In closing, Douglas, after indignant denial of the charge of conspiracy, said:
"I have lived twenty-five years in Illinois; I have served you with all the fidelity and ability which I possess, and Mr. Lincoln is at liberty to attack my public action, my votes, and my conduct, but when he dares to attack my moral integrity by a charge of conspiracy between myself, Chief Justice Taney, and the Supreme Court and two Presidents of the United States, I will repel it."
At Freeport, Mr. Lincoln, in opening the discussion, at once declared his readiness to answer the interrogatories propounded. He said:
"I do not now, nor ever did, stand in favor of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law; I do not now, nor ever did, stand pledged against the admission of any more slave States into the Union; I do not stand pledged against the admission of a new State into the Union with such a Const.i.tution as the people of that State may see fit to make; I do not stand to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia; I do not stand pledged to the prohibition of the slave trade between the different States; I am impliedly, if not expressly, pledged to a belief in the right and duty of Congress to prohibit slavery in all the United States Territories."
Waiving the form of the interrogatory, as to being pledged, he said:
"As to the first one in regard to the Fugitive Slave Law, I have never hesitated to say, and I do not now hesitate to say, that I think under the Const.i.tution of the United States the people of the Southern States are ent.i.tled to a Congressional Fugitive Slave Law. Having said that, I have had nothing to say in regard to the existing Fugitive Slave Law further than that I think it should have been framed so as to be free from some of the objections that pertain to it without lessening its efficiency. In regard to whether I am pledged to the admission of any more slave States into the Union, I would be exceedingly glad to know that there would never be another slave State admitted into the Union; but I must add that if slavery shall be kept out of the Territories during the Territorial existence of any one given Territory, and then the people shall, having a fair chance and a clear field when they come to adopt the Const.i.tution, do such an extraordinary thing as to adopt a slavery Const.i.tution uninfluenced by the actual presence of the inst.i.tution among them, I see no alternative, if we own the country, but to admit them into the Union. I should be exceedingly glad to see slavery abolished in the District of Columbia. I believe that Congress possesses Const.i.tutional power to abolish it. Yet, as a member of Congress, I should not be in favor of endeavoring to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia unless it would be upon these conditions: First, that the abolition should be gradual; second, that it should be on a vote of the majority of qualified voters in the district; third, that compensation should be made unwilling owners. With these conditions, I confess I should be exceedingly glad to see Congress abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and in the language of Henry Clay, "Sweep from our Capital that foul blot upon our nation.""
These carefully prepared answers will never cease to be of profound interest to the student of human affairs. They indicate unmistakably the conservative tendency of Mr. Lincoln, and his position at the time as to the legal status of the inst.i.tution of slavery.
But "courage mounteth with occasion." Five years later, and from the hand that penned the answers given came the great proclamation emanc.i.p.ating a race. The hour had struck--and slavery perished.
The compromises upon which it rested were, in the mighty upheaval, but as the stubble before the flame.
Recurring to the Freeport debates, Mr. Lincoln propounded to his opponent four interrogatories as follows:
"First, if the people of Kansas shall by means entirely un.o.bjectionable in all other respects adopt a State Const.i.tution and ask admission into the Union under it before they have the requisite number of inhabitants according to the bill--some ninety-three thousand-- will you vote to admit them? Second, can the people of a United States Territory in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a State Const.i.tution? Third, if the Supreme Court of the United States shall decide that States cannot exclude slavery from their limits, are you in favor of acquiescing in, adopting, and following such decision as a rule of political action? Fourth, are you in favor of acquiring additional territory in disregard of how such acquisition may affect the nation on the slavery question?"
The questions propounded reached the marrow of the controversy, and were yet to have a much wider field for discussion. This was especially true of the second of the series. Upon this widely divergent--irreconcilable--views were entertained by Northern and Southern Democrats. The evidence of this is to be found in the respective national platforms upon which Douglas and Mr.
Breckenridge were two years later rival candidates of a divided party. The second interrogatory of Mr. Lincoln clearly emphasized this conflict of opinion as it existed at the time of the debates.
It is but just, however, to Douglas--of whom little that is kindly has in late years been spoken--to say that there was nothing in the question to cause him surprise or embarra.s.sment. It would be pa.s.sing strange if during the protracted debates with Senators representing extreme and antagonistic views, a matter so vital as the interpretation of the Kansas-Nebraska Act--as indicated by the interrogatory--had never been under discussion.
