American Eloquence, Volume II | Page 6

to have "died of an
attempt to swallow the fugitive-slave law"; it would have been more
correct to have said that the southern section of the party had deserted
in a body and gone over to the Democratic party. National politics were
thus left in an entirely anomalous condition. The Democratic party was
omnipotent at the South, though it was afterward opposed feebly by the
American (or "Know Nothing ") organization, and was generally
successful at the North, though it was still met by the Northern Whigs
with vigorous opposition. Such a state of affairs was not calculated to
satisfy thinking men; and this period seems to have been one in which
very few thinking men of any party were at all satisfied with their party

positions.
This was the hazardous situation into which the Democratic managers
chose to thrust one of the most momentous pieces of legislation in our
political history-the Kansas-Nebraska bill. The responsibility for it is
clearly on the shoulders of Stephen A. Douglas. The over-land travel to
the Pacific coast had made it necessary to remove the Indian title to
Kansas and Nebraska, and to organize them as Territories, in order to
afford protection to emigrants; and Douglas, chairman of the Senate
committee on Territories, introduced a bill for such organization in
January, 1854. Both these prospective Territories had been made free
soil forever by the compromise of 1820; the question of slavery had
been settled, so far as they were concerned; but Douglas consented,
after a show of opposition, to reopen Pandora's box. His original bill
did not abrogate the Missouri compromise, and there seems to have
been no general Southern demand that it should do so. But Douglas had
become intoxicated by the unexpected success of his "popular
sovereignty" make-shift in regard to the Territories of 1850; and a
notice of an amendment to be offered by a southern senator, abrogating
the Missouri compromise, was threat or excuse sufficient to bring him
to withdraw the bill. A week later, it was re-introduced with the
addition of "popular sovereignty": all questions pertaining to slavery in
these Territories, and in the States to be formed from them, were to be
left to the decision of the people, through their representatives; and the
Missouri compromise of 1820 was declared "inoperative and void," as
inconsistent with the principles of the territorial legislation of 1850. It
must be remembered that the "non-intervention" of 1850 had been
confessedly based on no constitutional principle whatever, but was
purely a matter of expediency; and that "non-intervention" in Utah and
New Mexico was no more inconsistent with the prohibition of slavery
in Kansas and Nebraska than "non-intervention" in the Southwest
Territory, sixty years before, had been inconsistent with the prohibition
of slavery in the Northwest Territory. Whether Douglas is to be
considered as too scrupulous, or too timid, or too willing to be terrified,
it is certain that his action was unnecessary.
After a struggle of some months, the Kansas-Nebraska bill became law.
The Missouri compromise was abrogated, and the question of the
extension of slavery to the territories was adrift again, never to be got

rid of except through the abolition of slavery itself by war. The
demands of the South had now come fully abreast with the proposal of
Douglas: that slavery should have permission to enter all the Territories,
if it could. The opponents of the extension of slavery, at first under the
name of "Anti-Nebraska men," then of the Republican party, carried
the elections for representatives in Congress in 1854-'55, and narrowly
missed carrying the Presidential election of 1856. The percentage of
Democratic losses in the congressional districts of the North was
sufficient to leave Douglas with hardly any supporters in Congress
from his own section. The Democratic party was converted at once into
a solid South, with a northern attachment of popular votes which was
not sufficient to control very many Congressmen or electoral votes.
Immigration into Kansas was organized at once by leading men of the
two sections, with the common design of securing a majority of the
voters of the territory and applying "popular sovereignty" for or against
slavery. The first sudden inroad of Missouri intruders was successful in
securing a pro-slavery legislature and laws; but within two years the
stream of free-State immigration had become so powerful,in spite of
murder, outrage, and open civil war, that it was very evident that
Kansas was to be a free-State. Its expiring territorial legislature
endeavored to outwit its constituents by applying for admission as a
slave State, under the Lecompton constitution; but the Douglas
Democrats could not support the attempt, and it was defeated. Kansas,
however, remained a territory until 1861.
The cruelties of this Kansas episode could not but be reflected in the
feelings of the two sections and