opinion is that under the Constitution of the United States every free person born on the soil of a State, who is a citizen of that State by force of its constitution or laws, is also a citizen of the United States."

In considering the power of Congress to prohibit slavery in the territories, Justice Curtis cited "eight distinct instances, beginning with the first Congress, and coming down to the year 1848, in which Congress has excluded slavery from the territory of the United States; and six distinct instances in which Congress organized governments of territories by which slavery was recognized and continued, beginning also with the first Congress and coming down to the year 1822. These acts were severally signed by seven Presidents of the United States, beginning with General Washington and coming regularly down as far as John Quincy Adams, thus including all who were in public life when the Constitution was adopted.

"If the practical construction of the Constitution, contemporaneously with its going into effect, by men intimately acquainted with its history from their personal participation in framing and adopting it, and continued by them through a long series of acts of the gravest importance, be entitled to weight in the judicial mind on a question of construction, it would seem to be difficult to resist the force of the acts above adverted to."

Furthermore, "Slavery, being contrary to natural right, is created only by municipal law." Then, "Is it conceivable that the Constitution has conferred the right on every citizen to become a resident on the territory of the United States with his slaves, and there to hold them as such, but has neither made nor provided for any municipal regulations which are essential to the existence of slavery? . . . Whatever theoretical importance may be now supposed to belong to the maintenance of such a right, I feel a perfect conviction that it would, if ever tried, prove to be as impracticable in fact as it is, in my judgment, monstrous in theory."

Every possible phase of this question was considered by Justice Curtis, and the conclusion arrived at was that the acts of Congress which had prohibited slavery in the territories, including of course the Missouri Compromise," were constitutional and valid laws."

That a man of the years of Taney could construct so vigorous and so plausible an argument was less remarkable than that a humane Christian man could assert publicly such a monstrous theory. Yet such work was demanded by slavery of her votaries. The opinion of Taney was but the doctrine of Calhoun, announced for the first time in 1847,' and now embodied in a judicial decision. As the North grew faster than the South, as freedom was stronger than slavery, it was the only tenable theory on which slavery could be extended. It is a striking historical fact that in but thirteen years of our history, from 1847 to 1860, could such an opinion have been delivered from the Supreme bench. Only by the conviction that slavery was being pushed to the wall, in conjunction with subtle reasoning like that of Calhoun, who tried to obstruct the onward
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1 See Vol. I. p. 94.

march of the century by a fine-spun theory, could a sentiment have been created which found expression in this opinion of Taney, outraging as it did precedent, history, and justice.

That Taney committed a grievous fault is certain. He is not to be blamed for embracing the political notions of John C. Calhoun; his environment gave that shape to his thoughts; but he does deserve censure because he allowed himself to make a political argument, when only a judicial decision was called for. The history of the case shows that there was no necessity for passing upon the two questions we have considered at length. Nothing but an imperative need should have led judges, by their training and position presumably conservative, to unsettle a question that had so long been acquiesced in. The strength of a constitutional government lies in the respect paid to settled questions. For the judiciary to weaken that respect undermines the very foundations of the State. As Douglas sinned as a statesman, so Taney sinned as judge; and while patriotism and not self-seeking impelled him, the better motive does not excuse the chief justice; for much is demanded from the man who holds that high office. Posterity must condemn Taney as unqualifiedly as Douglas.1
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1 The whole argument of Taney and Curtis on the two points I have made prominent are really a part of constitutional history. All the opinions were in 1857 printed by Howard in convenient pamphlet form, taken verbatim from his reports. The Memoir of Taney by Tyler, and the Memoir of B. R. Curtis by G. T. Curtis, are simply invaluable in a study of this subject. That of G. T. Curtis has an added interest, as he was the counsel for Dred Scott who made the constitutional argument. He is, moreover, able to consider the subject from the point of view of the historian as well as the lawyer. Interest in this decision has been recently revived by a discussion of it in the New York Nation for April 7th and April 21st, 1892. It called attention to Governor Andrew's analysis of the decision, and in the issue of April 21st gave an extract from his speech. This speech, which was delivered in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, March 5th, 1858, may be found in full in The Liberator, March 26th, 1858.

It is probable that Taney in his inmost heart regretted the part he had been made to play, when he saw that his opinion, instead of allaying the slavery agitation, gave it renewed force. The acerbity displayed in his subsequent correspondence with Justice Curtis grates the heart: they are extraordinary letters from a gentleman of high breeding to one with whom he had held friendly and official relations; and it is reasonable to suppose that while Taney bated not a jot of his convictions, he was vexed that he had descended from his high place to no good purpose, and annoyed that so many eminent lawyers thought his argument had been crushed by the rejoinder of Curtis.1

If Taney spoke for Calhoun, Curtis spoke for Webster. He had on his side common-sense and justice, even as had his master when disputing with Calhoun. If Taney furnished arguments for the Democrats, Curtis showed that the aim of the Republicans was constitutional. It was a profound remark of Dana on the death of Webster that "he had done more than any living statesman to establish the true Free-soil doctrines." 2

Pike wrote to the New York Tribune that the Supreme Court of the United States "has abdicated its just functions and descended into the political arena. It has sullied its ermine; it has draggled and polluted its garments in the filth of pro-slavery politics." The opinion of the chief justice deserves "no more respect than any pro-slavery stump-speech made during the late presidential canvass."3 Rhetoric of this sort made a stirring newspaper letter, and appealed to the radical spirits of the Republican party; but the leaders knew that this opinion of the court was a fact of
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1 See Memoir of B. R. Curtis, vol. i. p. 211 et seq. Compare the letter of Taney to Curtis, November 3d, 1855, Tyler's Taney, p. 327, with the cavalier manner in which he receives the letter announcing Curtis's resignation, September 7th, 1857, Memoir of B. R. Curtis, vol. i. p. 254.
2 Life of R. H. Dana, C. F. Adams, vol. i. p. 223.
3 Pike's First Blows of the Civil War, pp. 368, 370.

tremendous import, and must be met by argument and not by declamation. If the opinion of the court were binding on the country, the Republican party must dissolve or give up its fundamental principle, for it was laboring in an unconstitutional manner. How, then, could the reverence of the Northern people for the highest judicial tribunal be reconciled with a disregard of this opinion? Fortunately, Justice Curtis rose to the height of the situation, and in his opinion gave the key-note to the constitutional argument against the opinion of the court being in any way binding on the political consciences of the people. After mentioning the technical steps by which the court reached the question of the power of Congress to pass the Missouri Compromise act, Curtis said: "On so grave a subject as this, I feel obliged to say that, in my opinion, such an exertion of judicial power transcends the limits of the authority of the court, as described by its repeated decisions, and, as I understand, acknowledged in this opinion of the majority of the court. ... I do not consider it to be within the scope of the judicial power of the majority of the court to pass upon any question respecting the plaintiff's citizenship in Missouri, save that raised by the plea to the jurisdiction; and I do not hold any opinion of this court or any court binding when expressed on a question not legitimately before it. The judgment of this court is that the case is to be dismissed for want of jurisdiction, because the plaintiff was not a citizen of Missouri, as he alleged in his declaration. Into that judgment, according to the settled course of this court, nothing appearing after a plea to the merits can enter. A great question of constitutional law, deeply affecting the peace and welfare of the country, is not, in my opinion, a fit subject to be thus reached."

Not Republicans alone saw the matter in this light under the guidance of so earnest and able a jurist. Fillmore wrote Curtis that his arguments were unanswerable;1 and
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1 Memoir of B. R. Curtis, vol. i. p. 251.

undoubtedly nearly every Northern man who had voted for Fillmore agreed with his chief.

The Southern Democrats were in high glee at the decision. "What are you going to do about it?" they tauntingly asked of the Republicans;1 and they went to work circulating the opinion of the court as a campaign document. Twenty thousand copies of the opinions of the judges were printed by order of the Democratic Senate. When the Republicans saw clearly their proper course, they vied with the Democrats in giving wide currency to the action of the court. One of their important campaign documents contained the full opinions of Taney and Curtis, and abstracts of the others.2 People always desire to summarize a long political paper, and Taney's opinion was soon condensed into the aphorism that "negroes had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." This was not fair to Taney, but the dissemination of the saying as the dictum of the court was a most effective weapon in the North against slavery, and had much to do with deepening Northern sentiment in opposition to it.

Douglas soon spoke for the Northern Democrats.3 He emphatically endorsed the decision of the court, lauded the characters of Taney and the associate judges, and maintained that " whoever resists the final decision of the highest judicial tribunal aims a deadly blow to our whole republican system of government."

