Rise of the Southern Party—Formation of the Abolition and the Free Soil Parties—Judge Douglas and the Kansas-Nebraska Bill—Douglas defeated by Lincoln—Lincoln resigns as Candidate for Congress—Lincoln’s Letter on Slavery—The Bloomington Speech—The Fremont Campaign—Election of Buchanan—The Dred-Scott Decision.

The great storm of civil war which now threatened the American Ship of State had been long brewing. Year by year the party of slave-owners—small in number but strong in union, and unanimously devoted to the acquisition of political power—had progressed, until they saw before them the possibility of ruling the entire continent. To please them, the nation, after purchasing, had admitted as slave territory the immense regions of Louisiana and Florida, and in their interests a war had been waged with Mexico. But, so early as 1820, the North, alarmed at the incredible progress of slave-power, and observing that wherever it was established white labour was paralysed, and that society resolved itself at once into a small aristocracy, with a large number of blacks and poor whites who were systematically degraded,21 attempted to check its territorial extension. There was a contest, which was finally settled by what was known as the Missouri Compromise, by which it was agreed that Missouri should be admitted as a slave state, but that in future all territory North and West of Missouri, above latitude 36° 30´, should be for ever free.22

While the inhabitants of the Eastern and Western States applied themselves to every development of industrial pursuits, art, and letters, the Southerners lived by agricultural slave-labour, and were entirely devoted to acquiring political power. The contest was unequal, and the result was that, before the Rebellion, the slave-holders—who, with their slaves, only constituted one-third of the population of the United States—had secured two-thirds of all the offices—civil, military, or naval—and had elected two-thirds of the Presidents. Law after law was passed, giving the slave-holders every advantage, until Governor Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, declared in Congress that slavery should pour itself abroad, and have no limit but the Southern Ocean. He also asserted that the best way to meet or answer Abolition arguments was with death. His house was afterwards, during the war, used for a negro school, under care of a New England Abolitionist. Large pecuniary rewards were offered by Governors of slave states for the persons—i.e., the lives—of eminent Northern anti-slavery men. Direct efforts were made to re-establish the slave-trade between Africa and the Southern States.

In 1839 the Abolition party was formed, which advocated the total abolition of slavery. This was going too far for the mass of the North, who hoped to live at peace with the South. But still there were many in both the Whig and Democratic parties who wished to see the advance of the slave power checked; and their delegates, meeting at Buffalo in June, 1848, formed the Free Soil party, opposed to the further extension of slavery, which rapidly grew in power. The struggle became violent. When the territory acquired by war from Mexico was to be admitted to the Union in 1846, David Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, offered a proviso to the Bill accepting the territory, to the effect that slavery should be unknown in it. There was a fierce debate for two years over this proviso, which was finally rejected. The most desperate legislation was adopted to make California a slave state, and when she decided by her own will to be free, the slave-holders opposed her admission to the Union. Finally, in 1850, the celebrated Compromise Measures were adopted. These were to the effect that California should be admitted free—that in New Mexico and Utah the people should decide for themselves as to slavery—and that such of Texas as was above latitude 36° 30´ should be free. To this, however, was tacked a new and more cruel fugitive slave law,23 apparently to humiliate and annoy the free states, and to keep irritation alive.

But, on the 4th January, 1854, Judge Douglas introduced into the Senate of the United States a Bill known as the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, proposing to set aside the Missouri Compromise. This was passed, after a tremendous struggle, on May 22nd and the slave-party triumphed. Yet it proved their ruin, for it was the first decisive step to the strife which ended in civil war. It eventually destroyed Mr. Douglas, its originator. He is said to have repented the deed; and when it became evident that the Union was aroused, and that the Republican would be the winning party, Douglas went over to it. “He had long before invoked destruction on the ruthless hand which should disturb the compromise, and now he put forth his own ingenious hand to do the deed and to take the curse, in both of which he was eminently successful.” He was defeated by the honester and wiser Lincoln, and died a disappointed man.

