"Past and to come seem best; Things present worst.
We are time"s subjects."
And yet, barring the closing months of the administration of the elder Adams, this country has known no period of more intense party pa.s.sion, or of more deadly feuds among political leaders, than was manifested during the presidential contest of 1832. The Whig party, with Henry Clay as its candidate and its idol, was for the first time in the field. Catching something of the spirit of its imperious leader, its campaign was recklessly aggressive. The scabbard was thrown away, and all the lines of retreat cut off from the beginning.
No act of the party in power escaped the lime-light; no delinquency, real or imaginary, of Jackson--its candidate for re-election-- but was ruthlessly drawn into the open day. Even the domestic hearthstone was invaded and antagonisms engendered that knew no surcease until the last of the chief partic.i.p.ants in the eventful struggle had descended to the tomb.
The defeat of Clay but intensified his hostility toward his successful rival, and with a following that in personal devotion to its leader has scarcely known a parallel, he was at once the peerless front of a powerful opposition to the Jackson administration.
Such were the existing political conditions throughout the country when Stephen A. Douglas, at the age of twenty-two, first entered the arena of debate. It would not be strange if such environment left its deep impress, and measurably gave direction to his political career. The period of probation and training so essential to ordinary men was unneeded by him. Fully equipped--and with a self-confidence that has rarely had a counterpart--he was from the beginning the earnest defender of the salient measures of the Democratic administration, and the aggressive champion of President Jackson. Absolutely fearless, he took no reckoning of the opposing forces, and regardless of the prowess or ripe experience of adversaries, he at all times, in and out of season, gladly welcomed the encounter. To this end, he did not await opportunities, but eagerly sought them.
His first contest for public office was with John J. Hardin, by no means the least gifted of the brilliant Whig leaders already mentioned. Defeated by Douglas in his candidacy for re-election to the office of Attorney General, Colonel Hardin at a later day achieved distinction as a Representative in Congress, and at the early age of thirty-seven fell while gallantly leading his regiment upon the b.l.o.o.d.y field of Buena Vista. In the catalogue of men worthy of remembrance, there is to be found the name of no braver, manlier man, than that of John J. Hardin.
With well-earned laurels as public prosecutor, Douglas resigned, after two years" inc.u.mbency of that office, to accept that of Representative in the State Legislature. The Tenth General a.s.sembly --to which he was chosen--was the most notable in Illinois history.
Upon the roll of members of the House--in the old Capitol at Vandalia --are names inseparably a.s.sociated with the history of the State and the nation. From its list were yet to be chosen two Governors of the commonwealth, one member of the Cabinet, three Justices of the Supreme Court of the State, eight Representatives in Congress, six Senators, and one President of the United States. That would indeed be a notable a.s.semblage of law-makers in any country or time, that included in its membership McClernand, Edwards, Ewing, Semple, Logan, Hardin, Browning, Shields, Baker, Stuart, Douglas, and Lincoln.
In this a.s.sembly, Douglas encountered in impa.s.sioned debate, possibly for the first time, two men against whom in succession he was soon to be opposed upon the hustings as candidate for Congress; and later as an aspirant to yet more exalted stations, another, with whose name--now "given to the ages"--his own is linked inseparably for all time.
The most brilliant and exciting contest for the national House of Representatives the State has known--excepting possibly that of Cook and McLean a decade and a half earlier--was that of 1838 between John T. Stuart and Stephen A. Douglas. They were the recognized champions of their respective parties. The district embraced two-thirds of the area of the State, extending from the counties immediately south of Sangamon and Morgan, northward to Lake Michigan and the Wisconsin line. Together on horseback, often across unbridged streams, and through pathless forest and prairie, they journeyed, holding joint debates in all the county seats of the district--including the then villages of Jacksonville, Springfield, Peoria, Pekin, Bloomington, Quincy, Joliet, Galena, and Chicago.
That the candidates were well matched in ability and eloquence readily appears from the fact that after an active canva.s.s of several months, Major Stuart was elected by a majority of but eight votes. By re-elections he served six years in the House of Representatives and was one of its ablest and most valuable members.
In Congress, he was the political friend and a.s.sociate of Crittenden, Winthrop, Clay, and Webster. Major Stuart lives in my memory as a splendid type of the Whig statesman of the Golden Age.
