THE LECOMPTON FIGHT

In June, 1856, Lincoln wrote to Trumbull urging him to attend the Republican National Convention which had been called to meet in Philadelphia to nominate candidates for President and Vice-President and suggesting that he labor for the nomination of a conservative man for President. Trumbull went accordingly and coÖperated with N. B. Judd, Leonard Swett, William B. Archer, and other delegates from Illinois in the proceedings which led up to the futile nominations of FrÉmont and Dayton. The only part of these proceedings which interests us now is the fact that Abraham Lincoln, who was not a candidate for any place, received one hundred and ten votes for Vice-President. This result was brought about by Mr. William B. Archer, an Illinois Congressman, who conceived the idea of proposing his name only a short time before the voting began, and secured the coÖperation of Mr. Allison, of Pennsylvania, to nominate him. Archer wrote to Lincoln that if this bright idea had occurred to him a little earlier he could have obtained a majority of the convention for him. When the news first reached Lincoln at Urbana, Illinois, where he was attending court, he thought that the one hundred and ten votes were cast for Mr. Lincoln, of Massachusetts.

He wrote to Trumbull on the 27th saying, "It would have been easier for us, I think, had we got McLean" (instead of FrÉmont), but he was not without high hopes of carrying the state. He was confident of electing Bissell for governor at all events. In August, Lincoln wrote again saying that he had just returned from a speaking tour in Edgar, Coles, and Shelby counties, and that he had found the chief embarrassment in the way of Republican success was the Fillmore ticket. "The great difficulty," he says, "with anti-slavery-extension Fillmore men is that they suppose Fillmore as good as FrÉmont on that question; and it is a delicate point to argue them out of it, they are so ready to think you are abusing Mr. Fillmore." The Fillmore vote in Illinois was 37,444.

The Republican state ticket, headed by William H. Bissell for governor, was elected, but Buchanan and Breckinridge, the Democratic nominees, received the electoral vote of the state and were successful in the country at large. The defeat of FrÉmont caused intense disappointment to the Republicans at the time, but it was fortunate for the party and for the country that he was beaten. He was not the man to deal with the grave crisis impending. Disunion was a club already held in reserve to greet any Republican President. Senator Mason, of Virginia, frankly said so to Trumbull in a Senate debate (December 2, 1856), after the election:

Mr. Mason: What I said was this, that if that [Republican] party came into power avowing the purpose that it did avow, it would necessarily result in the dissolution of the Union, whether they desired it or not. It was utterly immaterial who was their President; he might have been a man of straw. I allude to the purposes of the party.

Mr. Trumbull: Why, sir, neither Colonel FrÉmont nor any other person can be elected President of the United States except in the constitutional mode, and if any individual is elected in the mode prescribed in the Constitution, is that cause for dissolution of the Union? Assuredly not. If it be, the Constitution contains within itself the elements of its own destruction.[30]

Four years passed ere Mr. Mason's prediction was put to the test, and the intervening time was mainly occupied by a continuation of the Kansas strife. The prevailing gloom in the Northern mind was reflected in a letter written by Trumbull to Professor J. B. Turner, of Jacksonville, Illinois, dated Alton, October 19, 1857, from which the following is an extract:

Our free institutions are undergoing a fearful trial, nothing less, as I can conceive, than a struggle with those now in power, who are attempting to subvert the very basis upon which they rest. Things are now being done in the name of the Constitution which the framers of that instrument took special pains to guard against, and which they did provide against as plainly as human language could do it. The recent use of the army in Kansas, to say nothing of the complicity of the administration with the frauds and outrages which have been committed in that territory, presents as clear a case of usurpation as could well be imagined. Whether the people can be waked up to the change which their government is undergoing in time to prevent it, is the question. I believe they can. I will not believe that the free people of this great country will quietly suffer their government, established for the protection of life and liberty, to be changed into a slaveholding oligarchy whose chief object is the spread and perpetuation of negro slavery and the degradation of free white labor.