It was perfectly plain to Southern Democrats and Republicans that this decision shattered the doctrine of popular sovereignty; for if Congress could not prohibit slavery in a territory, how could it be done by a territorial legislature, which was but a creature of Congress? And as, according
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1 See Pike's First Blows of the Civil War.
2 This was published by the New York Tribune.
3 At Springfield, Illinois, at the request of the United States Grand Jury, June 12th. This speech was published in the New York Times of June 23d, but is not inserted in any of the three biographies of Douglas.

to the decision, slaves were property the same as horses and mules, the Southern emigrant to Kansas had the same right to take his negroes there that the Northern emigrant had to take his live-stock. Both alike claimed the protection of the general government; and if emigration went on under these conditions, the territory was liable to be slave territory before the people could in any manner be called upon to determine the question. A less adroit man than Douglas would have been daunted, but he boldly asserted that the Dred Scott decision and his popular-sovereignty doctrine were entirely consistent. While the master's right to his slave in a territory, he said, "continues in full force under the guarantees of the Constitution, and cannot be divested or alienated by an act of Congress, it necessarily remains a barren and a worthless right, unless sustained, protected, and enforced by appropriate police regulations and local legislation, prescribing adequate remedies for its violation. These regulations and remedies must necessarily depend entirely upon the will and wishes of the people of the territory, as they can only be prescribed by the local legislatures. Hence the great principle of popular sovereignty and self-government is sustained and firmly established by the authority of this decision."

This attempted reconciliation of two irreconcilable principles must have provoked a smile from Southern Democrats and Republicans. But at the North, Douglas had been steadily gaining in popularity since January 1st, 1856; and as he was a consummate party leader, he was nearing the point where he only had to make a daring assertion to have it echoed by his many satellites and believed in by his followers, who were practically the Democratic party of the North. While he was ordinarily verbose, he cared not to dwell on this point; he passed at once to other points of the decision which he could sincerely advocate. He could not resist referring in a triumphant tone to the fact that the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, for which he had been so much abused, had now turned out to be simply the abrogation of a statute constitutionally null and void.

The reasoning of Taney in regard to the citizenship of the negro was amplified by Douglas in the manner that gave the key-note to his followers. Read at this day, Taney's argument impresses one with its power. It is inhuman. It was effectually refuted. But it was a great piece of specious reasoning, and, translated by Douglas into the language of the stump, it made the staple argument of Northern Democrats from this time to the war. We have seen the course of opinion at the South—how slavery, from having been regarded an abstract evil, came to be looked upon as a positive good. Opinion among the Northern Democrats went through a similar evolution, for the evil was first endured, then pitied, and now embraced. With the approval of the principles of the Dred Scott decision, the last step was taken. Because the negro was inferior to the white man, the Northern Democrats now argued, slavery was his fit condition. This sentiment shows itself in the press, in the friendly discussion at the village store and by the fireside. The Northern Democrats of 1840 to 1850 thought slavery an evil in the abstract; there were even devoted partisans who had conscientious scruples about supporting Polk because he was a slave-holder. Many of these same men were now gravitating to the point of thinking that a favor was done the negro when he was reduced to slavery. This argument, while not unknown in Northern Democratic literature before 1857, becomes prominent after the publication of the Dred Scott decision. Taney's opinion was swallowed by the followers of Douglas, and everywhere reproduced and paraphrased. It was the Kansas-Nebraska act and the Dred Scott opinion which made the national Democrats a pro-slavery party.

Douglas was not left unanswered. Two weeks later Abraham Lincoln, his Illinois rival, then much less widely known, an inferior orator, yet with a greater gift of expression, made a reply. This speech, which was published in the East,1 states the Republican position in a manner to carry conviction to those who could only be influenced by homely arguments, and at the same time its reasoning strikes the historical student with great force. It therefore deserves more than a passing notice. Who resists the decision? Lincoln asked. "Who has, in spite of the decision, declared Dred Scott free, and resisted the authority of his master over him? . . . But we think the Dred Scott decision is erroneous. We know the court that made it has often overruled its own decisions, and we shall do what we can to have it overrule this. We offer no resistance to it." The condition of the black man, Lincoln asserted, is worse now than at the time of the Declaration of Independence and the adoption of the Constitution. "In those days our Declaration of Independence was held sacred by all, and thought to include all; but now, to aid in making the bondage of the negro universal and eternal, it is assailed and sneered at, and construed and hawked at and torn, till, if its framers could rise from their graves, they could not at all recognize it. All the powers of the earth seem rapidly combining against him [the negro]. Mammon is after him, ambition follows, philosophy follows, and the theology of the day is fast joining the cry. . . . There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of an indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races; and Judge Douglas . . . makes an occasion for lugging it in from the opposition to the Dred Scott decision. He finds the Republicans insisting that the Declaration of Independence includes all men, black as well as white, and forthwith he boldly denies that it includes negroes at all, and proceeds to argue gravely that all who contend it does, do so only because they want to vote, and eat, and sleep, and marry with the negroes! . . . Now, I protest against the counterfeit logic which concludes that, because I do not want a black woman for a slave, I must necessarily
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1 In the New York Times, July 7th. It was delivered June 26th. It is printed in the Life of Lincoln by W. D. Howells, p. 170.

want her for a wife. I need not have her for either; I can just leave her alone. In some respects she is certainly not my equal; but in her natural right to eat the bread she earns with her own hands, without asking leave of any one else, she is my equal, and the equal of all others.1

One widespread charge in reference to the Dred Scott decision must be spoken of. In 1858, it was given the stamp of approval by Seward and Lincoln, who had then become the two leaders of the Republican party. Seward said in the Senate, March 3d: "Before coming into office, Buchanan approached, or was approached by, the Supreme Court of the United States. . . . The court did not hesitate to please the incoming President by . . . pronouncing an opinion that the Missouri prohibition was void. . . . The day of inauguration came—the first one among all the celebrations of that great national pageant that was to be desecrated by a coalition between the executive and judicial departments, to undermine the national legislature and the liberties of the people." The people were "unaware of the import of the whisperings carried on between the President and the chief justice." The President "announced (vaguely indeed, but with self-satisfaction) the forthcoming extrajudicial exposition of the Constitution, and pledged his submission to it as authoritative and final. The chief justice and his associates remained silent.'2 The only evidence for the charge of Seward lay in the statement of the President in his inaugural, that the question as to the time when people of a territory might exclude slavery therefrom was pending before the Supreme Court, and would be speedily settled.3 Undoubtedly Buchanan then knew what would be substantially the decision of the court on the territorial question, but so did a thousand other men. The clause in the inaugural which gave rise to this charge was not
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1 Much more copious extracts from this able speech may be found in Nicolay and Hay's History, vol. ii. chap. v.
2 Seward's Works, vol. iv. p. 585 et seq.
3 See p. 245.

inserted until he arrived at Washington.1 He reached Washington March 2d, and on that day might have read in the New York Tribune: "We learn from trustworthy sources that the Supreme Court of the United States, in the Dred Scott case, will, by a large majority, sustain the extreme Southern ground, denying the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise. Probably Judges Curtis and McLean will alone dissent."

An editorial article, however carefully written, is of course not absolute historical evidence, but in this case it confirms the notion we might get from the history of the decision as previously related. Other Supreme Court decisions have leaked out. Judges have confidential friends; and the truth is sometimes told by the pronouncing of some doubtful phrase or by an ambiguous giving-out. But however Buchanan got his intelligence, his character and that of Taney are proof that the chief justice did not communicate the import of the decision to the President-elect. That either would stoop from the etiquette of his high office is an idea that may not be entertained for a moment; and we may be sure that with Taney's lofty notions of what belonged to an independent judiciary, he would have no intercourse with the executive that could not brook the light of day. 2

If any one used personal influence with Taney, it was Reverdy Johnson, who had argued the constitutional question on the pro-slavery side. His argument undoubtedly had great weight; and his social relations with Taney were such that his views could be enforced in private conversation.3 If persuasion of that kind were used, it was probably
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1 See Life of Buchanan, Curtis, vol. ii. p. 187.
2 For Buchanan's remarks as to this charge see Curtis, vol. ii. p. 207, note.
3 See remarks of George T. Curtis on the death of Reverdy Johnson, Proceedings of the Bench and Bar in memoriam, p. 12. Pike wrote to the Tribune, speaking of Reverdy Johnson: "No man is so intimate with, and no man possesses so much influence over, the chief justice as he." Ex-Senator Bradbury told me that the current idea among Northern Democrats in 1857 was that it was Johnson who induced Taney to give the political decision.

in the way of urging the chief justice to give to the country, in the form of a Supreme Court decision, political views cordially agreed on by Taney and Johnson; and it must be admitted as unlikely that such arguments would have prevailed had not the Democrats been successful at the presidential election.