Conclusive evidence on this point is to be found in the speech delivered by Senator Douglas at Bloomington, July 16, forty-two days before the Freeport debate, in which he said:
"I tell you, my friends, it is impossible under our inst.i.tutions to force slavery on an unwilling people. If this principle of popular sovereignty, a.s.serted in the Nebraska Bill, be fairly carried out by letting the people decide the question for themselves by a fair vote, at a fair election, and with honest returns, slavery will never exist one day or one hour in any Territory against the unfriendly legislation of an unfriendly people. Hence if the people of a Territory want slavery they will encourage it by pa.s.sing affirmatory laws, and the necessary police regulations; if they do not want it, they will withhold that legislation, and by withholding it slavery is as dead as if it were prohibited by a Const.i.tutional prohibition. They could pa.s.s such local laws and police regulations as would drive slavery out in one day or one hour if they were opposed to it, and therefore, so far as the question of slavery in the Territories is concerned in its practical operation, it matters not how the Dred Scott case may be decided with reference to the Territories. My own opinion on that point is well known. It is shown by my vote and speeches in Congress."
Recurring again to the Freeport debate, in reply to the first interrogatory, Douglas declared that in reference to Kansas it was his opinion that if it had population enough to const.i.tute a slave State, it had people enough for a free State; that he would not make Kansas an exceptional case to the other States of the Union; that he held it to be a sound rule of universal application to require a Territory to contain the requisite population for a member of Congress before its admission as a State into the Union; that it having been decided that Kansas has people enough for a slave State, "I hold it has enough for a free State."
As to the third interrogatory, he said that only one man in the United States, an editor of a paper in Washington, had held such view, and that he, Douglas, had at the time denounced it on the floor of the Senate; that Mr. Lincoln cast an imputation upon the Supreme Court by supposing that it would violate the Const.i.tution; that it would be an act of moral treason that no man on the bench could ever descend to. To the fourth--which he said was very "ingeniously and cunningly put"--he answered that, whenever it became necessary in our growth and progress to acquire more territory he was in favor of it without reference to the question of slavery, and when we had acquired it, he would leave the people to do as they pleased, either to make it free, or slave territory as they preferred.
The answer to the second interrogatory--of which much has been written--was given without hesitation. Language could hardly be more clear or effective. He said:
"To the next question propounded to me I answer emphatically, as Mr. Lincoln has heard me answer a hundred times, that in my opinion the people of a Territory can by lawful means exclude slavery from their limits prior to the formation of a State Const.i.tution. It matters not what way the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to the abstract question whether slavery may or may not go into a Territory under the Const.i.tution, the people have the lawful means to introduce it or exclude it, as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist a day, or an hour anywhere, unless it is supported by local police regulations. These police regulations can only be established by the local Legislature, and if the people are opposed to slavery they will elect representatives to that body who will by unfriendly legislation effectually prevent the introduction of it into their midst. If, on the contrary, they are for it, their Legislature will favor its extension. Hence, no matter what the decision of the Supreme Court may be on that abstract question, still the right of the people to make a slave Territory or a free Territory is perfect and complete under the Nebraska Bill."
The trend of thought, the unmeasured achievement of activities looking to human amelioration, during the fifty intervening years, must be taken into the account before uncharitable judgment upon what has been declared the indifference of Douglas to the question of abstract right involved in the memorable discussion.
It must be remembered that the world has moved apace, and that a mighty gulf separates us from that eventful period, in which practical statesmen were compelled to deal with inst.i.tutions as then existing. And not to be forgotten are the words of the great interpreter of the human heart,
"But know thou this, that men are as the time is."
The great debates between Douglas and Lincoln--the like of which we shall not hear again--had ended and pa.s.sed to the domain of history. To the inquiry, "Which of the partic.i.p.ants was the victor?"
there can be no absolute answer. Judged by the immediate result, the former; by consequence more remote and far-reaching, the latter.
Within three years from the first meeting at Ottawa, Mr. Lincoln --having been elected and inaugurated President--was upon the threshold of mighty events which are now the masterful theme of history; and his great antagonist in the now historic debates had pa.s.sed from earthly scenes.
It has been said that Douglas was ambitious.
"If it were so, it was a grievous fault, And grievously hath he answered it."
We may well believe that, with like honorable ambition to the two great popular leaders of different periods--Clay and Blaine --his goal was the Presidency.