Soon after the inauguration of Buchanan, Robert J. Walker, of Mississippi, was appointed by him governor of Kansas Territory. Walker was a native of Pennsylvania and a man of good repute. He had been Secretary of the Treasury under President Polk, and was the author of the Tariff of 1846. When he arrived in Kansas steps had already been taken by the territorial legislature for electing members of a constitutional convention with a view to admission to the Union as a state. Governor Walker urged the Free State men to participate in this election, promising them fair treatment and an honest count of votes; but they still feared treachery and violence and fraud in the election returns. Moreover, voters were required to take a test oath that they would support the Constitution as framed. As Walker had assured them that the Constitution would be submitted to a vote of the people, they decided to take no part in framing it, but to vote it down when it should be submitted.

The convention met in the territorial capital, Lecompton. While it was in session a regular election of members of the territorial legislature took place, and Governor Walker had so far won the confidence of the Free State men that they took part in it and elected a majority of the members of both branches. About one month later news came that the constitutional convention had completed its labors and had decided not to submit the constitution itself to a vote of the people, but only the slavery clause. People could vote "For the constitution with slavery," or "For the constitution with no slavery," but in no case should the right of property in slaves already in the territory be questioned, nor should the constitution itself be amended until 1864, and no amendment should be made affecting the rights of property in such slaves.

Senator Douglas was in Chicago when this news arrived. He at once declared to his friends that this scheme had its origin in Buchanan's Cabinet. Governor James W. Geary, Walker's predecessor in office, had vetoed the bill calling the convention, because it contained no clause requiring submission of the constitution to the people; but it had been passed over his veto. He subsequently said, in a published letter, that the committees of the legislature having the matter in charge informed him that their friends in the South did not desire a submission clause. It was proved later that a conspiracy with this aim existed in Buchanan's Cabinet without his knowledge, and that the guiding spirit was Jacob Thompson, of Mississippi, Secretary of the Interior. The chief manager in Kansas was John Calhoun, the president of the convention, who had been designated also as the canvassing officer of the election returns under the submission clause.

Buchanan was not admitted to the secret of the conspiracy until the deed was done. He had committed himself both verbally and in writing to the submission of the whole constitution to the people for ratification or rejection. He had pledged himself in this behalf to Governor Walker, who had pledged himself to the people of Kansas. Walker kept his pledge, but Buchanan broke his. He surrendered to the Cabinet cabal and made the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution the policy of his administration. It proved to be his ruin, as an earlier breach of promise had been the ruin of Pierce.

Walker exposed and denounced the whole conspiracy and resigned the governorship, the duties of which devolved upon F. P. Stanton, the secretary of the territory, a man of ability and integrity, who had been a member of Congress from Tennessee. Stanton called the legislature in special session. The legislature declared for a clause for or against the constitution as a whole, to be voted on at an election to be held January 4, 1858. Stanton was forthwith removed from office by Buchanan, and John A. Denver was appointed governor to fill Walker's place.

The stand taken by Douglas in reference to the Lecompton Constitution before the meeting of Congress, and the doubts and fears excited thereby in the minds of the leading Republicans of Illinois, are indicated in private letters received by Trumbull in that interval, a few of which are here cited:

E. Peck, Chicago, November 23, 1857, says: Judge Douglas takes the ground openly that the whole of the Kansas constitution must be submitted to the people for approval.

C. H. Ray, chief editor of the Chicago Tribune, writes that Douglas is just starting for Washington; he says that he sent a man to the Tribune office to remonstrate against its course toward him "while he is doing what we all want him to do." Dr. Ray had no faith in him.

N. B. Judd, Chicago, November 24, says that Douglas took pains to get leading Republicans into his room to tell them that he intended to fight the administration on the Kansas issue.

Judd, November 26, writes that Douglas tells his friends that "the whole proceedings in Kansas were concocted by certain members of the Cabinet to ruin him." He does not think that the President desires this, but he cannot well help himself, and the conspirators intend to use Buchanan's name again (for the Presidency).

Lincoln wrote under date, Chicago, Nov. 30, 1857: ... What think you of the probable "rumpus" among the Democracy over the Kansas constitution? I think the Republicans should stand clear of it. In their view both the President and Douglas are wrong; and they should not espouse the cause of either because they may consider the other a little farther wrong of the two. From what I am told here, Douglas tried before leaving to draw off some Republicans on the dodge, and even succeeded in making some impression on one or two.

A. Jonas, Quincy, December 5, is unable to say whether Douglas is sincere in the position he has lately taken. "Should he act right for once on this question, it will be with some selfish motive."