Taney was so incensed at the speech of Seward that he told Tyler, who was afterwards his biographer, that had Seward been nominated and elected President in 1860 instead of Lincoln, he would have refused to administer to him the oath of office.1

The contrast between Seward and Lincoln may be seen in their different treatment of this matter. The tact of Lincoln is shown in making the charge by intimation and by trenchant questions; then, with humor and exquisite skill, giving a homely illustration which struck the popular mind so forcibly that the notion conveyed by it undoubtedly became the belief of the Republican masses as long as the Dred Scott decision remained a question of politics.

"When we see a lot of framed timbers," said he, "different portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and places and by different workmen—Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James, for instance'—and when we see these timbers joined together and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortices exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too many or too few, not omitting even scaffolding—or if a single piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such
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1 Tyler's Taney, p. 891.
2 Stephen A. Douglas, Franklin Pierce, Roger B. Taney, James Buchanan.

piece in—in such a case, we find it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn up before the first blow was struck."1

As politics go, the argument of Lincoln was perhaps allowable. Submission to the decision of the Supreme Court, that august body reverenced by all, the department of the government which is the balance-wheel, was urged by Douglas and all Democratic orators with great force. The escape suggested by Justice Curtis was sufficient for the most intelligent voters; but the line drawn was technical, and something that could better be laid hold of seemed needed to influence the mass of the party. For all the Republicans of 1857 and 1858 required satisfying reasons, and the charge of conspiracy between the governmental departments seemed well adapted for the purpose.

While the Dred Scott decision gave a theoretical basis to slavery in the territories, it did not settle the Kansas question. But a movement of the pro-slavery party was in progress to form a State government. Instructed by the vote of those who took part in the election of October, 1856, the territorial legislature had fixed upon the third Monday of June, 1857, as the day for the election of delegates to a constitutional convention. Impressed with the importance of Kansas affairs, Buchanan asked Robert J. Walker to take the position of governor. Walker in talent and reputation was far above the ordinary level of the territorial governor. He had been senator, and as Secretary of the Treasury had practically framed the tariff act of 1846; he had, moreover, been urged upon
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1 Speech at Springfield, June 16th, 1858, Lincoln and Douglas Debates, p. 3. Douglas was not present when this speech was made, but afterwards during the Lincoln-Douglas debates he several times emphatically denied the charge of conspiracy between Taney, Pierce, Buchanan, and himself. This charge was indeed unsupported by evidence, and was only suggested by a striking coincidence of events.

Buchanan for the Treasury department.1 He was born in Pennsylvania, but had long been a resident of Mississippi.

"It was long before I would agree to go to Kansas," Walker afterwards said. "I refused two or three times verbally and once in writing." 2 But the President insisted, and brought every possible influence to bear upon him to change his determination. Douglas earnestly and excitedly urged him to go to Kansas. At last he said he would go, provided his wife would withdraw her objections. To secure her consent, the President called upon her, argued that peculiar reasons pointed to Walker as the best fitted man in the country to pacify Kansas, and succeeded in convincing her that patriotic duty demanded that he should accept the mission. He furthermore made the condition that there should be a perfect concurrence between the President and himself in regard to the policy to be adopted in Kansas; and, without doubt for the purpose of knowing what would satisfy the Republicans, he had, before he left Washington, a private conference with Seward.3 In Walker's judgment, the true construction of the Kansas-Nebraska act required the submission to the people of any constitution that might be framed, and in this opinion the agreement of Buchanan was unequivocal.4 Another condition made was that General Harney should be sent there to take command of the troops.5

Walker had a fit coadjutor. The President appointed as secretary of the territory, Frederick P. Stanton, of Tennessee, a man of character, ability, and decision, "of persuasive
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1 See Life of Dix, vol. i. p. 322.
2 Testimony before the Covode committee, see their Report, p. 105.
3 Seward to his son, Life, vol. ii. p. 299. He also wrote: "Walker sees his way through the governorship of Kansas to the Senate, and through the Senate to the presidency."
4 Testimony before the Covode Committee, Report, pp. 105, 106; see also letter of Walker to Cass, December 15th, 1857, Senate Documents 1st Session 35th Congress, vol. i. p. 122; Speech of Douglas, Milwaukee, October 13th, 1860.
5 Walker to Cass, July 15th.

address but honest ambition."1 He had had ten years' experience of public life, having been for that time a representative in Congress.

Stanton was able to reach Kansas before his chief, and he found awaiting him the important duty of making the apportionment of delegates to the constitutional convention. The census and registration had been unfair and defective; in more than half of the counties there was no registration. This perplexed him, but after carefully considering the matter, in the brief time the law allowed him, he came to the conclusion that he had no choice but to apportion the delegates to the several counties on the returns which had been made.2 This action irritated the free-State party.

Walker arrived in Kansas May 26th, and published his inaugural the next day. It was the address of a fair-minded but partisan Democrat. It had been submitted to Buchanan and Douglas, and was approved by both.3 Walker would have been glad to see Kansas a slave State; but, on looking over the ground, he saw that this end could not be attained by fair means. As a result of all the effort, there were now but two or three hundred slaves in the territory. Since its certain destiny seemed to be that of a free State, he was anxious that it should be Democratic, and towards that end he bent his energies.4 The emigration from the free States had been large this spring;5 he estimated that there were in the territory nine thousand free-State Democrats, eight thousand Republicans, six thousand five hundred pro slavery Democrats, five hundred pro slavery
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1 Seward, Senate speech, March 3d, 1858.
2 See address of Stanton, Publications of Kansas Hist. Soc, vol. i. p. 149; Spring's Kansas, p. 212.
3 Walker's testimony, Covode Committee Report, p. 106; Constitutional and Party Questions, Cutts, p. Ill; Speech of Douglas, Milwaukee, October 13th, 1860.
4 Walker to Cass, July 15th, Senate Documents 1st Seas. 35th Congress, vol. L p. 26; Covode Committee Report, p. 107.
5 New York Tribune, March 28th and April 18th.

Know-nothings;1 and his aim was to bring about a concert of action between the two Democratic factions, but this could only be done on the basis of making Kansas a free State. In his inaugural, he had urged all citizens to take part in the coming election, and at Topeka, when making a manly speech, he replied to the question what he would do should the forthcoming convention refuse to submit the constitution to the people. "I will join you, fellow-citizens," he said, "in opposition to their course. And I doubt not that one much higher than I, the chief magistrate of the Union, will join you." 2

But the free-State party were not reassured. They declined to participate in the election of June 15th for delegates to the constitutional convention. Out of nine thousand two hundred and fifty-one registered voters, which was less than one-half of the actual number, only two thousand two hundred persons took part in choosing delegates to the notorious Lecompton convention. 3

By July, Walker found that a Kansas governor had to tread a thorny path. While making an impression on free-State Democrats, and leading some moderate Republicans to see that he desired to measure out justice, the radicals under the lead of Lane threatened mischief at Lawrence. Trouble, however, was avoided by the promptness with which the governor collected troops in the neighborhood of the city, and at the close of his official career he had the satisfaction of writing that not a drop of blood had been shed by the federal troops during his administration.4

The proclamation which he issued to the people of Lawrence increased the already prevailing tendency towards a
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1 Private letter of Walker to Buchanan, Covode Committee Report, p. 115.
2 This speech was made June 6th, Spring's Kansas, p. 213; Walker to Cass, July 15th, 1857.
3 See Stanton's message of December 8th.
4 Walker to Cass, December 15th.

division in the Republican ranks. Senator Wilson had visited Kansas and urged the policy of voting at the October election for members of the territorial legislature, and the larger faction of Republicans under the lead of Robinson were beginning to see the wisdom of such a course.1

At the same time, Walker's policy of equal and exact justice brought upon him the extreme displeasure of the active politicians of the Southern States. While professing that he was not disturbed by these assaults, his frequent mention of them in his despatches shows that they greatly annoyed him, especially because they threatened to prevent the union between the two Democratic factions he was so anxious to bring about.2 One newspaper said he had "delivered Kansas into the hands of the abolitionists."3 Another emphatically demanded his removal in the name of the South.4 Leading politicians of South Carolina, Georgia, and Mississippi, among whom Jefferson Davis and Senator Brown were prominent, denounced him in unmeasured terms, and some of them went so far as to censure the President for having appointed him;5 and the Democratic State conventions of Georgia and Mississippi criticised his course in strong resolutions.6