In the last three national conventions of his party preceding his death, he was presented by the Illinois delegation to be named for the great office. The last of these--the Charleston convention of 1860--is now historic. It a.s.sembled amid intense party pa.s.sion, and after a turbulent session that seemed the omen of its approaching doom, adjourned to a later day to Baltimore. Senator Douglas there received the almost solid vote of the Northern, and a portion of that of the Border States, but the hostility of the extreme Southern leaders to his candidacy was implacable to the end. What had seemed inevitable from the beginning at length occurred, and the great historical party--which had administered the Government with brief intermissions from the inauguration of Jefferson--was hopelessly rent asunder. This startling event--and what it might portend-- gave pause to thoughtful men of all parties. It was not a mere incident, but an epoch in history. Mr. Blaine, in his "Twenty Years of Congress," says:
"The situation was the cause of solicitude and even grief with thousands to whom the old party was peculiarly endeared. The traditions of Jefferson, of Madison, of Jackson, were devoutly treasured; and the splendid achievements of the American Democracy were recounted with the pride which attaches to an honorable family inheritance. The fact was recalled that the Republic had grown to its imperial dimensions under Democratic statesmanship. It was remembered that Louisiana had been acquired from France, Florida from Spain, the independent Republic of Texas annexed, and California, with its vast dependencies, and its myriad millions of treasure, ceded by Mexico, all under Democratic administrations, and in spite of the resistance of their opponents. That a party whose history was inwoven with the glory of the Republic should now come to its end in a quarrel over the status of the negro in a country where his labor was not wanted, was to many of its members as incomprehensible as it was sorrowful and exasperating. They might have restored the party to harmony, but at the very height of the factional contest, the representatives of both sections were hurried forward to the National Convention of 1860, with principle subordinated to pa.s.sion, with judgment displaced by a desire for revenge."
The withdrawal from the Baltimore Convention of a large majority of the Southern delegates and a small following, led by Caleb Cushing and Benjamin F. Butler from the North, resulted in the immediate nomination by the requisite two-thirds vote of Senator Douglas as the Presidential candidate. The platform upon the question of slavery was in substance that contended for by the candidate in the debates with Lincoln. The Democratic party divided --Breckenridge receiving the support of the South--Douglas"s candidacy was hopeless from the beginning. But his iron will, and courage, that knew no faltering, never appeared to better advantage than during that eventful canva.s.s. Deserted by former political a.s.sociates, he visited distant States and addressed immense audiences in defence of the platform upon which he had been nominated, and in advocacy of his own election. His speeches in Southern States were of the stormy incidents of a struggle that has scarcely known a parallel. Interrogated by a prominent citizen at Norfolk, Virginia, "If Lincoln be elected President, would the Southern States be justified in seceding from the Union?" Douglas replied, "I emphatically answer, No. The election of a man to the Presidency in conformity with the Const.i.tution of the United States would not justify an attempt to dissolve the Union."
Defeated in his great ambition, broken in health, the sad witness of the unmistakable portents of the coming sectional strife--the few remaining months of his mortal life were enveloped in gloom.
Partisan feeling vanished--his deep concern was now only for his country. Standing by the side of his successful rival--whose wondrous career was only opening, as his own was nearing its close --he bowed profound a.s.sent to the imperishable utterances of the inaugural address: "I am loath to close. We are not enemies but friends. We must not be enemies. Though pa.s.sion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection."
Yet later--immediately upon the firing of the fatal shot at Sumter that suddenly summoned millions from peaceful pursuits to arms-- by invitation of the Illinois Legislature Douglas addressed his countrymen for the last time.
Broken with the storms of state, the fires of ambition forever extinguished, standing upon the threshold of the grave, his soul burdened with the calamities that had befallen his country, in tones of deepest pathos he declared:
"If war must come--if the bayonet must be used to maintain the Const.i.tution--I can say before G.o.d, my conscience is clear. I have struggled long for a peaceful solution of the trouble. I deprecate war, but if it must come, I am with my country, and for my country, in every contingency, and under all circ.u.mstances. At all hazards our Government must be maintained, and the shortest pathway to peace is through the most stupendous preparation for war."
Who that heard the last public utterance that fell from his lips can forget his solemn invocation to all who had followed his political fortunes, until the banner had fallen from his hand,-- to know only their country in its hour of peril?
The ordinary limit of human life unreached; his intellectual strength unabated; his loftiest aspirations unrealized; at the critical moment of his country"s sorest need--he pa.s.sed to the grave. What reflections and regrets may have been his in that hour of awful mystery, we may not know. In the words of another: "What blight and anguish met his agonized eyes, whose lips may tell? what brilliant broken plans, what bitter rending of sweet household ties, what sundering of strong manhood"s friendships?"
In the light of what has been discussed, may we not believe that with his days prolonged, he would during the perilous years have been the safe counsellor--the rock--of the great President, in preserving the nation"s life, and later in "binding up the nation"s wounds."
Worthy of honored and enduring place in history, Stephen A. Douglas --statesman and patriot--lies buried within the great city whose stupendous development is so largely the result of his own wise forecast and endeavor,--by the majestic lake whose waves break near the base of his stately monument and chant his eternal requiem.