William H. Bissell, governor, Springfield, December 12, thinks Douglas's course is dictated solely by his fears connected with the next senatorial election.

S. A. Hurlbut, Belvidere, December 14, thinks that as between Douglas and the Southern politicians the latter have the advantage in point of logic. "If the Lecompton Constitution prevails, no amount of party discipline will hold more than one third of the Democratic voters in Illinois." He predicts that the next Democratic National Convention will endorse John C. Calhoun's doctrine that slavery exists in the territories by virtue of the Constitution.

Sam Galloway, Columbus, Ohio, December 12, asks: "What means the movement of Douglas? Is it a ruse or a bona-fide patriotic effort? We don't know whether to commend or censure, and we are without any knowledge of the workings of his heart except as indicated in his speeches."

W. H. Herndon, Springfield, December 16, says: "Douglas is more of a man than I took him to be. He has some nerve at least. I do not think he is honest in any particular, yet in this difficulty he is right."

C. H. Ray, Chicago, December 18, asks for Trumbull's views of Douglas's real purposes: "We are almost confounded here by his anomalous position and do not know how to treat him and his overtures to the Republican party. Personally, I am inclined to give him the lash, but I want to do nothing that will damage our cause or hinder the emancipation of Kansas."

John G. Nicolay, Springfield, December 20, has been canvassing the state to procure subscribers for the St. Louis Democrat. He had very good success until the "hard times" came. Then he found it necessary to suspend operations. He says everybody is watching the political developments in Washington, and he thinks that Douglas will be sustained by nearly all his party in Illinois. "The Federal office-holders keep mum and will not of course declare themselves until they are forced to do so."

Samuel C. Parks, Lincoln, Logan County, December 26, says: Douglas is no better now than when he was the undisputed leader of the pro-slavery party. He has done more to undermine the principles upon which this Government was founded than any other man that ever lived.

D. L. Phillips, Anna, Union County, March 2, 1858: "You need not pay any attention to the silly statements of the Missouri Republican and other sheets respecting this part of the state being attached to Buchanan. It is simply false. The Democracy here are led by the Allens, Marshall, Logan, Parrish, Kuykendall, Simons, and others, and these are all for Douglas. John Logan is bitter against Buchanan. I think we ought all to be satisfied with the course of things. Let the worst come now. Better far than defer it, for come it will and must."

The first session of the Thirty-fifth Congress began on the 7th of December, 1857. President Buchanan's first message was largely concerned with the affairs of Kansas. He spoke of the framers of the Topeka Constitution as a "revolutionary organization," and said that the Lecompton Constitution was the work of the lawfully constituted authorities. He conceded that the submission clause of the Lecompton instrument fell short of his own intentions and expectations, but insisted that the slavery question was the only matter of dispute and that that was actually submitted to the popular vote.

Trumbull was the first Senator to expose these unfounded assumptions, and this he did in a brief argument as soon as the reading of the message was finished. He showed, in the first place, that the Topeka Constitution was no whit more "revolutionary" or irregular than the Lecompton one, and one of the authorities whom he cited to sustain his contention was Buchanan himself, who, in a parallel case, had contended that the territorial legislature of Michigan had no authority to call a convention to frame a state constitution, and that any such proceeding was "an act of usurpation." This was not necessarily conclusive as to anybody but Buchanan. Yet in another case cited, that of Arkansas, where a territorial legislature was considering an act for the calling of a convention to frame a state constitution and where the governor had asked instructions from President Jackson as to his duty in the premises, the Attorney-General had held that such an act of the Legislature would be without authority and absolutely void. (This case had been cited by Douglas the previous year, in an argument against the Topeka Constitution.) The only regular proceeding was for Congress to pass an enabling act, on such terms and conditions as it might prescribe, under which the people might form a constitution preparatory to admission to the Union. Any other mode of accomplishing the same result, whether initiated by a popular assembly, as at Topeka, or by the legislature, as at Lecompton, was in the nature of a petition which Congress might respond to favorably, and thus legalize, or not. Neither of these modes of beginning had any higher authority than the other. Therefore, the underpinning of President Buchanan's first argument was knocked out by two citations of authority which he could not controvert.