Still, Buchanan stood by Walker. On the 12th of July he wrote privately to the governor: "On the question of submitting the Constitution to the bone-fide resident settlers of Kansas, I am willing to stand or fall. In sustaining such a principle we cannot fall. It is the principle of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, the principle of popular sovereignty, and the principle at the foundation of all popular government. The more it is discussed, the stronger it will become. Should the
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1 Senate Documents, 1st Session 35th Congress, vol. i. pp. 43, 46; Wilson's Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, vol. ii. p. 537; Stanton's Address, Pub. Kansas Hist. Soc, vol. i. p. 164; Spring's Kansas, p. 215.
2 See his despatches to Cass of July 15th, 20th, and August 3d.
3 Richmond South, cited by New York Times, July 14th.
4 Vicksburg Sentinel, cited by New York Times, July 14th.
5 Casket of Reminiscences, Foote, p. 114; New York Tribune, July 30th.
6 Von Hoist, vol. vi. p. 70.

convention of Kansas adopt this principle, all will be settled harmoniously."1

We cannot clearly trace the workings of the President's mind to determine the time when he began to recede from this position. In August, however, he took occasion publicly to endorse the Calhoun doctrine in the strongest terms. In a letter to citizens of Connecticut he said that at the time of the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act slavery existed, "and still exists, in Kansas, under the Constitution of the United States. This point has at last been finally decided by the highest tribunal known to our laws. How it could ever have been seriously doubted is a mystery. If a confederation of sovereign States acquire new territory at the expense of their common blood and treasure, surely one set of the partners can have no right to exclude the other from its enjoyment by prohibiting them from taking into it whatever is recognized to be property by the common constitution.2

This showed the startling progress of an idea destined to work great mischief. When, in 1847, Calhoun first announced the doctrine in the Senate, it was received with general disfavor, and he never called for a vote on the resolutions embodying this principle: it was afterwards scouted by Webster. Now the judicial and executive departments of the government had given it their entire adhesion. It must have occurred to wily Southern leaders that a President who thought it a mystery that the Calhoun doctrine could ever have been seriously doubted was a fit instrument to carry out their designs in Kansas. As late as July, or after the delegates to the constitutional convention had been elected, Walker was still popular with the pro-slavery Democrats in the territory. His course was endorsed by them, and it was universally understood that the constitution, when framed, would be submitted to a
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1 Covode Committee Report, p. 112.
2 Senate Documents 1st Session 35th Congress, vol. i. p. 74.

popular vote.1 But as soon as it became known in the South that the delegates to the constitutional convention were of the pro-slavery party, a systematic agitation began which demanded that the convention adopt a pro-slavery constitution and ask for admission into the Union.2 The leaders of this agitation were the Southern extremists, of whom Jefferson Davis was a type. They soon gained a foothold in Washington with the administration or with others high in authority.3 It was generally believed that Cobb, the Secretary of the Treasury, and Thompson, the Secretary of the Interior, were the official promoters of this movement. It is undeniable that the public sentiment of Georgia and Mississippi, their States, was powerfully exercised in this direction. The testimony of Thompson bears out this view as far as he himself is concerned; for the hint he gave to the emissary he sent to Kansas was quite sufficient to give credence to the later prevailing opinion in the territory, that the Lecompton policy was approved, if not engineered, by the administration.4

But the supposed connection at this time of Cobb with the conspiracy cannot be reconciled with the story he told the Covode committee, that as late as October he urged by letter to a member of the convention the out-and-out submission of the Constitution to the people.5

The convention met at Lecompton in September. After a session of five days, it temporarily adjourned to await the result of the October election. Walker had urged the abandonment of the Topeka movement, and had succeeded in convincing the free-State men who followed Robinson that it was their duty to take part in the regular election for the territorial legislature. It was the most general and peaceful
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1 Walker's testimony, Covode Committee Report, p. 108.
2 See Martin's and Thompson's testimony, Covode Committee Report, pp. 158, 315; also Walker to Cass, December 15th.
3 See Walker's testimony, p. 111.
4 See Thompson's testimony, p. 314.
5 Cobb's testimony, p. 318.

election that had occurred in the territory, and in but two places were there glaring frauds. From Oxford there was a forged return of 1628 votes; the town had but fifty voters. In McGee county, where there were certainly not twenty voters, 1266 pro-slavery ballots were alleged to have been cast.1 If the Oxford and McGee returns were allowed, the legislature would be pro-slavery; if they were thrown out, it would be free-State. Governor Walker and Secretary Stanton visited these places, and when they saw beyond doubt that the fraud was glaring, they honorably carried out the pledges they had given the Kansas people. Having found certain technical defects, they were not obliged to go behind the returns, and they soon issued proclamations throwing out the returns from Oxford and McGee, where the astounding frauds had been perpetrated.' This gave the free-State party nine of the thirteen councilmen and twenty-four of the thirty-nine representatives. 3

The constitutional convention reassembled the 19th of October, but three days went by before a quorum was secured. The body was a rump. Pro-slavery delegates were going to speak for a community which was overwhelmingly in favor of a free State; but the small Kansas clique represented the aim of the slavery propaganda, and were obedient to the instructions which had been brought to them from Washington. Had the convention not been protected by United States troops, it would never have been permitted to finish its work; an outraged people would have driven the members from the territory.4 It was easy to see that if the constitution were submitted to the people, it would be voted down by a large majority. After much discussion, a plan was resolved upon, which showed ingenuity but entire lack of fairness. The crucial section of the constitution which the convention adopted was: "The right of
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1 "Walker's testimony, p. 109; Spring's Kansas, p. 218.
2 Stanton's Address, Kansas Hist. Soc. Pub., vol. i. p. 153.
3 Spring's Kansas, p. 220.
4 Kansas Hist. Soc. Pub., vol. i. p. 252.

property is before and higher than any constitutional sanction, and the right of the owner of a slave to such slave and its increase is the same and as inviolable as the right of the owner of any property whatever." Another provision of the constitution was that it could not be amended until after the year 1864, and even then no alteration should " be made to affect the rights of property in the ownership of slaves.''

An election was appointed for the 21st of December, when the people might vote for the constitution with slavery or for the same constitution with no slavery. They were to have no opportunity to vote against the constitution; and even the submission of the slavery question was a delusion. If the " constitution with slavery " carried, the section above cited and others supporting it were parts of the organic act. But if "constitution with no slavery" carried, then slavery should "no longer exist in the State of Kansas, except that the right of property in slaves now in this territory shall in no measure be interfered with." "The alternative presented was like submitting to the ancient test of witchcraft. ... If the accused, upon being thrown into deep water, floated, he was adjudged guilty, taken out and hanged; but if he sank and was drowned, he was adjudged not guilty—the choice between the verdicts being quite immaterial."1

It was a shallow and wicked performance, worthy perhaps of a border-ruffian convention, representing only twenty-two hundred voters; but it is astounding when we know there is reason to believe that the plan emanated from Southern politicians of high position at Washington. Before the vote on it was finally taken, John Calhoun, the surveyor-general of the territory, and president of the convention, called on Walker, outlined the project and asked his concurrence, assuring him that it was the programme of the administration, and, if he would give it his support, the presidency of the United States lay open to him. Walker
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1 Spring's Kansas, p. 223.

inquired of Calhoun if he had a letter from the President. "He said he had not, but that the assurance came to him in such a manner as to be entirely reliable; that this particular programme [which was finally adopted in Kansas] was the programme of the administration." Walker promptly replied that he would never assent to it. "I consider," said he, " such a submission of the question a vile fraud, a base counterfeit, and a wretched device to prevent the people voting even" on the slavery question. "I will not support it," he continued," but I will denounce it, no matter whether the administration sustains it or not." 1