To suit the slave-party, it was originally agreed, in 1820, that in future they, though so greatly inferior in number, should have half the territory of the Union. But as they found in time that population increased most rapidly in the free territories, the compromise of 1850 was arranged, by which the inhabitants of the new states were to decide for themselves in the matter. The result was an immediate and terrible turmoil. The legitimate dwellers in Kansas were almost all steady, law-abiding farmers who hated slavery. But, from Missouri and the neighbouring slave states, there was poured in, by means of committees and funds raised in the South, a vast number of “Border ruffians,” or desperadoes, who would remain in Kansas only long enough to vote illegally, or to rob and ravage, and then retire. The North, on the other hand, exasperated by these outrages, sent numbers of emigrants to Kansas to support the legitimate settlers, and the result was a virtual civil war, which was the more irritating because President Buchanan did all in his power to aid the Border ruffians, and crush the legitimate settlers. Day by day it became evident that the Kansas-Nebraska Bill had been passed for the purpose of enabling the South to quit the Union, and ere long this was openly avowed by the slave-holding press and politicians. The entire North was now fiercely irritated. Judge Douglas, returning westwards, tried to speak at Chicago, but was hissed down. At the state fair in Springfield, Illinois, Oct. 4th, 1854, he spoke in defence of the Nebraska Bill, but was replied to by Lincoln “with such power as he had never exhibited before.” He was no longer the orator he had been, “but a newer and greater Lincoln, the like of whom no one in that vast multitude had ever heard.” “The Nebraska Bill,” says W. H. Herndon, “was shivered, and, like a tree of the forest, was torn and rent asunder by hot bolts of truth.” Douglas was crushed, and his brief reply was a spiritless failure. From this time forth, Lincoln’s speeches were as unexceptional in form as they were vigorous and logical. Never was there a man of whom it could be said with so much truth that he always rose to the occasion, however great, however unprecedented its demands on his power might be.

From Springfield Lincoln followed Douglas to Peoria, where he delivered, in debate, another great speech. Not liking slavery in itself, Lincoln was willing to let it alone under the old compromise, but he would never suffer its introduction to new territories, and he made it clear as day that Douglas, by opening the flood-gate of slavery on free soil, had let loose a torrent which, if unchecked, would sweep everything to destruction. He had previously, at Springfield, disclosed the fallacy of Douglas’s “great principle” by a single sentence. “I admit that the emigrant to Kansas is competent to govern himself, but I deny his right to govern any other person without that person’s consent.” Such arguments were overwhelming, and Douglas, the Giant of the West and the foremost politician in America, felt that he had met his master at his own peculiar weapons—oratory and debate. He sent for Lincoln, and proposed that both should refrain from speaking during the campaign, and Lincoln, conscious of superior strength, agreed. Douglas did speak once more, however, but Lincoln remained silent.

At the end of this campaign, Lincoln was elected to the Legislature of Illinois. As the Legislature was about to elect a United States Senator, Lincoln resigned to become a candidate. But at the election—there being three candidates—Lincoln, finding that by resigning he could make it sure that an anti-Nebraska man (Judge Trumbull) could be elected, and that there was some uncertainty as to his own success, resigned, in the noblest manner, in favour of his principles and party. It had been the ambition of his life to become a United States Senator. The result of this sacrifice, says Holland, was that, when the Republican party was soon after regularly organised, Lincoln became their foremost man.

Meanwhile, the strife in Kansas grew more desperate. One Governor after another was appointed to the state, for the express purpose of turning it over to slavery; but the outrageous frauds practised at the election were too much for Mr. Reeder and his successor, Shannon, and even for his follower, Robert J. Walker, a man not over-scrupulous. Walker, like many other Democrats, adroitly turned with the tide, but too late.

During 1855, the old parties were breaking up, and the new Republican one was gathering with great rapidity. Two separate governments or legislatures had formed in Kansas, one manifestly and boldly fraudulent in favour of slavery, and the other settled at Topeka, headed by Governor Reeder, consisting of legitimate settlers. At this time, Aug. 24th, 1855, Lincoln wrote to his friend Speed a letter, in which he discussed slavery with great shrewdness. In answer to the standing Southern argument, that slavery did not concern Northern people, and that it was none of their business, he replied—

“In 1841, you and I had together a tedious low-water trip on a steamboat, from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember as well as I do that, from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio, there were on board ten or a dozen slaves shackled with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me, and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border. It is not fair for you to assume that I have no interest in a thing which has, and continually exercises, the power of making me miserable. You ought rather to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the Constitution and the Union. I do oppose the extension of slavery, because my judgment and feelings so prompt me; and I am under no obligations to the contrary. If for this you and I must differ, differ we must.”