His second argument, that the slavery clause in the Lecompton Constitution, the only thing in controversy, was submitted to the popular vote, was easily demolished. The submission clause, said Mr. Trumbull, "amounts simply to giving the free white people of Kansas a right to determine the condition of a few negroes hereafter to be brought into the state, and nothing more; the condition of those now there cannot be touched."

On the following day, Senator Douglas made his speech against the Lecompton Constitution. It had been eagerly expected, and the galleries and floor were crowded. From his own standpoint it was a very strong argument, and was received with vociferous applause, contrary to the rules of the Senate. It left Buchanan with not a rag to cover him. It was the first public speech Douglas had ever made which went counter to the wishes of the Southern people. So when he said,—"I will go as far as any of you to save the party. I have as much heart in the great cause that binds us together as a party as any man living; I will sacrifice anything short of principle and honor for the peace of the party; but if the party will not stand by its principles, its faith, its pledges, I will stand there and abide whatever consequences may result from the position,"—we must believe that he was sincere and must respect him for his courage. But his standpoint was that of one who "did not care whether slavery was voted down or voted up." It represented no high principle; the only right he contended for was the right of the people to decide for themselves whether they would have a particular banking system, or none at all; a Maine liquor law; or a railroad running this way or that way; and finally whether they would have a slave code or not. Great speeches are not kindled with such short stubble.

One thing hinted at in this speech was that Buchanan had been so frightened by the revolt in the party against the Lecompton Constitution that he had taken steps to have the pro-slavery clause rejected at the coming election, by the very people who had framed it. "I think I have seen enough in the last three days," he said, "to make it certain that it will be returned out, no matter how the vote may stand." In a later debate, February 4, Douglas said:

I made my objection [against the Lecompton Constitution] at a time when the President of the United States told all his friends that he was perfectly sure the pro-slavery clause would be voted down. I did it at a time when all or nearly all the Senators on this floor supposed the pro-slavery clause would be stricken out. I assumed in my speech that it was to be returned out, and that the constitution was to come here with that article rejected.[31]

If Buchanan had that intention he was not able to carry it into effect.

Douglas at this time contemplated an alliance with the Republicans. His state of mind is pictured in a letter written by Henry Wilson to Rev. Theodore Parker, dated Washington, February 28, 1858, of which the following is an extract:[32]

I say to you in confidence that you are mistaken in regard to Douglas. He is as sure to be with us in the future as Chase, Seward, or Sumner. I leave motives to God, but he is to be with us, and he is to-day of more weight to our cause than any ten men in the country. I know men and I know their power, and I know that Douglas will go for crushing the Slave Power to atoms. To use his own words to several of our friends this day in a three-hours' consultation: "We must grind this administration to powder; we must punish every man who supports this crime, and we must prostrate forever the Slave Power, which uses Presidents and dishonors and disgraces them."

Similar testimony is found in the Trumbull correspondence, to wit:

Jesse K. Dubois, state Auditor, Springfield, March 22, 1858, says he has a letter from Ray, of the Chicago Tribune, who says that Sheahan, of the Times, who has just returned to Washington, says that (1) Lecompton will be defeated; (2) that the Republicans shall have all the majority they like in the next Illinois legislature, to favor which he wants to unite with us in all doubtful counties or rather help us by running Douglas legislative tickets "(N. B. I do not see the point of this)"; (3) he concedes us the Senator, and says Douglas is willing to go into private life for a brief period, but protests that we must not sacrifice their Congressmen who run again on the Lecompton issue, if any one of them desires to go back; (4) they will run candidates for Congress in every district, but without hope of electing one in the four northern districts "(N. B. I should think this is an easy matter)"; (5) Douglas is willing to retire, and if he beats Lecompton, to take his chances by and by; (6) Douglas and his friends have had a caucus in Washington and they agree so to shape matters, if possible, with Republican aid, as to return to the next Congress an unbroken phalanx of anti-Lecompton men, and break down the administration by making it harmless at home and abroad; (7) the fight is to the death, À l'outrance, and cannot be discontinued, no matter what comes up. Ray seems to think Sheahan is honest in what he says, and has no doubt that he speaks for Douglas.