Buchanan was not privy to this project. His confidential letter to Walker of October 22d' shows that at that time he knew nothing of the plot which was hatched under his very eyes; and his " solemn, grave, and serious " assurances to the same effect in November convinced Walker and must satisfy the historian.3 But after the constitution had been adopted by the convention, the President became its persistent advocate. Cobb was easily won, if he needed winning, and he had more influence over Buchanan than any member of the cabinet.4 He was undoubtedly the mouthpiece of the Southern junto, and knew how to play upon the feelings of his venerable chief. Buchanan had great admiration for the Southern politicians, and with it there was mingled a sentiment of fear.5 Ambition had no part in determining his action, for in his inaugural he had pledged himself not to be a candidate for re-election; but he was timid, and in his intercourse with the Southerners, the feebleness of his will is plainly apparent. He told Forney that he " changed his course because certain Southern States had threatened that if he did not abandon Walker and Stanton they would
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1 Walker's testimony, Covode Committee Report, p. 110.
2 Printed in Nicolay and Hay's History, vol. ii. p. 110.
3 Walker's testimony, p. 114.
4 See Memorial volume of Howell Cobb, p. 29; Casket of Reminiscences, Foote, p. 113.
5 Casket of Reminiscences, Foote, p. 113.

be compelled either to secede from the Union, or take up arms against him."1

The public interest at the North in Kansas had largely died out. "Bleeding Kansas," which had been the topic of discussion everywhere in 1856, was no longer heard of. Kansas, indeed, had ceased to bleed. The firm and just rule of Governor Walker, supported by the presence of the United States troops, maintained the peace which had been restored by Geary. Little occurred during the spring and summer on which an agitation might be based, and by the time the conspiracy of making Kansas a slave State began to be suspected, the country was in the distress of a financial panic. The failure of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company, August 24th, was a symptom of overtrading, and a precursor of the ruin that followed. While bankers were concerned about their honor, merchants and manufacturers straining their credit, and clerks and laborers losing their places, the trouble in Kansas seemed far distant. But the trouble at home was an actual affair that weighed on every moment. "The revulsion in the business of the country," wrote Buchanan to Walker, "seems to have driven all thoughts of 'bleeding Kansas' from the public mind."2

The Kansas plot of 1857 was that of a junto, and indeed it only came to light shortly before the assembling of Congress. It was a conspiracy under constitutional guise, and the only place where this battle could be fought was on the floor of Congress. The fall elections were favorable to the Democrats, and before the Lecompton policy was sprung upon the people they seemed to have regained the popular ascendency that had been trembling in the balance since the Kansas-Nebraska policy was inaugurated.
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1 Forney's testimony, Covode Committee Report, p. 296. The States were Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi; see Forney's Vindication, Philadelphia Press, September 30th, 1858.
2 October 22d, Nicolay and Hay, vol. ii. p. 111. See also Philadelphia Press, October 10th. In a future volume, I purpose to consider the panic of 1857 more fully.

Many Northern Democrats, however, were excited when they learned of the Lecompton scheme. Forney opposed it in his Philadelphia newspaper,1 and the Democratic press of Illinois immediately denounced the action of the convention. The sentiment among the Democrats of Ohio and the Northwest was in general the same, but the opposition would have protested vainly against the scheme had not the ablest leader of the Democratic party, Douglas, put himself at its head. On receipt of the news at Chicago, he immediately made it known that he should strenuously oppose the pro-slavery plan. On arriving at Washington to attend the session of Congress, he called on the President to discuss the matter. The radical difference between the two became apparent. When Buchanan said he must recommend the policy of the slave power, Douglas said he should denounce it in open Senate. The President became excited, rose and said: "Mr. Douglas, I desire you to remember that no Democrat ever yet differed from an administration of his own choice without being crushed. Beware of the fate of Tallmadge and Rives." Douglas also rose, and in an emphatic manner replied: "Mr. President, I wish you to remember that General Jackson is dead."2 The Senate, which met December 7th, was composed of thirty-seven Democrats, twenty Republicans, and five Americans. In two years the Republicans had increased their number by five. To name all the Republican senators will convey a good idea of the growth of the party since its organization; for while the changes in the Senate are slow, it is a body in which may be traced the progress of a movement that is steady and sure.

Fessenden and Hamlin represented Maine; Hale and Clark, New Hampshire; Collamer and Foot, Vermont; Sumner and Wilson, Massachusetts; Foster and Dixon, Connecticut;
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1 Forney's testimony, p. 296.
2 Speech of Douglas, Milwaukee, October 13th, 1860, cited by Nicolay and Hay; see Washington National Intelligencer.

Simmons, Rhode Island; Seward and Preston King, New York; Simon Cameron, Pennsylvania; Wade, Ohio; Trumbull, Illinois; Zachariah Chandler, Michigan; Durkee and Doolittle, Wisconsin; and Harlan, Iowa.

When Congress assembled, it was well understood that the President had espoused the cause of the Southern junto; but when he delivered his annual message, the time had not arrived to state clearly his position.1 He dilated, however, on Kansas affairs, and said that while he had expected that the convention would submit the constitution to the people, it really had decided to give them a chance to express their opinion on slavery, which was the only important question at issue.

On December 9th, Douglas spoke boldly and resolutely against the Lecompton scheme. At the time the delegates to the constitutional convention were chosen, he said, it was understood by the national government, by the territorial government, and by the people of the territory that they were to be elected only to frame a constitution and to submit it to the people for their ratification or rejection. "Men high in authority, and in the confidence of the territorial and national government, canvassed every part of Kansas during the election of delegates, and each one pledged himself to the people that no snap judgment was to be taken... Up to the time of meeting of the convention, in October last, the pretence was kept up, the profession was openly made, and believed by me, and I thought believed by them, that the convention intended to submit a constitution to the people, and not to attempt to put a government in operation without such a submission." But instead of that, "All men must vote for the constitution, whether they like it or not,
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1 Alexander Stephens writes, November 29th: "The administration have staked their all upon sustaining the Kansas Constitution as it may be ratified;" and December 1st: "The administration is for the Kansas Constitution;" and December 4th: Douglas "is against us—decidedly but not extravagantly."—Johnston and Browne, p. 326.

in order to be permitted to vote for or against slavery. . . . That would be as fair an election as some of the enemies of Napoleon attributed to him when he was elected First Consul. He is said to have called out his troops and had them reviewed by his officers with a speech, patriotic and fair in its professions, in which he said to them: 'Now, my soldiers, you are to go to the election and vote freely just as you please. If you vote for Napoleon, all is well; vote against him, and you are to be instantly shot.' That was a fair election. This election is to be equally fair" exclaimed the senator, in a tone of exquisite irony.' "All men in favor of the constitution may vote for it—all men against it shall not vote at all. Why not let them vote against it? ... I have asked a very large number of the gentlemen who framed the constitution, quite a number of delegates, and a still larger number of persons who are their friends, and I have received the same answer from every one of them. . . . They say if they allowed a negative vote, the constitution would have been voted down by an overwhelming majority, and hence the fellows shall not be allowed to vote at all."

It was a manly speech. His language was courteous, but his manner was bold, haughty, and defiant. "Henceforth," wrote Seward to his wife," Douglas is to tread the thorny path I have pursued. The administration and slave power are broken. The triumph of freedom is not only assured, but near."2 "He never seemed to have so much heart in any of his public discussions as now," wrote Simonton to the New York Times; "never was he more resolute and scornfully defiant of all assaults or opposition." 3 "He met the issue fairly and manfully," wrote the correspondent of the Independent, "and acquitted himself triumphantly. It was the forensic effort of his lifetime, and will live long after himself and his opponents in his party have passed from the
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1 See Washington correspondence New York Independent, December 12th.
2 Letter of December 10th, Life of Seward, vol. ii. p. 330.
3 December 12th.

stage of political action."1 This speech will "mark an important era in our political history." "The struggle of Douglas with the slave power will be a magnificent spectacle to witness," wrote the correspondent of the Tribune. 2 It seemed curious to read his praises in the Tribune and Independent, yet he was far from coming on to Republican ground. For he declared: "If Kansas wants a slave-State constitution, she has a right to it; if she wants a free-State constitution, she has a right to it. It is none of my business which way the slavery clause is decided. I care not whether it is voted down or voted up."