Courteous and kindly, he was at all times a Kentucky gentleman of the old school if ever one trod this blessed earth.
Returning to the bar after his defeat for Congress, Douglas was, in quick succession, Secretary of State by appointment of the Governor, and Judge of the Circuit and Supreme Courts by election by the Legislature. The courts he held as _nisi prius_ judge were in the Quincy circuit, and the last-named city for a time his home.
His a.s.sociates upon the Supreme Bench were Justices Treat, Caton, Ford, Wilson, Scates, and Lockwood. His opinions, twenty-one in number, will be found in Scammon"s Reports. There was little in any of the causes submitted to test fully his capacity as lawyer or logician. Enough, however, appears from his clear and concise statements and arguments to justify the belief that had his life been unreservedly given to the profession of the law, his talents concentrated upon the mastery of its eternal principles, he would in the end have been amply rewarded "by that mistress who is at the same time so jealous and so just." This, however, was not to be, and to a field more alluring his footsteps were now turned. Abandoning the bench to men less ambitious, he was soon embarked upon the uncertain and delusive sea of politics.
His unsuccessful opponent for Congress in 1842 was the Hon. Orville H. Browning, with whom, in the State Legislature, he had measured swords over a partisan resolution sustaining the financial policy of President Jackson. "The whirligig of time brings in his revenges,"
and it so fell out that near two decades later it was the fortune of Mr. Browning to occupy a seat in the Senate as the successor of Douglas--"touched by the finger of death." At a later day, Mr.
Browning, as a member of the Cabinet of President Johnson, acquitted himself with honor in the discharge of the exacting duties of Secretary of the Interior. So long as men of high aims, patriotic hearts, and n.o.ble achievements are held in grateful remembrance, his name will have honored place in our country"s annals.
The career upon which Douglas now entered was the one for which he was pre-eminently fitted, and to which he had aspired from the beginning. It was a career in which national fame was to be achieved, and--by re-elections to the House, and later to the Senate --to continue without interruption to the last hour of his life.
He took his seat in the House of Representatives, December 5, 1843, and among his colleagues were Semple and Breese of the Senate, and Hardin, McClernand, Ficklin, and Wentworth of the House. Mr.
Stephens of Georgia,--with whom it was my good fortune to serve in the forty-fourth and forty-sixth Congresses--told me that he entered the House the same day with Douglas, and that he distinctly recalled the delicate and youthful appearance of the latter as he advanced to the Speaker"s desk to receive the oath of office. Conspicuous among the leaders of the House in the twenty-eighth Congress were Hamilton Fish, Washington Hunt, Henry A. Wise, Howell Cobb, Joshua R. Giddings, Linn Boyd, John Slidell, Barnwell Rhett, Robert C.
Winthrop, the Speaker, Hannibal Hamlin, elected Vice-President upon the ticket with Mr. Lincoln in 1860, Andrew Johnson, the successor of the lamented President in 1865, and John Quincy Adams, whose brilliant career as Amba.s.sador, Senator, Secretary of State, and President, was rounded out by nearly two decades of faithful service as a Representative in Congress.
The period that witnessed the entrance of Douglas into the great Commons was an eventful one in our political history. John Tyler, upon the death of President Harrison, had succeeded to the great office, and was in irreconcilable hostility to the leaders of his party upon the vital issues upon which the Whig victory of 1840 had been achieved. Henry Clay--then at the zenith of his marvellous powers--merciless in his arraignment of the Tyler administration, was unwittingly breeding the party dissentions that eventually compa.s.sed his own defeat in his last struggle for the Presidency. Daniel Webster, regardless of the criticism of party a.s.sociates, and after the retirement of his Whig colleagues from the Tyler cabinet, still remained at the head of the State Department. His vindication, if needed, abundantly appears in the treaty by which our northeastern boundary was definitely adjusted, and war with England happily averted.