A. Jonas, Quincy, April 11, says that letters have been received from Chicago and Springfield implying that a coalition is forming between a portion of the Republican party on the one hand and Douglas and his followers on the other. He protests strongly against any such coalition and declares it can never be carried into effect. "To suppose that the Republicans of this District can under any circumstances be induced to support such a political demagogue and trickster as Isaac N. Morris is to believe them capable of worshiping Satan or submitting to the dictation of the slave oligarchy."

W. H. Herndon, Springfield, April 12, has just returned from the East. He speaks of Greeley's "puffs" of Douglas, which he regards as demoralizing to the Republicans of Illinois. "I heard Greeley handled quite roughly by the candidate for lieutenant-governor of Wisconsin, a very intelligent German. He spoke to Greeley in my presence and said that Wisconsin stood by Illinois and was not for sale."

E. Peck, Chicago, April 15: "Dr. Brainard has had a talk with Dr. Ray, the substance of which was that we should consent to run Douglas as our candidate for the House of Representatives from this district. What does this mean? Can Brainard have any authority to make such a proposition? Ray has been advising with me, and we are both in the clouds. I requested permission to write to you for your opinion before any opinions were expressed here. Mr. Colfax may be able to tell you something of the opinions of Douglas. I am shy in believing, and more shy in confiding, ... yet Ray believes that Brainard was authorized by Douglas to make the proposition."

N. B. Judd, Chicago, April 19, says that if the Lecompton Bill is passed, Douglas is laid on the shelf. The Buchanan party in Chicago is of no consequence, "great cry and little wool." We shall have to fight the Democratic party as a unit. "How Douglas is to be the Democratic party in Illinois and the ally of the Republicans outside of the state is a problem which those, who are arranging with him, ought to know how to work out."

Overtures to the Republicans of Illinois did not come from Douglas only. Here is one of a different hue:

George T. Brown, Alton, February 24, urges the appointment of J. E. Starr (Buchanan Democrat) as postmaster at Alton. "Slidell opened the way for you to talk to him and you can easily do so. The Administration is very desirous that you should not oppose their appointments, and will give you anything."

The foregoing letter betokens a sudden change of mind in administration circles at Washington, as is evidenced by the following communication which Trumbull had received from one of his constituents a few weeks earlier:

B. Werner, Caseyville, January 4, refers to a former letter enclosing a petition for the establishment of a post-office at Caseyville. Hearing nothing of the matter, he went to see Mr. Armstrong, the postmaster at St. Louis, narrated the facts, and asked whether any order had been received by him respecting it. "He asked me to whom I had sent the petition. I told him to you. He replied if I had sent the petition to Robert Smith (Dem. M.C.) the matter would have been attended to, but as Mr. Trumbull was a Black Republican, the department would not pay any attention to it."

On the 2d of February, 1858, President Buchanan sent a special message to Congress with a copy of the Lecompton Constitution, and recommended that Kansas be admitted to the Union as a state under it. In this message he made reference to the Dred Scott decision, which had been pronounced by the Supreme Court in the previous March. On this point the message said:

It has been solemnly adjudged by the highest tribunal known to our laws that slavery exists in Kansas by virtue of the Constitution of the United States. Kansas is, therefore, at this moment as much a slave state as Georgia, or South Carolina.

Trumbull made a speech on the special message as soon as the reading of it was finished by the secretary. He reviewed the action of Governor Walker, which, in the beginning, had been avowedly taken with the view of creating and promoting a Free State Democratic party in Kansas, to which end he had made use of the soldiers placed at his disposal by the President. That this was an act of usurpation was conclusively shown by Trumbull, although Walker claimed that it had served the desirable purpose of preventing an armed collision between the contending factions. Trumbull then touched upon the Dred Scott case and maintained that the Supreme Court had likewise usurped authority by pronouncing an opinion on a case not before it. The court had virtually dismissed the case for want of jurisdiction. It had decided that Dred Scott was not a citizen and had no right to bring this action. There was no longer any case before the judges who so held. "Their opinions," said Trumbull, "are worth just as much as, and no more than, the opinions of any other gentlemen equally respectable in the country." Consequently, President Buchanan's assertion that Kansas was then as much a slave state as Georgia or South Carolina was unfounded and preposterous. Seward, Fessenden, and the Republican Senators generally held to this doctrine, but Senator Benjamin, of Louisiana, replied with considerable force that it was competent for the court to decide on what grounds it would give its decision, and that it did, in so many words, elect to decide the question of slavery in the territories, which was the principal question raised by the counsel of Dred Scott. That the decision had an aim different from the settlement of Dred Scott's claim, and that this aim was political, is now sufficiently established. It is also established that Dred Scott never took any steps consciously to secure freedom, but that the action was brought in his name by some speculating lawyers in St. Louis to secure damages or wages from the widow of Scott's master, Dr. Emerson.[33] One additional fact is supplied by a letter in the Trumbull correspondence, showing how the money was collected to pay the plaintiff's court costs.

