The Compromise of 1850 was a legislative makeshift that failed to placate any of the most extreme sectional interests. The battle next shifted to the settlement of the western prairie. In January 1854, Douglas introduced a bill for organizing governments in the Kansas and Nebraska territories. The bill provided that the question of slavery in each territory would be reserved until it entered the Union as a new state. At that time, the citizens of the territory would draw up a constitution and determine whether their state would permit or forbid slavery.
The Kansas-Nebraska bill embodied Douglas's doctrine of popular sovereignty. Since all political power resided in the people, argued Douglas, it was the people, not the federal government, who should decide the question of slavery in their own territory. Congress should grant territories a liberal degree of political autonomy, and the territories could then exercise their democratic rights to self-government.
Popular sovereignty had the potential for great public appeal because it was closely tied to the ideal of majority rule and the principles of American constitutionalism. For Douglas, it had even more important political implications. By removing slavery from congressional debate and transferring it to geographically remote territorial legislatures, Douglas hoped to insulate the federal Union from further sectional conflict.
Once the Kansas-Nebraska Act passed, however, a new storm of dissent erupted. Northern anti-slavery newspapers attacked the act as a concession to southern slave interests. Thousands of clergymen across the North, including a group in Chicago, protested the act. The Republican Chicago Tribune attacked Douglas as a traitor. Mass meetings were called, and even Democratic papers began to join the raging chorus.
Douglas hurried back to Illinois to try to contain the damage, his passage illuminated, he later claimed, by the flames of his own burning effigies. He circled the state for two months, confronting hostile audiences and furious voters. In Springfield, he and a former Illinois legislator, Abraham Lincoln, gave opposing speeches on the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the two repeated their arguments in Peoria. Douglas returned to Washington in December 1854, stunned by the fury that his legislation had unleashed.
In Kansas, free-soil northerners began to move into the territory, aided by the New England Emigrant Aid Company and other groups. Pro-slavery Missourians also crossed the border, and in 1855 they captured control of the territorial legislature. A counter free-soil government was then set up, and Kansas found itself with two competing legislatures. In May 1856, proslavery forces attacked the free-soil town of Lawrence, and several days later John Brown and a few brigands murdered five unarmed southerners near Pottawatomie Creek.
Far from being insulated from the Congress, the fury over Kansas now spread to the floor of the Senate. As blood was being shed in Kansas, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts vented his fury at the "crime against Kansas" and denounced Douglas and two southern colleagues in the most hostile and insulting terms.
Two days later, Sumner was beaten unconscious on the floor of the Senate by Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina. Douglas, who had played no part in seeking retribution against Sumner, was nonetheless accused of collusion in the act.
The shadow of Kansas hovered over the Democratic party as it met in Cincinnati to select its 1856 presidential candidate. Douglas once again worked to secure the party's nomination, but when he realized he could not win, he withdrew his name and threw his support to James Buchanan. In the general election, Buchanan went on, with Douglas's political and financial backing, to win the presidency.
Douglas expected that his loyalty to Buchanan would strengthen the party and preserve his influence in the new administration. But the issue of self-government in the territories soon made that impossible. A pro-slavery convention meeting in Lecompton, Kansas, drew up a constitution proposing statehood with the proviso that all property in slaves be protected. Elections for the Lecompton delegates had been riddled with fraud, and the convention provided no means for a popular referendum on the constitution as a whole. Voters were given only the single option of endorsing the constitution "with slavery" or "without slavery." Nonetheless, President Buchanan proposed that Kansas be admitted under the terms of the Lecompton constitution.
For Douglas, Lecompton was a critical test of popular sovereignty. Since the Lecompton constitution was not a full and free expression of the will of the people of Kansas, said Douglas, it could not be accepted, no matter what position was taken on slavery. Buchanan and Douglas sparred warily for nearly a year before confronting each other at the White House in December 1857. Douglas announced that he intended to oppose the Lecompton constitution, and Buchanan responded with menacing threats. Douglas stormed out of the meeting, telling his friends his decision was irrevocable: "I have taken a through ticket and checked all my baggage."
Buchanan followed through immediately on his threats against Douglas. In early 1858, hundreds of Douglas supporters holding patronage jobs in the federal customs office, marshal's office, and post office were summarily dismissed. Government jobs were promised to anyone who would come out against Douglas. The mails were ransacked, and pro-Douglas communications were destroyed or turned over to newspapers for political advantage.
While Buchanan waged fierce partisan war against Douglas, the Lecompton constitution came before Congress for final approval. Douglas, who had fallen seriously ill, roused himself from his sickbed to defend popular sovereignty and denounce Lecompton on the floor of the Senate. When the Congress approved the constitution in modified form, it appeared that Douglas had lost. The final vote, though, was taken by the citizens of Kansas, who voted down the pro-slavery constitution by an overwhelming margin in August 1858. In Douglas's view, popular sovereignty had been vindicated.
STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS AND THE AMERICAN UNION
© The University of Chicago Library
1100 East 57th Street Chicago Illinois 60637
Phone Numbers
