Stephen A. Douglas: A Study in American Politics Part 26

[Footnote 581: Political Debates between Lincoln and Douglas, pp. 161 ff.]

[Footnote 582: _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 22.]

[Footnote 583: _Ibid._, App., p. 127. Toombs also stated that the submission clause had been put in his bill in the first place by accident, and that it had been stricken from the bill at his suggestion.]

[Footnote 584: The submission of State const.i.tutions to a popular vote had not then become a general practice.]

[Footnote 585: Rhodes, History of the United States, II, p. 195.]

[Footnote 586: _Globe_, 34 Cong., 1 Sess., App., p. 844.]

[Footnote 587: _Globe_, 35 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 21.]

[Footnote 588: Sheahan, Douglas, p. 443.]

[Footnote 589: Davidson and Stuve, History of Illinois, p. 650.]

[Footnote 590: MS. Letter, Douglas to Sheahan, October 6, 1856.]

[Footnote 591: _Tribune Almanac_, 1857. The vote was as follows:

Buchanan 105,348 Fremont 96,189 Fillmore 37,444 ]

BOOK III

THE IMPENDING CRISIS

CHAPTER XIV

THE PERSONAL EQUATION

Vast changes had pa.s.sed over Illinois since Douglas set foot on its soil, a penniless boy with his fortune to make. The frontier had been pushed back far beyond the northern boundary of the State; the Indians had disappeared; and the great military tract had been occupied by a thrifty, enterprising people of the same stock from which Douglas sprang. In 1833, the center of political gravity lay far south of the geographical center of the State; by 1856, the northern counties had already established a political equipoise. The great city on Lake Michigan, a l.u.s.ty young giant, was yearly becoming more conscious of its commercial and political possibilities. Douglas had natural affinities with Chicago. It was thoroughly American, thoroughly typical of that restless, aggressive spirit which had sent him, and many another New Englander, into the great interior basin of the continent. There was no other city which appealed so strongly to his native instincts. From the first he had been impressed by its commercial potentialities. He had staked his own fortunes upon its invincible prosperity by investing in real estate, and within a few years he had reaped the reward of his faith in unseen values. His holdings both in the city and in Cook County advanced in value by leaps and bounds, so that in the year 1856, he sold approximately one hundred acres for $90,000. With his wonted prodigality, born of superb confidence in future gains, he also deeded ten acres of his valuable "Grove Property" to the trustees of Chicago University.[592] Yet with a far keener sense of honor than many of his contemporaries exhibited, he refused to speculate in land in the new States and Territories, with whose political beginnings he would be a.s.sociated as chairman of the Committee on Territories. He was resolved early in his career "to avoid public suspicion of private interest in his political conduct."[593]

The gift to Chicago University was no doubt inspired in part at least by local pride; yet it was not the first nor the only instance of the donor's interest in educational matters. No one had taken greater interest in the bequest of James Smithson to the United States. At first, no doubt, Douglas labored under a common misapprehension regarding this foundation, fancying that it would contribute directly to the advancement and diffusion of the applied sciences; but his support was not less hearty when he grasped the policy formulated by the first secretary of the inst.i.tution. He was the author of that provision in the act establis.h.i.+ng the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution, which called for the presentation of one copy of every copyrighted book, map, and musical composition, to the Inst.i.tution and to the Congressional Library.[594] He became a member of the board of regents and retained the office until his death.

With his New England training Douglas believed profoundly in the dignity of labor; not even his Southern a.s.sociations lessened his genuine admiration for the magnificent industrial achievements of the Northern mechanic and craftsman. He shared, too, the conviction of his Northern const.i.tuents, that the inventiveness, resourcefulness, and bold initiative of the American workman was the outcome of free inst.i.tutions, which permitted and encouraged free and bold thinking.

The American laborer was not brought up to believe it "a crime to think in opposition to the consecrated errors of olden times."[595] It was impossible for a man so thinking to look with favor upon the slave-labor system of the South. He might tolerate the presence of slavery in the South; but in his heart of hearts he could not desire its indefinite extension.