VIII THE FIRST POLITICAL TELEGRAM
SENATOR SILAS WRIGHT NOMINATED FOR VICE-PRESIDENT--WORD OF HIS NOMINATION SENT HIM BY THE MORSE TELEGRAPH--MORSE"S FIRST CONCEPTION OF AN ELECTRO-MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH--OBSTACLES TO THE CARRYING OUT OF HIS INVENTION--A BILL APPROPRIATING $30,000 TO TEST THE VALUE OF HIS TELEGRAPH--EARLIER FORMS OF TELEGRAPHIC INTERCOURSE--A EULOGY ON THE INVENTOR BY MR. GARFIELD--ANOTHER, BY MR. c.o.x--THE FIRST MESSAGE THAT EVER Pa.s.sED OVER THE WIRE--DR. PRIME"S PRAISE OF MORSE AFTER HIS DEATH.
By all odds, the most venerable in appearance of the Representatives in the forty-sixth Congress, was Hendrick B. Wright of Pennsylvania.
After a retirement of a third of a century, he had been returned to the seat he had honored while many of his present a.s.sociates were in the cradle. Of ma.s.sive build, stately bearing, lofty courtesy; neatly appareled in blue broadcloth, with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons appropriately in evidence, he appeared indeed to belong to a past generation of statesmen.
"And thus he bore without abuse The grand old name of gentleman."
In one of the many conversations I held with him, he told me that he was the president of the Democratic National Convention which met in Baltimore in 1844. As will be remembered, a majority of the delegates to that convention were favorable to the renomination of Mr. Van Buren, but his recently published letter opposing the annexation of Texas had rendered him extremely obnoxious to a powerful minority of his own party. After a protracted struggle, Mr.
Van Buren, under the operation of the "two-thirds rule," was defeated, and Mr. Polk nominated. The convention, anxious to placate the friends of the defeated candidate, then tendered the nomination for Vice-President to Senator Silas Wright, the close friend of Mr. Van Buren.
At the time the convention was in session, Samuel F. B. Morse was conducting in a room in the Capitol the electrical experiments which have since "given his name to the ages." Under an appropriation by Congress, a telegraph line had been recently constructed from Washington to Baltimore.
Immediately upon the nomination of Senator Wright, as mentioned, the president of the convention sent him by the Morse telegraph a brief message, the first of a political character that ever pa.s.sed over the wire, advising him of his nomination, and requesting his acceptance. Two hours later he read to the convention a message from Senator Wright, then in Washington, peremptorily declining the nomination.
Upon the reading of this message to the convention, it was openly declared to be a hoax, not one member in twenty believing that a message could possibly have been received. The convention adjourned till the next day, first instructing its president to communicate with Senator Wright by letter. A special messenger, by hard riding and frequent change of horse, bore the letter of the convention to Wright in Washington, and returned with his reply by the time the convention had rea.s.sembled. As will be remembered, Wright persisting in his declination, George M. Dallas was nominated and duly elected.
Later, in conversation with the Hon. Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia, he told me that he was in the room of the Capitol set apart for the experiments which Mr. Morse wished to make, and distinctly remembered the fact of the transmission of the message to and from Senator Wright, as stated.
The incident mentioned recalls something of the obstacles encountered by Morse in the marvellous work with which his name is inseparably a.s.sociated. He first conceived the idea of an electro-magnetic telegraph on shipboard on a homeward-bound voyage from Europe in 1832. Before landing from his long voyage, his plans for a series of experiments had been clearly thought out. Having constructed his first recording apparatus, his caveat for a patent was filed five years later; and in 1838, he applied to Congress for an appropriation to enable him to construct an experimental line from Washington to Baltimore in order to demonstrate the practicability of his invention. His proposal was at first treated with ridicule --even with contempt; and for more than three years no favorable action was taken by Congress. With abiding faith, however, in the merits of his invention, his zeal knew no abatement during years of poverty and discouragement. At length in the Twenty-seventh Congress, Representative Kennedy of Maryland--at a later day Secretary of the Navy--introduced a bill appropriating thirty thousand dollars "to test the value of Morse"s Electro-Magnetic Telegraph," to be expended under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury.
By the untiring efforts of Mr. Kennedy and other Representatives, the bill was finally brought before the House for consideration near the close of the session. In the light of events, the discussion that immediately preceded the vote is of interest, and in no small degree amusing, to this generation. On February twenty-first, 1843, Mr.
Johnson of Tennessee wished to say a word upon the bill. As the present Congress had done much to encourage science, he did not wish to see the science of Mesmerism neglected and overlooked. He therefore proposed that one-half of the appropriation be given to Mr. Fisk to enable him to carry on experiments as well as Professor Morse. Mr. Houston thought that Millerism should also be included in the benefits of the appropriation. Mr. Stanley said he should have no objection to the appropriation for Mesmeric experiments provided the gentleman from Tennessee was the subject.