In the rush of events, party antagonisms, in the main, soon fade from remembrance. One, however, that did not pa.s.s with the occasion, but lingered even to the shades of the Hermitage, was unrelenting hostility to President Jackson. For his declaration of martial law in New Orleans just prior to the battle--with which his own name is a.s.sociated for all time--General Jackson had been subjected to a heavy fine by a judge of that city. Repeated attempts in Congress looking to his vindication and reimburs.e.m.e.nt, had been unavailing. Securing the floor for the first time, Douglas--upon the anniversary of the great victory--delivered an impa.s.sioned speech in vindication of Jackson which at once challenged the attention of the country, and gave him high place among the great debaters of that memorable Congress. In reply to the demand of an opponent for a precedent for the proposed legislation, Douglas quickly responded:
"Possibly, sir, no case can be found on any page of American history where the commanding officer has been fined for an act absolutely necessary to the salvation of his country. As to precedents, let us make one now that will challenge the admiration of the world and stand the test of all the ages."
After a graphic description of conditions existing in New Orleans at the time of Jackson"s declaration of martial law, "the city filled with traitors, anxious to surrender; spies transmitting information to the camp of the enemy, British regulars--four-fold the number of the American defenders--advancing to the attack--in this terrible emergency, necessity became the paramount law, the responsibility was taken, martial law declared, and a victory achieved unparalleled in the annals of war; a victory that avenged the infamy of the wanton burning of our nation"s Capitol, fully, and for all time."
The speech was unanswered, the bill pa.s.sed, and probably Douglas knew no prouder moment than when, a few months later, upon a visit to the Hermitage, he received the earnest thanks of the venerable commander for his masterly vindication.
Two of the salient and far-reaching questions confronting the statesmen of that eventful Congress pertained to the settlement of the Oregon boundary question, and to the annexation of the republic of Texas. The first-named question--left unsettled by the treaty of Ghent--had been for two generations the apple of discord between the American and British governments. That it at a critical moment came near involving the two nations in a war is a well-known fact in history. The platform upon which Mr. Polk had, in 1844, been elected to the Presidency, a.s.serted unequivocally the right of the United States to the whole of the Oregon Territory. The boundary line of "fifty-four-forty" was in many of the States the decisive party watchword in that masterful contest.
Douglas, in full accord with his party upon this question, ably canva.s.sed Illinois in earnest advocacy of Mr. Polk"s election.
When, at a later day, it was determined by the President and his official advisers to abandon the party platform demand of "fifty-four degrees and forty minutes" as the only settlement of the disputed boundary, and accept that of the parallel of forty-nine degrees--reluctantly proposed by Great Britain as a peaceable final settlement--Mr. Douglas earnestly antagonizing any concession, was at once in opposition to the administration he had a.s.sisted to bring into power. Whether the part of wisdom was a strict adherence to the platform dicta of "the whole of Oregon," or a reasonable concession in the interest of peaceable adjustment of a dangerous question, was long a matter of vehement discussion. It suffices that the treaty with Great Britain establishing our northwestern boundary upon the parallel last named was promptly ratified by the Senate, and the once famous Oregon question peaceably relegated to the realm of history.
A question--sixty odd years ago--equal in importance with that of the Oregon boundary was the annexation of Texas. The "Lone Star State" had been virtually an independent republic since the decisive victory of General Houston over Santa Ana in 1837 at San Jacinto, and its independence as such had been acknowledged by our own and European governments. The hardy settlers of this new Commonwealth were in the main emigrants from the United States, and earnestly solicitous of admission into the Federal Union. The question of annexation entered largely into the Presidential canva.s.s of 1844, and the "lone star" upon Democratic banners was an important factor in securing the triumph of Mr. Polk in that bitterly contested election. In the closing hours of the Tyler administration, annexation was at length effected by joint resolution of Congress, and Texas pa.s.sed at once from an independent republic to a State of the American Union. This action of Congress, however, gave deep offence to the Mexican government, and was the initial in a series of stirring events soon to follow. The Mexican invasion, the brilliant victories won by American valor, and the treaty of peace --by which our domain was extended westward to the Pacific-- const.i.tute a thrilling chapter in the annals of war. Brief in duration, the Mexican War was the training school for men whose military achievements were yet to make resplendent the pages of history. Under the victorious banners of the great commanders, Taylor and Scott, were Thomas and Beauregard, Shields and Hill, Johnston and Sherman, McClellan and Longstreet, Hanc.o.c.k and Stonewall Jackson, Lee and Grant. In the list of heroes were eight future candidates for the Presidency, three of whom--Taylor, Pierce, and Grant--were triumphantly elected.