Douglas belonged to his section, too, in his att.i.tude toward the disposition of the public domain. He was one of the first to advocate free grants of the public lands to homesteaders. His bill to grant one hundred and sixty acres to actual settlers who should cultivate them for four years, was the first of many similar projects in the early fifties.[596] Southern statesmen thought this the best "bid" yet made for votes: it was further evidence of Northern demagogism. The South, indeed, had little direct interest in the peopling of the Western prairies by independent yeomen, native or foreign. Just here Douglas parted company with his Southern a.s.sociates. He believed that the future of the great West depended upon this wise and beneficial use of the national domain. Neither could he agree with Eastern statesmen who deplored the gratuitous distribution of lands, which by sale would yield large revenues. His often-repeated reply was the quintessence of Western statesmans.h.i.+p. The pioneer who went into the wilderness, to wrestle with all manner of hards.h.i.+ps, was a true wealth-producer. As he cleared his land and tilled the soil, he not only himself became a tax-payer, but he increased the value of adjoining lands and added to the sum total of the national resources.[597]

Douglas gave his ungrudging support to grants of land in aid of railroads and ca.n.a.ls. He would not regard such grants, however, as mere donations, but rather as wise provisions for increasing the value of government lands. "The government of the United States is a great land owner; she has vast bodies of land which she has had in market for thirty or forty years; and experience proves that she cannot sell them.... The difficulty in the way of the sale does not arise from the fact that the lands are not fertile and susceptible to cultivation, but that they are distant from market, and in many cases dest.i.tute of timber."[598] Therefore he gave his voice and vote for nearly all land grant bills, designed to aid the construction of railroads and ca.n.a.ls that would bring these public lands into the market; but he insisted that everything should be done by individual enterprise if possible.

He shared the hostility of the West toward large grants of land to private corporations.[599] What could not be done by individual enterprise, should be done by the States; and only that should be undertaken by the Federal government which could be done in no other way.

As the representative of a const.i.tuency which was profoundly interested in the navigation of the great interior waterways of the continent, Douglas was a vigorous advocate of internal improvements, so far as his Democratic conscience would allow him to construe the Const.i.tution in favor of such undertakings by the Federal government.

Like his const.i.tuents, he was not always logical in his deductions from const.i.tutional provisions. The Const.i.tution, he believed, would not permit an appropriation of government money for the construction of the s.h.i.+p ca.n.a.l around the Falls of the St. Mary's; but as landowner, the Federal government might donate lands for that purpose.[600] He was also constrained to vote for appropriations for the improvement of river channels and of harbors on the lakes and on the ocean, because these were works of a distinctly national character; but he deplored the mode by which these appropriations were made.[601]

Just when the Nebraska issue came to the fore, he was maturing a scheme by which a fair, consistent, and continuous policy of internal improvements could be initiated, in place of the political bargaining which had hitherto determined the location of government operations.

Two days before he presented his famous Nebraska report, Douglas addressed a letter to Governor Matteson of Illinois in which he developed this new policy.[602] He believed that the whole question would be thoroughly aired in the session just begun.[603] Instead of making internal improvements a matter of politics, and of wasteful jobbery, he would take advantage of the const.i.tutional provision which permits a State to lay tonnage duties by the consent of Congress. If Congress would pa.s.s a law permitting the imposition of tonnage duties according to a uniform rule, then each town and city might be authorized to undertake the improvement of its own harbor, and to tax its own commerce for the prosecution of the work. Under such a system the dangers of misuse and improper diversion of funds would be reduced to a minimum. The system would be self-regulative.

Negligence, or extravagance, with the necessary imposition of higher duties, would punish a port by driving s.h.i.+pping elsewhere.

But for the interposition of the slavery issue, which no one would have more gladly banished from Congress, Douglas would have unquestionably pushed some such reform into the foreground. His heart was bound up in the material progress of the country. He could never understand why men should allow an issue like slavery to stand in the way of prudential and provident legislation for the expansion of the Republic. He laid claim to no expert knowledge in other matters: he frankly confessed his ignorance of the mysteries of tariff schedules.

"I have learned enough about the tariff," said he with a sly thrust at his colleagues, who prided themselves on their wisdom, "to know that I know scarcely anything about it at all; and a man makes considerable progress on a question of this kind when he ascertains that fact."[604] Still, he grasped an elementary principle that had escaped many a protectionist, that "a tariff involves two conflicting principles which are eternally at war with each other. Every tariff involves the principles of protection and of oppression, the principles of benefits and of burdens.... The great difficulty is, so to adjust these conflicting principles of benefits and burdens as to make one compensate for the other in the end, and give equal benefits and equal burdens to every cla.s.s of the community."[605]

Douglas was wiser, too, than the children of light, when he insisted that works of art should be admitted free of duty. "I wish we could get a model of every work of art, a cast of every piece of ancient statuary, a copy of every valuable painting and rare book, so that our artists might pursue their studies and exercise their skill at home, and that our literary men might not be exiled in the pursuits which bless mankind."[606]

Still, the prime interests of this hardy son of the West were political. How could they have been otherwise in his environment?