On May 29th, 1856, Lincoln attended a meeting at Bloomington, Illinois, where, with his powerful assistance, the Republican party of the state was organised, and delegates were appointed to the National Republican Convention which was to be held on the 17th of the following month at Philadelphia. The speech which he made on this occasion was of extraordinary power. From this day he was regarded by the Republicans of the West as their leader. Therefore, in the Republican National Convention of 1856, at Philadelphia, the Illinois delegation presented his name for the Vice-Presidency. He received a complimentary vote of 110 votes, the successful candidate, Dayton, having 259. This, however, was his formal introduction to the nation. At this convention, John C. Fremont, a plausible political pretender, was nominated for the Presidency. As a candidate for Presidential elector, Lincoln again took the field. He made a thorough and energetic canvass, and his greatly improved powers of oratory now manifested themselves. Probably no man in the country, says Lamon, discussed the main questions at issue in a manner more original and persuasive. Buchanan, the Democratic candidate, was elected by a small majority. The Republican vote was largely increased by many offensive and inhuman enforcements of the fugitive slave law,24 for it seemed at this time as if the South had gone mad, and was resolved to do all in its power to irritate the North into war.

On March 4th, 1857, Buchanan, the last Slave-President, was inaugurated, and, a few days after, Judge Taney, of the Supreme Court, rendered the famous “Dred Scott” decision relative to a fugitive negro slave of that name, to the effect that a man of African slave descent could not be a citizen of the United States—that the prohibition of slavery was unconstitutional, and that it existed by the Constitution in all the territories. Judge Taney, in fact, declared that the negro had no rights which the white man was bound to respect. “Against the Constitution—against the memory of the nation—against a previous decision—against a series of enactments—he decided that the slave is property, and that the Constitution upholds it against every other property.”25 This decision was regarded as an outrage even by many old Democrats. In the same year the slavery-party in Kansas passed, by fraud and violence, the celebrated Lecompton Constitution, upholding slavery. By this time, Judge Douglas, the author of all this mischief, wishing to be re-elected to the Senate, and finding that there was no chance for him as a pro-slavery candidate, was suddenly seized with indignation at the Lecompton affair, which he pronounced an outrage. The result was the division of the Democratic party. He then made a powerful speech at Springfield, defending his course with great shrewdness, but it was, as usual, blown to the winds by a reply from Lincoln. Douglas suddenly became a zealous “Free Soiler,” after the manner admirably burlesqued by “Petroleum Nasby,”26 when that worthy found it was necessary to become an anti-slavery man to keep his post-office. At this time Douglas made his famous assertion that he did not care whether slavery was voted up or down; and in the following year, April 30th, 1858, Congress passed the English Bill, by which the people of Kansas were offered heavy bribes in land if they would accept the Lecompton Constitution, but which the people rejected by an immense majority.

On the 16th June, 1858, a Republican State Convention at Springfield nominated Lincoln for the Senate, and on the 17th he delivered a bold speech, soon to be known far and wide as the celebrated “House divided against itself” speech. It began with these words—

“If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far on into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation had not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’ I believe this Government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States—old as well as new, North as well as South.

“Have we no tendency to the latter condition? Let any one who doubts carefully contemplate that now almost complete legal combination—piece of machinery, so to speak—compounded of the Nebraska doctrine and the Dred Scott decision. Let him consider not only what work the machinery is adapted to do, and how well adapted, but also let him study the history of its construction, and trace, if he can, or rather fail, if he can, to trace the evidences of design and concert of action among its chief master-workers from the beginning.”

These were awful words to the world, and with awe were they received. Lincoln was the first man among the “moderates” who had dared to speak so plainly. His friends were angry, but in due time this tremendous speech had the right effect, for it announced the truth. Meanwhile, Lincoln and Douglas were again paired together as rivals, and at one place the latter put to his adversary a series of questions, which were promptly answered. In return, Lincoln gave Douglas four others, by one of which he was asked if the people of a United States territory could in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits? To which Douglas replied that the people of a territory had the lawful means to exclude slavery by legislative action. This reply brought Douglas into direct antagonism with the pro-slavery men. He hoped, by establishing a “platform” of his own, to head so many Democrats that the Republicans would welcome his accession, and make him President. But Lincoln, by these questions, and by his unyielding attacks, weakened him to his ruin. It is true that Judge Douglas gained his seat in the Senate, but it was by an old and unjust law in the Legislature, as Lincoln really had four thousand majority.

The speeches which Lincoln delivered during this campaign, and which were afterwards published with those of Douglas, were so refined and masterly that many believed they had been revised for him by able friends. But from this time all his oratory indicated an advance in all respects. He was now bent on great things.