The usual explanation of the course of Douglas is that as his senatorial term would soon expire, and as a legislature would be chosen in 1858 to elect his successor, he saw clearly that if he espoused the Lecompton cause, he would surely be defeated. To insure his political life, therefore, it was necessary to oppose the scheme.3 This explanation is true as far as it goes, but it does not compass the whole subject nor the whole man. The course of Douglas had been such that men had lost faith in his political consistency and honesty; so it is not surprising that when he came to do a noble act, it was generally supposed he did it from purely interested motives. But apart from politics, Douglas was a man of honor; his word was as good as his bond, and he was true to his friends.4 He loved fair dealing, and this sentiment was outraged by the proceedings in Kansas; the honesty of his nature could not brook such a course. Had he acted entirely from the interested motive, he might have waited until the President formally recommended the Lecompton Constitution before he took it upon himself to make a breach in his party, hoping meanwhile that the
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1 December 12th.
2 December 9th and 10th.
3 See New York Tribune, December 19th; Simonton to New York Times, December 12th; Nicolay and Hay, vol. ii. p. 123; Life of Jefferson Davis, Alfriend, p. 103; Three Decades, Cox, p. 58; Twenty years of Congress, Blaine, vol. i. p. 140; speech of Schurz, September, 1860, Speeches, p. 168.
4 See Herndon's Life of Lincoln, p. 404.

differences might be compromised. It was intimated by his Democratic opponents that he had acted rashly and thrust this question upon Congress. The immediate decision, the prompt burst of indignation, the speech delivered rapidly and without preparation,' seem the actions of an honest man. In the bitter debates he had with Democratic senators, he appears at times inspired by noble thoughts; as he went over the platitudes of his popular-sovereignty principle, there was a sound of sincerity and fair dealing. Popular sovereignty in 1854 was indeed a sham; yet the doctrine had a vital meaning when applied to the present state of affairs in Kansas. He spoke with candor, and exhibited a true appreciation of the correct principles of government.

He was too good a partisan not to know what he had undertaken when he set himself against the South and the Democratic machine of the North. He had served one and had had a hand in engineering the other long enough to know that it was not the primrose path he had begun to tread. At the close of the speech of December 9th, as he spoke of the possibility of his party relations being severed by the course he had marked out for himself, he grew deeply affected ;2 but he asserted emphatically that, come what may, he should follow the principle of popular sovereignty. For a statesman to head a revolt against his party required moral courage; and as this action of Douglas was a severe blow to the slave power, and probably insured Republican success in 1860, it would be gratifying to believe that he was prompted by noble as well as by interested motives.3

The Democratic party of 1857 was a powerful machine, strongly intrenched in all three departments of the government. No Democrat but one of rare courage and indomitable energy would have set himself in opposition to it. In
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1 See remarks of Douglas, December 16th.
2 See the Liberator, December 18th.
3 See a thoughtful article in the New York Tribune of July 12th, 1858, where the course and probable motives of Douglas are fairly discussed.

the North, before the Lecompton scheme was broached, no Democrat stood higher than Cass; he apparently represented the moderate element of the party. Foote says that Cass "confessed frankly his entire condemnation of Buchanan's conduct in the Lecompton matter." 1 But he did not publicly protest; and though he was rich and not dependent on his place, he held his portfolio, and registered the decrees of the slave power in the most pitiable despatches.

It is only by comparison with Buchanan and Cass that the conduct of Douglas can be seen in its true light. Four years before he had committed a grievous fault; he was now beginning the atonement.

After the speech of December 9th, the breach between Douglas and the administration was complete. Threats were given out that the patronage would be remorselessly used against those who followed the Illinois senator. The Southerners denounced him without stint, the hot-headed menacing him with personal violence.2 The press controlled by the administration was bitter against him. Every pensioned letter-writer, said Douglas, intimates that I have "deserted the Democratic party and gone over to the Black Republicans;" and the report is circulated everywhere "that the President intends to put the knife to the throat of every man who dares to think for himself on this question and carry out his principles in good faith."3 Different senators were set upon Douglas. Bigler, of Pennsylvania, made a personal defence of the President; Green, of Missouri, a labored technical argument; and Fitch, of Indiana, a bitter personal attack. The debate between Douglas and Fitch was spirited, and excited great interest. Douglas struck the key-note of the opposition to the Lecompton scheme when he said he regarded it "as a trick, a fraud upon the rights of the people." 4
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1 Casket of Reminiscences, p. 117.
2 Washington correspondence New York Tribune, December 11th.
3 See remarks of Douglas, December 21st.
4 This debate took place December 22d.

The independent Democratic press sustained Douglas, and some public meetings were held to express approval. It was apparent before the new year that the Western Democracy would stand by him. 1

In November, Governor Walker came to Washington on a leave of absence. He found that his action in throwing out the fraudulent returns, made under the auspices of the pro-slavery party, had lost him the favor of the administration. He was persistently opposed to the Lecompton policy, and nothing was left for him but to resign. His letter of resignation re-enforced powerfully the argument of Douglas. "I state it as a fact," he wrote, "based on a long and intimate association with the people of Kansas, that an overwhelming majority of that people are opposed" to the Lecompton Constitution, " and my letters state that but one out of twenty of the press of Kansas sustains it. . . . Any attempt by Congress to force this constitution upon the people of Kansas will be an effort to substitute the will of a small minority for that of an overwhelming majority of the people." Before concluding he made a passing allusion to "the peculiar circumstances and unexpected events which have modified the opinions of the President upon a point so vital as the submission of the constitution." 2

Meanwhile, Stanton, who in the absence of Walker was acting governor, did effectual work for the free-State cause. The excitement at the result of the Lecompton convention was great. Threats were freely made by the people that they would not submit to such an outrage. There was one loud call on the governor to convene at once in extra session the territorial legislature, in which the free-State men had a majority. After some hesitation, Stanton yielded to the popular will. The free-State party considered the proposed election of the 21st of December as a sham, and would take
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1 See New York Times, December 16th: Remarks of Douglas, December 21st.
2 This letter is dated December 15th, Senate Documents, 1st Session 35th Congress, vol i. p. 122.

no part in it. The legislature, therefore, provided for an election to be held January 4th, 1858, at which a fair and proper vote might be taken on the constitution. When the news of Stanton's action reached Washington, he was at once removed and Denver appointed in his place.

The election decreed by the Lecompton convention took place. The vote stood: For the constitution with slavery, 6226; for the constitution without slavery, 569. Later investigation showed that 2720 of these votes were fraudulent.

On January 4th, 1858, the other election took place. The vote stood: For the constitution with slavery, 138; for the constitution without slavery, 24; against the constitution, 10,226.

A comparison of the two elections established a fact known to those best informed, that a handsome majority of the people in Kansas were in favor of a free State. The territorial legislature was now master of the situation. When it began to investigate the election frauds, John Calhoun and his associates, who had been concerned in them, fled from the territory.1

Despite the anxious endeavors of the President to serve his masters, all was not harmony between him and the Southern men. There were lengths to which even he would not go. The propaganda wanted not only Kansas, but they cast longing eyes on Central America. William Walker, having failed in his first attempt to hold possession of Nicaragua, had gone on another filibustering expedition; but as soon as he began operations he and his party were arrested by Paulding, an American naval commander, and brought to the United States. Buchanan thought that Paulding, while acting from pure and patriotic motives, had committed a grave error. Yet although disapproving his action,
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1 See Reports of Committees, 1st Session 35th Congress, vol. iii.; Stanton's Address, Kansas Hist. Soc. Pub.; Spring's Kansas.

the President was none the less determined to execute the neutrality laws of the United States.1

"The Walker and Paulding imbroglio just now embarrasses us," wrote Alexander Stephens, who was the leader of the Lecomptonites in the House. "Our sympathies are all with the filibusters. We do not now agree with the administration on this Central-American question; but if we denounced it as we feel it deserves to be, we endanger their support of our views of the Kansas question." A little later he wrote: "The Walker-Paulding affair I look upon as a great outrage." The reason of the administration "line of policy and opposition to Walker was their hostility to his enterprise, because, if successful, he would introduce African slavery there." 2

But Buchanan was loyal to the South in the Kansas affair. He was so obtuse that he could not see what one of his earliest and warmest Southern supporters plainly saw. Governor Wise, of Virginia, wrote a public letter December 30th, 1857, in which he took substantially the ground of Douglas and Walker. Three weeks later he wrote privately: "If Congress adopts that Lecompton schedule, Democracy is dead; and the administration can save it now; it cannot after that act. . . . The game of the disunionists is to drive off every Northern Democrat from Buchanan on the Kansas question. . . . and they will succeed unless the President alters his conclusions very soon. Walker, Douglas, and Forney are all nothing to me. I wish to serve and save the administration."3

The contest was wearing out Buchanan. Simonton wrote of him as "perplexed, harassed, and wearied," and subject to "eccentric outbursts of choler" when discussing Kansas affairs; that he abused the Illinois senator for having got the country into a predicament by his Kansas-Nebraska bill
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1 See special message of January 7th, 1858.
2 Letters of January 3d and 20th, Johnston and Browne, p. 328.
3 Wise to Robert Tyler, Letters and Times of the Tylers, vol. ii. p. 643.

and for now refusing to face its legitimate consequences.1 Stephens went to see the President the 2d of February, and wrote: "He is run down and worn out with office-seekers and the cares which the consideration of public affairs has brought upon him. He is now quite feeble and wan. I was struck with his physical appearance; he appears to me to be failing in bodily health." 2

On the 2d of February, Buchanan took the final step. He sent to Congress a copy of the Lecompton Constitution which he had received from John Calhoun, and a message recommending the admission of Kansas under that organic act. He argued that "the Lecompton convention, according to every principle of constitutional law, was legally constituted, and was invested with power to frame a constitution. . . . They did not think proper to submit the whole of this constitution to a popular vote, but they did submit the question whether Kansas should be a free or slave State to the people." This was "the all-important question." "Domestic peace will be the happy consequence of its admission." "It has been solemnly adjudged by the highest judicial tribunal known to our laws that slavery exists in Kansas by virtue of the Constitution of the United States. Kansas is therefore at this moment as much a slave State as Georgia or South Carolina. Without this the equality of the sovereign States composing the Union would be violated, and the use and enjoyment of a territory acquired by the common treasure of all the States would be closed against the people and the property of nearly half the members of the Confederacy."