There is no evidence of literary refinement in his public utterances; no trace of the culture which comes from intimate a.s.sociation with the cla.s.sics; no suggestion of inspiration quaffed in communion with imaginative and poetic souls. An amusing recognition of these limitations is vouched for by a friend, who erased a line of poetry from a ma.n.u.script copy of a public address by Douglas. Taken to task for his presumption, he defended himself by the indisputable a.s.sertion, that Douglas was never known to have quoted a line of poetry in his life.[607] Yet the unimaginative Douglas antic.i.p.ated the era of aerial navigation now just dawning. On one occasion, he urged upon the Senate a memorial from an aeronaut, who desired the aid of the government in experiments which he was conducting with dirigible balloons. When the Senate, in a mirthful mood, proposed to refer the pet.i.tion to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Douglas protested that the subject should be treated seriously.[608]

While Douglas was thus steadily growing into complete accord with the New England elements in his section--save on one vital point,--he fell captive to the beauty and grace of one whose a.s.sociations were with men and women south of Mason and Dixon's line. Adele Cutts was the daughter of Mr. J. Madison Cutts of Was.h.i.+ngton, who belonged to an old Maryland family. She was the great-niece of Dolly Madison, whom she much resembled in charm of manner. When Douglas first made her acquaintance, she was the belle of Was.h.i.+ngton society,--in the days when the capital still boasted of a genuine aristocracy of gentleness, grace, and talent. There are no conflicting testimonies as to her beauty. Women spoke of her as "beautiful as a pearl;" to men she seemed "a most lovely and queenly apparition."[609] Both men and women found her sunny-tempered, generous, warm-hearted, and sincere. What could there have been in the serious-minded, dark-visaged "Little Giant" to win the hand of this mistress of many hearts? Perhaps she saw "Oth.e.l.lo's visage in his mind"; perhaps she yielded to the imperious will which would accept no refusal; at all events, Adele Cutts chose this plain little man of middle-age in preference to men of wealth and t.i.tle.[610] It proved to be in every respect a happy marriage.[611] He cherished her with all the warmth of his manly affection; she became the devoted partner of all his toils. His two boys found in her a true mother; and there was not a household in Was.h.i.+ngton where home-life was graced with tenderer mutual affection.[612]

Across this picture of domestic felicity, there fell but a single, fugitive shadow. Adele Cutts was an adherent of the Roman Church; and at a time when Native Americanism was running riot with the sense of even intelligent men, such ecclesiastical connections were made the subject of some odious comment. Although Douglas permitted his boys to be educated in the Catholic faith, and profoundly respected the religious instincts of his tender-hearted wife, he never entered into the Roman communion, nor in fact identified himself with any church.[613] Much of his relentless criticism of Native Americanism can be traced to his abhorrence of religious intolerance in any form.

This alliance meant much to Douglas. Since the death of his first wife, he had grown careless in his dress and bearing, too little regardful of conventionalities. He had sought by preference the society of men, and had lost those external marks of good-breeding which companions.h.i.+p with gentlewomen had given him. Insensibly he had fallen a prey to a certain harshness and bitterness of temper, which was foreign to his nature; and he had become reckless, so men said, because of defeated ambition. But now yielding to the warmth of tender domesticity, the true nature of the man a.s.serted itself.[614] He grew, perhaps not less ambitious, but more sensible of the obligations which leaders.h.i.+p imposed.

No one could gainsay his leaders.h.i.+p. He was indisputably the most influential man in his party; and this leaders.h.i.+p was not bought by obsequiousness to party opinion, nor by the shadowy arts of the machine politician alone. True, he was a spoilsman, like all of his contemporaries. He was not above using the spoils of office to reward faithful followers. Reprehensible as the system was, and is, there is perhaps a redeeming feature in this aspect of American politics. The ignorant foreigner was reconciled to government because it was made to appear to him as a personal benefactor. Due credit must be given to those leaders like Douglas, who fired the hearts of Irishmen and Germans with loyalty to the Union through the medium of party.[615]

The hold of Douglas upon his following, however, cannot be explained by sordid appeals to their self-interest. He commanded the unbought service of thousands. In the early days of his career, he had found loyal friends, who labored unremittingly for his advancement, without hope of pecuniary reward or of any return but personal grat.i.tude; and throughout his career he drew upon this vast fund of personal loyalty.

His capacity for warm friends.h.i.+ps was unlimited. He made men, particularly young men, feel that it was an inestimable boon to be permitted to labor with him "for the cause." Far away in Asia Minor, with his mind teeming with a thousand strange sensations, he can yet think of a friend at the antipodes who nurses a grievance against him; and forthwith he sits down and writes five pages of generous, affectionate remonstrance.[616] In the thick of an important campaign, when countless demands are made upon his time, he finds a moment to lay his hand upon the shoulder of a young German ward-politician with the hearty word, "I count very much on your help in this election."[617] If this was the art of a politician, it was art reduced to artlessness.