Meanwhile, at the nation"s Capitol was held high debate over questions second in importance to none that have engaged the profound consideration of statesmen--that literally took hold of the issues of war, conquest, diplomacy, peace, empire. From its inception, Douglas was an unfaltering advocate of the project of annexation, and as chairman of the Committee on Territories, bore prominent part in the protracted and exciting debates consequent upon the pa.s.sage of that measure in the House of Representatives. In his celebrated colloquy with Mr. Adams he contended that the joint resolution he advocated was in reality only for the re-annexation of territory originally ours under the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. That something akin to the spirit of "manifest destiny" brooded over the discussion may be gathered from the closing sentences of his speech:
"Our Federal system is admirably adapted to the whole continent; and while I would not violate the laws of national or treaty stipulations, or in any manner tarnish the national honor, I would exert all legal and honorable means to drive Great Britain and the last vestige of royal authority from the continent of North America, and extend the limits of the republic from ocean to ocean."
Elected to the Senate at the age of thirty-four, Douglas took his seat in that august body in December, 1847. On the same day Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office as a member from Illinois in the House of Representatives. The Senate was presided over by the able and accomplished Vice-President, George M. Dallas. Seldom has there been a more imposing list of great names than that which now included the young Senator from Illinois. Conspicuous among the Senators of the thirty States represented, were Dix of New York, Dayton of New Jersey, Hale of New Hampshire, Clayton of Delaware, Reverdy Johnson of Maryland, Mason of Virginia, King of Alabama, Davis of Mississippi, Bell of Tennessee, Corwin of Ohio, Crittenden of Kentucky, Breese of Illinois, Benton of Missouri, Houston of Texas, Calhoun of South Carolina, and Webster of Ma.s.sachusetts. It need hardly be said that the debates of that and the immediately succeeding Congress have possibly never been surpa.s.sed in ability and eloquence by any deliberative a.s.sembly.
The one vital and portentous question--in some one of its many phases--was that of human slavery. This inst.i.tution--until its final extinction amid the flames of war--cast its ominous shadow over our nation"s pathway from the beginning. From the establishment of the Government under the Federal Const.i.tution to the period mentioned, it had been the constant subject of compromise and concession.
Henry Clay was first known as "the great pacificator" by his tireless efforts in the exciting struggle of 1820, over the admission of Missouri--with its Const.i.tution recognizing slavery--into the Federal Union. Bowed with the weight of years, the Kentucky statesman, from the retirement he had sought, in recognition of the general desire of his countrymen, again returned to the theatre of his early struggles and triumphs. The fires of ambition had burned low by age and bereavement, but with earnest longing that he might again pour oil upon the troubled waters, he presented to the Senate, as terms of final peaceable adjustment of the slavery question, the once famous compromise measures of 1850.
The sectional agitation then at its height was measurably the result of the proposed disposition of territory acquired by the then recent treaty with Mexico. The advocates and opponents of slavery extension were at once in bitter antagonism, and the intensity of feeling such as the country had rarely known.
The compromise measures--proposed by Mr. Clay in a general bill --embraced the establishment of Territorial Governments for Utah and New Mexico, the settlement of the Texas boundary, an amendment to the Fugitive Slave Law, and the admission of California as a free State. In entire accord with each proposition, Douglas had--by direction of the Committee on Territories, of which he was the chairman--reported a bill providing for the immediate admission of California under its recently adopted free State Const.i.tution.
Separate measures embracing the other propositions of the general bill were likewise duly reported. These measures were advocated by the Illinois Senator in a speech that at once won him recognized place among the great debaters of that ill.u.s.trious a.s.semblage. After many weeks of earnest, at times vehement, debate, the bills in the form last mentioned were pa.s.sed, and received the approval of the President. Apart from the significance of these measures as a peace offering to the country, their pa.s.sage closed a memorable era in our history. During their discussion Clay, Calhoun, and Webster --"the ill.u.s.trious triumvirate"--were heard for the last time in the Senate. Greatest of the second generation of our statesmen, a.s.sociated in the advocacy of measures that in the early day of the Republic had given us exalted place among the nations, within brief time of each other, "shattered by the contentions of the Great Hall, they pa.s.sed to the chamber of reconciliation and of silence."