What must Rufus Choate have thought as he read this message and remembered the glowing periods in which he had advocated the election of Buchanan! In the previous November, when the public began to see that the President
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1 Simonton to New York Times, January 30th.
2 Letter of February 3d, Johnston and Browne, p. 329.

was about to throw himself into the arms of the South, Choate had begged Everett to write a series of papers that "would bless mankind and rescue Buchanan. I entreat you to give him and all conservative men an idea of a patriot administration. Kansas must be free, and the nation kept quiet and honest."1

Judge Elmore, a prominent pro-slavery man of Kansas and a member of the Lecompton convention, went to Washington, at the instance of Governor Denver, to urge the President not to send the Lecompton Constitution to Congress; he was furnished with a letter from the governor arguing strenuously against the proposed policy. Buchanan was sorry he had not had this information earlier, but he had already prepared his message and shown it to several senators; it must therefore go to Congress. 2

It was a pitiable message to come from a Northern man. Pierce had served the South well, but it could now be truthfully said that Buchanan was serving her still better. When the web of subterfuge was brushed away, the position of the President amounted to this: It is determined by the slavery propaganda that Kansas shall be a slave State. There is now one more free than slave State in the Union, and Kansas is needed to restore the equilibrium. To make it a slave State by fair means is impossible. We have now a chance to make it one under the color of law, and this opportunity we are going to use to the best of our ability.

The President would have shrunk from such a statement of his reasoning. He was probably deluded by his own argument, but he did not deceive many. "I confess," Senator Hammond afterwards said, "my opinion was that the South herself should kick that constitution out of Congress." 3 "Scarcely a Democrat can be found who will attempt to
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1 Letter of November 17th, Life of Choate, Brown, p. 344.
2 Denver's address, Kansas Hist. Soc. Pub., vol. i. p. 170.
3 Speech at Barnwell Court-house, S. C, October 29th, 1858, Hammond's Speeches and Letters, p. 327.

vindicate the Lecompton movement per se" wrote Raymond from Washington.1 "Every intelligent man with whom I have conversed," wrote Letcher from Kentucky to Crittenden, "thinks Douglas has the right on his side."'

The message of the President went to the committee on territories, and gave rise to three reports. That of the majority, presented by Green, was a lawyer's technical argument for an injustice. Collamer presented the Republican view, and his report was signed by Wade; while Douglas offered an unanswerable argument. "The Lecompton Constitution," he averred, "is not the act of the people of Kansas, and does not embody their will." By a "system of trickery in the mode of submission, a large majority, probably amounting to four-fifths of all the legal voters of Kansas, were disfranchised and excluded from the polls on the 21st of December;" and at the election of the 4th of January, a lawful and valid one, "a majority of more than ten thousand of the legal voters of Kansas repudiated and rejected the Lecompton Constitution."

The debate on the bill for the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution elicited little that has not been touched upon. The argument on one side was bare technicality, and on the other justice. Many of the Republican senators spoke; and Crittenden, of Kentucky, opposed the bill in a speech of power. The arguments of Southern senators were notable for the use they made of the Dred Scott decision. Benjamin, one of the ablest lawyers of the South, asserted: "It is obvious that since the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Dred Scott case, it is decided that from the origin, all this agitation of the slavery question has been directed against the constitutional rights of the South; and that both Wilmot provisos and Missouri-Compromise lines were unconstitutional." 3
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1 To the New York Times, March 24th.
2 Life of Crittenden, Coleman, p. 141.
3 Speech of February 8th.

Brown, of Mississippi, maintained that if Douglas had stood by the President, there would have been no agitation. "There would not have been a ripple on the surface," he said; "or if there had been, it would have subsided and died away in the great ocean of oblivion where other ripples have gone, and we should almost without an effort introduce Kansas into the Union. Sir, the senator from Illinois gives life, he gives vitality, he gives energy, he lends the aid of his mighty genius and his powerful will, to the opposition on this question."1

The remarks of Jefferson Davis deserve more than a passing allusion, as he was the ablest senator from the South, and was one of the triumvirate of Davis, Toombs, and Hunter, who assumed the direction of Southern affairs. Moreover, we see by means of his speech whither the South was drifting. Sick in body, he dragged his weak and attenuated frame to the Capitol in order to give vent to the extremest sentiments of his section. "A man not knowing into what presence he was introduced," said he, "coming into this Chamber, might, for a large part of this session, have supposed that here stood the representatives of belligerent States, and that instead of men assembled here to confer together for the common welfare, for the general good, he saw here ministers from States preparing to make war upon each other. . . . Sir, we are arraigned day after day as the aggressive power. What Southern senator during this whole session has attacked any portion or any interest of the North? In what have we now or ever, back to the earliest period of our history, sought to deprive the North of any advantage it possessed? The whole charge is, and has been, that we seek to extend our own institutions into the common territory of the United States. Well and wisely has the President of the United States pointed to that common territory as the joint possession of the country." . . . The Southern States "present a new problem,
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1 Speech of February 4th.

one not stated by those who wrote on it in the earlier period of our history. It is the problem of a semi-tropical climate, the problem of malarial districts, of staple products. This produces a result different from that which would be found in the farming districts and cooler climates. A race suited to our labor exists there. Why should we care whether they go into other territories or not? Simply because of the war that is made against our institutions; simply because of the want of security which results from the action of our opponents in the Northern States. Had you made no political war upon us, had you observed the principles of our Confederacy as States, that the people of each State were to take care of their domestic affairs, or, in the language of the Kansas bill, to be left perfectly free to form and regulate their institutions in their own way, then, I say, within the limits of each State the population there would have gone on to attend to their own affairs, and have had little regard to whether this species of property or any other was held in any other portion of the Union. You have made it a political war. We are on the defensive. How far are you to push us?'"

The irreconcilable nature of the difference between the Southerners and Republicans was shown by a colloquy between Toombs and Wade. "The Wilmot-proviso man," said Toombs, "holds that you can prohibit slavery forever in the territories. That means that you can cram freedom, whether the people want it or not; but take care how you cram slavery." "That is it," promptly replied Wade.

The executive patronage was used to push the bill through Congress. The political guillotine was set in motion, and office-holders who sympathized with Douglas were removed without ceremony. The whole business of the Post-office department was said to be the turning-out of the apostates
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1 Remarks of February 8th.

and supplying their places with the faithful.1 There was, said Forney, "a series of proscriptions such as no civilized country has ever seen exercised upon independent men."2

As the contest thickened, the denunciation of Douglas grew more bitter at the South. "Traitor" was the favorite term applied to him. The Southern Democrats, wrote Raymond from Washington, "have transferred their hatred of the Republicans to him. ... I have very little doubt that if compelled to choose between Douglas and Seward for President, the whole band of pro-slavery fire-eaters, with Toombs at their head, would vote for the latter." 3 The Washington Union called him "traitor," "renegade," and "deserter;"4 but the Liberator praised him. 5

The entire West was enthusiastic in the support of Douglas. In the Middle and Eastern States executive patronage and dictation were powerful enough to divide the sentiment of the party.6 The Republicans were at first disposed to regard the fight as a factional contest, and they did not feel implicit confidence in Douglas; but as it went on, they confessed his boldness and consistency, and saw that, although his principles were different from theirs, both were battling in unison for freedom in Kansas. He was now the central figure of the country, and was compared to a lion holding his opponents at bay. In every debate he held his own, for he was more than a match for any of his opponents.

While the excitement in Washington was very great— perhaps greater than when the Missouri Compromise was repealed 7—the agitation in the country did not approach the feeling aroused at the time the Kansas-Nebraska act
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1 New York Times, February 5th, 16th, 23d; the Independent, March 18th; Life of Douglas, Sheahan, p. 387.
2 Forney's testimony, Covode Committee Report, p. 296; Forney's Vindication, Philadelphia Press, September 30th, 1858.
3 New York Times, March 26th.
4 See Congressional Globe, vol. xxxvii. p. 199.
5 See issue of February 26th.
6 See Pike's First Blows of the Civil War, p. 383. 7 New York Times, February 23d.

was pending. Sumner had resumed his seat in the Senate; he could not debate, but at important junctures he was able to vote. He wrote to Parker: "What is doing in Massachusetts? Is everybody asleep? No resolutions vs. Lecompton."1 The reason of this comparative apathy was partly that the contest seemed to be one between Democratic factions, and partly that the public had grown weary of the Kansas question. Moreover, the public mind was not engrossed with politics. Tho hard times which followed the financial panic were the every-day consideration. A widespread religious revival also absorbed the attention and energy which would otherwise have been devoted to politics. 2

The day before the vote was taken, Douglas rose from a sick-bed to make another bold and manly protest against the action proposed. He resented executive dictation, averring that he should vote according to his sense of duty, according to the will of his State, and according to the interests of his constituents.

March 23d, the bill for the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution passed the Senate by 33 yeas to 25 nays. Broderick of California, Pugh of Ohio, and Stuart of Michigan, Democrats, and Bell and Crittenden, Southern Americans, voted with Douglas and the Republicans in the negative. It was strange enough to see Douglas voting on a political question with Hale, Seward, Sumner, and Wade.

It now remains to consider the action of the House. The House was composed of one hundred and twenty-eight Democrats, ninety-two Republicans, and fourteen Americans, Orr, of South Carolina, being speaker. It was moved to refer the President's Lecompton message to a special committee of fifteen. This gave rise to a heated session, lasting all night. A violent altercation occurred between Keitt, of South Carolina, and Grow, of Pennsylvania. Keitt was the aggressor, and it was commonly reported that Grow knocked
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1 March 5th, Life of Parker, Weiss, vol. ii. p. 219.
2 In a future volume I shall give an account of this revival.

him down; but the South Carolinian, in making an apology afterwards, said he was utterly unconscious of having received any blow.' Stephens wrote: "Last night we had a battle-royal in the House. Thirty men at least were engaged in the fisticuff. Fortunately no weapons were used. Nobody was hurt or even scratched, I believe; but bad feeling was produced by it. It was the first sectional fight ever had on the floor, I think; and if any weapons had been on hand it would probably have been a bloody one. All things here are tending to bring my mind to the conclusion that the Union cannot or will not last long."2

The political atmosphere of Washington was highly charged. Shortly after this affray in the House, Cameron, of Pennsylvania, and Green, of Missouri, had a controversy in the Senate, and each gave the other the lie. The Vice-President interfered with decision, and a personal encounter was prevented, but Green threatened to settle the affair five minutes after the Senate should adjourn.3 But no challenge was sent, and the following day both gentlemen made the usual personal explanations. Out of this affair, however, grew an agreement between Cameron, Wade, and Chandler, in which they asserted that in the event of any Republican senator receiving gross personal abuse, they would make his cause their own and "carry the quarrel into a coffin."4

The President's message was afterwards referred to a select committee of fifteen in the House, and three reports were made representing the different shades of opinion. Stephens wrote the majority report, and averred that a large number of States would look upon the rejection of Kansas "with extreme sensitiveness, if not alarm." The
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1 See New York Times correspondence, February 26th; CongressionalGlobe, vol. xxxvi. p. 623; Recollections of Mississippi, R. Davis, p. 871.
2 Letter of February 5th, Johnston and Browne, p. 329.
3 Congressional Globe, vol. xxxvii. p. 110.
4 See Life of Chandler, p. 144; Life of Wade, Riddle, p. 250.

Senate bill being under consideration, Montgomery, a Democrat of Pennsylvania, on the 1st of April, offered an amendment which was substantially the same as one which had been proposed by Crittenden in the Senate and which had been rejected by that body. It provided that the Lecompton Constitution should be submitted to a vote of the people of Kansas; if assented to, Kansas should become a State on the proclamation of the President; if rejected, the inhabitants of the territory were authorized and empowered to form a constitution and State government.

This amendment was carried in the House by a vote of 120 to 112. Every member but one was in his seat when the vote was taken:1 ninety-two Republicans, twenty-two Democrats, and six Americans voted for the amendment; one hundred and four Democrats and eight Americans voted against it. 2

The Senate would not accept this amendment; it asked for a committee of conference. The House voted to adhere, but agreed to the conference. In this committee, English, a representative from Indiana, who had voted for the Crittenden-Montgomery amendment, proposed a compromise which was agreed to, accepted by both Houses and became a law. This measure offered Kansas a large grant of government lands, and provided that the proposition should be voted on by the people of Kansas. If a majority voted for acceptance, Kansas should be admitted into the Union under the Lecompton Constitution by proclamation of the President. If the people rejected the offer, then the territory could not be admitted as a State until its population reached the number required for a representative. It was in effect a bribe of land to induce the people of Kansas to accept the Lecompton Constitution. The bill was acceptable to the Lecomptonites; Green, Hunter, and Stephens having, with English, signed the conference-committee report, while Seward and Howard dissented. When this measure was
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1 New York Independent, April 8th.
2 New York Times, April 2d.

presented, Douglas, according to Wilson, wavered.1 In his speech he said he had hoped to find in it such provisions as would enable him to give it his support; but he did not consider it "a fair submission to the people under such circumstances as to insure an unbiassed election and fair returns." 2

Douglas voted against the English bill, and so did Broderick, Stuart, and Crittenden, while Pugh sided with the majority. There were 31 yeas and 22 nays. Broderick gained laurels in the controversy. The adroit use of the patronage of the administration diminished gradually the number of Northern Democrats who had set out to oppose the Lecompton policy, but he remained steadfast and earnest. Forney regarded him as the soul of the little party; Wilson speaks of him as "ever brave and true;" and Seward wrote that the moral influence of Stuart and Broderick, especially Broderick, was prodigious. 3

The English bill passed the House by a vote of 120 to 112; of the twenty-two anti-Lecompton Democrats twelve voted against it, while nine gave their votes in its favor, and one failed to record his vote. The administration and its agents had been busy in drumming up supporters. The Secretary of the Treasury was especially active.4 The patronage of the government was used in an unblushing manner; large contracts for supplies for the military expedition to Utah were distributed to influence votes of representatives; and money was directly employed to aid in the passage of the measure.5 Haskin, of New York, was tempted with the grant of a township of land, but he spurned the
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1 Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, vol. ii. p. 563; see also speech of Carl Schurz, September, 1860, Speeches, p. 169.
2 Speech of April 29th.
3 Forney's Anecdotes of Public Men, vol. i. p. 25; Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, vol. ii. p. 563; Seward to Pike, April 15, First Blows of the Civil War, p. 417.
4 Casket of Reminiscences, Foote, p. 118.
5 See Covode Committee Report and testimony of Wendell, Bean, and Walker; Atlantic Monthly, vol. iii. p. 478; Forney's Vindication, Philadelphia Press, September 30th, 1858.

offer.1 It would not be just to infer that all the anti-Lecompton Democrats who changed did so from interested motives, for Governor Walker gave an honest opinion in favor of the English bill;2 and there were, undoubtedly, congressmen who regarded the matter from the same point of view. Nor were the patronage and money all used to secure the passage of the English measure, for from the time that the Lecompton Constitution was sent to Congress these agencies were at work on the members of the House to procure the adoption of the administration policy.

We may anticipate the chronological order of events and relate that on August 2d a vote was taken in Kansas in accordance with the act that had passed Congress; 13,088 votes were cast, and 11,300 of them were against the English proposition.3 This disposed of the Lecompton Constitution, and effectually determined that slavery should not exist in Kansas. But the question left an irreconcilable breach in the Democratic party which was big with consequences for the Republicans and for the country.
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1 See letter of Haskin to Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, vol. ii. p. 565.
2 See letter to Congressmen Cox and Lawrence, April 27th, New York Times, May 4th.
3 Spring's Kansas, p. 236.


Source: Rhodes, James Ford. History of the United States; from the compromise of 1850 to the final restoration of home rule at the south in 1877, v.2. New York: Macmillan, 1910 [c1892].