G. Bailey, Washington, May 12, 1857, writes, that when the case of Dred Scott was first brought to the notice of Montgomery Blair, he applied to him (Bailey) to know what to do. Blair said he would freely give his services without charge if Bailey would see to the necessary expenses of the case. Not having an opportunity to confer with friends, Bailey replied that he would become responsible. He had no doubt the necessary money could be raised. On this assurance he proceeded, the case was tried, and the result was before the country. Mr. Blair had just rendered the bill of costs: $63.18 for writ of error and $91.50 for printing briefs; total, $154.68. "May I be so bold, my dear sir, as to ask you to contribute two dollars toward the payment of this bill. I am now writing to seventy-five of the Rep. Members of the late Congress, and if they will answer me promptly, each enclosing the quota named, I can discharge the bill by myself paying a double share."

Mem.: $2 sent by Trumbull June 20th, '57.

The debate in the Senate on the Lecompton Bill continued till March 23. The best speech on the Republican side was made by Fessenden, of Maine, than whom a more consummate debater or more knightly character and presence has not graced the Senate chamber in my time, if ever. On the administration side the laboring oar was taken by Toombs, who spoke with more truculence than he had shown in the Thirty-fourth Congress. Jefferson Davis, who had been returned to the Senate after serving as Secretary of War under Pierce, bore himself in this debate with decorum and moderation.

The Lecompton Bill passed the Senate, but was disagreed to by the House, and a conference committee was appointed which adopted a bill proposed by Congressman English, of Indiana, which offered a large bonus of lands to Kansas, for schools, for a university, and for public buildings, if she would vote to come into the Union under the Lecompton Constitution now. If she would not so vote, she should not have the lands and should not come into the Union until she should have a population sufficient to elect one member of Congress on the ratio prescribed by law. The form of submission to a popular vote was to be: "Proposition accepted," or "Proposition rejected." If there was a majority of acceptances, the territory should be admitted as a state at once. Senator Seward and Representative Howard, Republican members of the conference committee, dissented from the report. This bill passed the House.

Douglas made a dignified speech against the English Bill, showing that it was in the nature of a bribe to the people to vote in a particular way. Although he did not think that the bribe would prevail, he could not accept the principle. The bill nevertheless passed on the last day of April, and on the 2d of August the English proposition was voted down by the people of Kansas by an overwhelming majority. The Lecompton Constitution thus disappeared from sublunary affairs, and John Calhoun disappeared from Kansas as soon as steps were taken to look into the returns of previous elections canvassed by him.

The opinion of a man of high position on the attitude of President Buchanan toward Lecomptonism is found in another letter to Trumbull:

J. D. Caton, chief justice of the supreme court of Illinois, Ottawa, March 6, 1858, does not think all the Presidents and all the Cabinets and all the Congresses and all the supreme courts and all the slaveholders on earth, with all the constitutions that could be drawn, could ever make Kansas a slave state. "No, there has been no such expectation, and I do not believe desire on the part of the present administration to make it a slave state, but as he [Buchanan] had already been pestered to death with it, he resolved to make it a state as soon as possible, and thus being rid of it, let them fight it out as they liked. In this mood the Southern members of the Cabinet found him when the news came of that Lecompton Constitution being framed, and he committed himself, thinking, no doubt, that Douglas would be hot for it and that there would be no general opposition in his own party to it.... You say that the slave trade will be established in every state in the Union in five years if the Democratic party retains power! As Butterfield told the Universalist preacher, who was proving that all men would be saved, 'We hope for better things.'"

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