Chief in importance of his public services to his State was that of Senator Douglas in procuring from Congress a land grant to aid in the construction of the Illinois Central Railroad. It is but justice to the memory of his early colleague, Senator Breese, to say that he had been the earnest advocate of a similar measure in a former Congress. The bill, however, which after persistent opposition finally became a law, was introduced and warmly advocated by Senator Douglas. This act ceded to the State of Illinois--subject to the disposal of the Legislature thereof--"for the purpose of aiding in the construction of a railroad from the southern terminus of the Illinois and Michigan Ca.n.a.l to a point at or near the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, with a branch of the same to Chicago, and another to Dubuque, Iowa, every alternate section of land designated by even numbers for six sections in width on each side of said road, and its branches." It is difficult at this day to realize the importance of this measure to the then spa.r.s.ely settled State. The grant in aggregate was near three million acres, and was directly to the State. After appropriate action by the State Legislature, the Illinois Central Railroad Company was duly organized--and the road eventually constructed.
A recent historian has truly said:
"For this, if for no other public service to his State, the name of Douglas was justly ent.i.tled to preservation by the erection of that splendid monumental column which, overlooking the blue waters of Lake Michigan, also overlooks for long distance that iron highway which was in no small degree the triumph of his legislative forecast and genius."
The measure now to be mentioned aroused deeper attention--more anxious concern--throughout the entire country than any with which the name of Douglas had yet been closely a.s.sociated. It pertained directly to slavery, the "bone of contention" between the North and the South, the one dangerous quant.i.ty in our national politics from the establishment of the Government. Beginning with its recognition--though not in direct terms--in the Federal Const.i.tution, it had through two generations, in the interest of peace, been the subject of repeated compromise.
As chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories, Douglas in the early days of 1854 reported a bill providing for the organization of the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas. This measure, which so suddenly arrested public attention, is known in our political history as the "Kansas-Nebraska Bill." Among its provisions was one repealing the Missouri Compromise or restriction of 1820. The end sought by the repeal was, as stated by Douglas, to leave the people of said Territories respectively to determine the question of the introduction or exclusion of slavery for themselves; in other words, "to regulate their domestic inst.i.tutions in their own way, subject only to the Const.i.tution of the United States."
The principle strenuously contended for was that of "popular sovereignty" or non-intervention by Congress, in the affairs of the Territories. In closing the protracted and exciting debate just prior to the pa.s.sage of the bill in the Senate, he said:
"There is another reason why I desire to see this principle recognized as a rule of action in all time to come. It will have the effect to destroy all sectional parties and sectional agitation. If you withdraw the slavery question from the halls of Congress and the political arena, and commit it to the arbitrament of those who are immediately interested in and alone responsible for its consequences, there is nothing left out of which sectional parties can be organized.
When the people of the North shall all be rallied under one banner, and the whole South marshalled under another banner, and each section excited to frenzy and madness by hostility to the inst.i.tutions of the other, then the patriot may well tremble for the perpetuity of the Union. Withdraw the slavery question from the political arena and remove it to the States and Territories, each to decide for itself, and such a catastrophe can never happen."
These utterances of little more than half a century ago, fall strangely upon our ears at this day. In the light of all that has occurred in the long reach of years, how significant the words, "No man is wiser than events"! Likewise, "The actions of men are to be judged by the light surrounding them at the time--not by the knowledge that comes after the fact." The immediate effect of the pa.s.sage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was directly the reverse of that so confidently predicted by Douglas. The era of concord between the North and the South did not return. The slavery question--instead of being relegated to the recently organized Territories for final settlement--at once a.s.sumed the dimensions of a great national issue. The country at large--instead of a single Territory--became the theatre of excited discussion. The final determination was to be not that of a Territory, but of the entire people.
One significant effect of the pa.s.sage of the bill was the immediate disruption of the Whig party. As a great national organization --of which Clay and Webster had been eminent leaders, and Harrison and Taylor successful candidates for the Presidency--it now pa.s.ses into history. Upon its ruins, the Republican party at once came into being. Under the leadership of Fremont as its candidate, and opposition by Congressional intervention to slavery extension as its chief issue, it was a formidable antagonist to the Democratic party, in the Presidential contest of 1856. Mr. Buchanan had defeated Douglas in the nominating convention of his party that year.