Not least among the qualities which made Douglas a great, persuasive, popular leader, was his quite extraordinary memory for names and faces, and his unaffected interest in the personal life of those whom he called his friends. "He gave to every one of those humble and practically nameless followers the impression, the feeling, that he was the frank, personal friend of each one of them."[618] Doubtless he was well aware that there is no subtler form of flattery, than to call individuals by name who believe themselves to be forgotten p.a.w.ns in a great game; and he may well have cultivated the profitable habit.

Still, the fact remains, that it was an innate temperamental quality which made him frank and ingenuous in his intercourse with all sorts and conditions of men.

Those who judged the man by the senator, often failed to understand his temperament. He was known as a hard hitter in parliamentary encounters. He never failed to give a Roland for an Oliver. In the heat of debate, he was often guilty of harsh, bitter invective. His manner betrayed a lack of fineness and good-breeding. But his resentment vanished with the spoken word. He repented the barbed shaft, the moment it quitted his bow. He would invite to his table the very men with whom he had been in acrimonious controversy, and perhaps renew the controversy next day. Greeley testified to this absence of resentment. On a certain occasion, after the New York _Tribune_ had attacked Douglas savagely, a mutual acquaintance asked Douglas if he objected to meeting the redoubtable Greeley. "Not at all," was the good-natured reply, "I always pay that cla.s.s of political debts as I go along, so as to have no trouble with them in social intercourse and to leave none for my executors to settle."[619]

In the round of social functions which Senator and Mrs. Douglas enjoyed, there was little time for quiet thought and reflection. Men who met him night after night at receptions and dinners, marvelled at the punctuality with which he returned to the routine work of the Senate next morning. Yet there was not a member of the Senate who had a readier command of facts germane to the discussions of the hour. His memory was a willing slave which never failed to do the bidding of master intellect. Some of his ablest and most effective speeches were made without preparation and with only a few pencilled notes at hand.

Truly Nature had been lavish in her gifts to him.

To nine-tenths of his devoted followers, he was still "Judge" Douglas.

It was odd that the t.i.tle, so quickly earned and so briefly worn, should have stuck so persistently to him. In legal attainments he fell far short of many of his colleagues in the Senate. Had he but chosen to apply himself, he might have been a conspicuous leader of the American bar; but law was ever to him the servant of politics, and he never cared to make the servant greater than his lord. That he would have developed judicial qualities, may well be doubted; advocate he was and advocate he remained, to the end of his days. So it was that when a legal question arose, with far-reaching implications for American politics, the lawyer and politician, rather than the judge, laid hold upon the points of political significance.

The inauguration of James Buchanan and the Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court, two days later, marked a turning point in the career of Judge Douglas. Of this he was of course unaware. He accepted the advent of his successful rival with composure, and the opinion of the Court, with comparative indifference. In a speech before the Grand Jury of the United States District Court at Springfield, three months later, he referred publicly for the first time to the Dred Scott case.

Senator, and not Judge, Douglas was much in evidence. He swallowed the opinion of the majority of the court without wincing--the _obiter dictum_ and all. Nay, more, he praised the Court for pa.s.sing, like honest and conscientious judges, from the technicalities of the case to the real merits of the questions involved. The material, controlling points of the case were: first, that a negro descended from slave parents could not be a citizen of the United States; second, that the Missouri Compromise was unconst.i.tutional and void from the beginning, and thus could not extinguish a master's right to his slave in any Territory. "While the right continues in full force under ... the Const.i.tution," he added, "and cannot be divested or alienated by an act of Congress, it necessarily remains a barren and 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 triumphant conclusion that "the great principle of popular sovereignty and self-government is sustained and firmly established by the authority of this decision."[620]

There were acute legal minds who thought that they detected a false note in this paean. Was this a necessary implication from the Dred Scott decision? Was it the intention of the Court to leave the principle of popular sovereignty standing upright? Was not the decision rather fatal to the great doctrine--the s.h.i.+bboleth of the Democratic party?

On this occasion Douglas had nothing to add to his exposition of the Dred Scott case, further than to point out the happy escape of white supremacy from African equality. And here he struck the note which put him out of accord with those Northern const.i.tuents with whom he was otherwise in complete harmony. "When you confer upon the African race the privileges of citizens.h.i.+p, and put them on an equality with white men at the polls, in the jury box, on the bench, in the Executive chair, and in the councils of the nation, upon what principle will you deny their equality at the festive board and in the domestic circle?"

In the following year, he received his answer in the homely words of Abraham Lincoln: "I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife."

FOOTNOTES: