Abraham Lincoln and the Union | Page 8

the ground. Much careful research
has indeed been expended in seeking to determine who originated the
policy which, about 1853, Douglas decided to make his own. There has
also been much dispute about his motives. Most of us, however, see in
his course of action an instance of playing the game of politics with an
audacity that was magnificent.
His conduct may well have been the result of a combination of motives
which included a desire to retain the favor of the Northwest, a wish to
pave the way to his candidacy for the Presidency, the intention to enlist
the aid of the South as well as that of his own locality, and perhaps the
hope that he was performing a service of real value to his country. That
is, he saw that the favor of his own Northwest would be lavished upon
any man who opened up to settlement the rich lands beyond Iowa and
Missouri which were still held by the Indians, and for which the
Westerners were clamoring. Furthermore, they wanted a railroad that
would reach to the Pacific. There were, however, local entanglements
and political cross-purposes which involved the interests of the free
State of Illinois and those of the slave State of Missouri.
Douglas's great stroke was a programme for harmonizing all these
conflicting interests and for drawing together the West and the South.
Slaveholders were to be given what at that moment they wanted
most--an opportunity to expand into that territory to the north and west

of Missouri which had been made free by the Compromise of 1820,
while the free Northwest was to have its railroad to the coast and also
its chance to expand into the Indian country. Douglas thus became the
champion of a bill which would organize two new territories, Kansas
and Nebraska, but which would leave the settlers in each to decide
whether slavery or free labor should prevail within their boundaries.
This territorial scheme was accepted by a Congress in which the
Southerners and their Northern allies held control, and what is known
as the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was signed by President Pierce on May
30,1854.*
*The origin of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill has been a much discussed
subject among historians in recent years. The older view that Douglas
was simply playing into the hands of the "slavepower" by sacrificing
Kansas, is no longer tenable. This point has been elaborated by Allen
Johnson in his study of Douglas ("Stephen A. Douglas: a Study in
American Politics"). In his "Repeal of the Missouri Compromise", P.O.
Ray contends that the legislation of 1854 originated in a factional
controversy in Missouri, and that Douglas merely served the interests
of the proslavery group led by Senator David R. Atchinson of Missouri.
Still another point of view is that presented in the "Genesis of the
Kansas-Nebraska Act," by F. H. Hodder, who would explain not only
the division of the Nebraska Territory into Kansas and Nebraska, but
the object of the entire bill by the insistent efforts of promoters of the
Pacific railroad scheme to secure a right of way through Nebraska. This
project involved the organization of a territorial government and the
repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Douglas was deeply interested in
the western railroad interests and carried through the necessary
legislation.


CHAPTER II
. THE PARTY OF POLITICAL EVASION
In order to understand Douglas one must understand the Democratic

party of 1854 in which Douglas was a conspicuous leader. The
Democrats boasted that they were the only really national party and
contended that their rivals, the Whigs and the Know-Nothings, were
merely the representatives of localities or classes. Sectionalism was the
favorite charge which the Democrats brought against their enemies; and
yet it was upon these very Democrats that the slaveholders had hitherto
relied, and it was upon certain members of this party that the label,
"Northern men with Southern principles," had been bestowed.
The label was not, however, altogether fair, for the motives of the
Democrats were deeply rooted in their own peculiar temperament. In
the last analysis, what had held their organization together, and what
had enabled them to dominate politics for nearly the span of a
generation, was their faith in a principle that then appealed powerfully,
and that still appeals, to much in the American character. This was the
principle of negative action on the part of the government--the old idea
that the government should do as little as possible and should confine
itself practically to the duties of the policeman. This principle has
seemed always to express to the average mind that traditional
individualism which is an inheritance of the Anglo-Saxon race. In
America, in the middle of the nineteenth century, it reenforced that
tradition of local independence which was strong throughout the West
and doubly strong in