His absence from the country as Minister to England, during the exciting events just mentioned, it was thought would make him a safer candidate than his chief compet.i.tor, Douglas. He had been in no manner identified with the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, or the stormy events which immediately followed its pa.s.sage. In his letter of acceptance, however, Mr. Buchanan had given his unqualified approval of his party platform, which recognized and adopted "the principle contained in the organic law establishing the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas as embodying the only sound and safe solution of the slavery question." Upon the principle here declared, issue was joined by his political opponents, and the battle fought to the bitter end.
Although Douglas had met personal defeat in his aspiration to the Presidency, the principle of non-intervention by Congress in the affairs of the Territories, for which he had so earnestly contended, had been triumphant both in the convention of the party, and at the polls. This principle, in its application to Kansas, was soon to be put to the test. From its organization, that Territory had been a continuous scene of disorder, often of violence.
In rapid succession three Governors appointed by the President had resigned and departed the Territory, each confessing his inability to maintain public order. The struggle for mastery between the Free State advocates and their adversaries arrested the attention of the entire country. It vividly recalled the b.l.o.o.d.y forays read of in the old chronicles of hostile clans upon the Scottish border.
The parting of the ways between Senator Douglas and President Buchanan was now reached. The latter had received the cordial support of Douglas in the election which elevated him to the Presidency. His determined opposition to the re-election of Douglas became apparent as the Senatorial canva.s.s progressed. The incidents now to be related will explain this hostility, as well as bring to the front one of the distinctive questions upon which much stress was laid in the subsequent debates between Douglas and Lincoln.
A statesman of national reputation, the Hon. Robert J. Walker, was at length appointed Governor of Kansas. During his brief administration a convention a.s.sembled without his co-operation at Lecompton, and formulated a Const.i.tution under which application was soon made for the admission of Kansas into the Union. This convention was in part composed of non-residents, and in no sense reflected the wishes of the majority of the _bona fide_ residents of the Territory.
The salient feature of the Const.i.tution was that establishing slavery. The Const.i.tution was not submitted to the convention to popular vote, but in due time forwarded to the President, and by him laid before Congress, accompanied by a recommendation for its approval, and the early admission of the new State into the Union.
When the Lecompton Const.i.tution came before the Senate, it at once encountered the formidable opposition of Senator Douglas. In unmeasured terms he denounced it as fraudulent, as antagonistic to the wishes of the people of Kansas, and subversive of the basic principle upon which the Territory had been organized. In the att.i.tude just a.s.sumed, Douglas at once found himself in line with the Republicans, and in opposition to the administration he had helped place in power. The breach thus created was destined to remain unhealed. Moreover, his declaration of hostility to the Lecompton Const.i.tution was the beginning of the end of years of close political affiliation with Southern Democratic statesmen.
From that moment Douglas lost prestige as a national leader of his party. In more than one-half of the Democratic States he ceased to be regarded as a probable or even possible candidate for the Presidential succession. The hostility thus engendered followed him to the Charleston convention of 1860, and throughout the exciting Presidential contest which followed. But the humiliation of defeat --brought about, as he believed, by personal hostility to himself-- was yet in the future. In the attempted admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Const.i.tution, Douglas was triumphant over the administration and his former political a.s.sociates from the South.
Under what was known as the "English Amendment," the obnoxious Const.i.tution was referred to the people of Kansas, and by them overwhelmingly rejected.
The close of this controversy in the early months of 1858 left Douglas in a position of much embarra.s.sment. He had incurred the active hostility of the President, and in large measure of his adherents, without gaining the future aid of his late a.s.sociates in the defeat of the Lecompton Const.i.tution. His Senatorial term was nearing its close, and his political life depended upon his re-election. With a united and aggressive enemy, ably led, in his front; his own party hopelessly divided--one faction seeking his defeat--it can readily be seen that his political pathway was by no means one of peace. Such, in brief outline, were the political conditions when, upon the adjournment of Congress, Douglas returned to Illinois in July, 1858, and made public announcement of his candidacy for re-election.