In the spring of
1858 Stephen Douglas was one of the most recognizable men in all of American
politics. His fellow Illinoisan Abraham Lincoln was barely known in his home
state.
The two men had
served at the same time in the Illinois House of Representatives during the mid-1830s.
Lincoln had actively opposed Douglas's first unsuccessful bid for Congress in
1838. During the 1840 election the two men had sparred in public debates as
proxies for their respective parties Presidential candidates: Douglas for the
Democratic incumbent Van Buren; Lincoln for the eventual winner Whig William
Henry Harrison. Lincoln had supported two successive candidates for the Illinois
Seventh and in 1846 became the Whig nominee, winning election. He and Douglas
would both represent Illinois in Congress: Douglas as Senator, Lincoln as
Congressman.
Lincoln had made
a reputation as an active partisan campaigner, becoming famous for his
satirical speech supporting Zachary Taylor for President in 1848. He said
Taylor's vagueness on all issue was a strength and even Democrats were tickled
by how he used his experience in the Black Hawk War to rib the party's attempt
to frame nominee Lewis Cass as a military hero the equal of Old Rough and
Ready. The problem was that Lincoln talked too much, openly rebuking James
Polk's maneuvering America into the Mexican War. Most Whigs felt the same way,
but in the 1840s it was considered unseemly for a freshman Congressman to say
so and the district did not renominate him for a second term. Furthermore his
bid for a coveted job in the Taylor administration crumbled when numerous
Illinois political figures opposed his appointment. As a final insult his
district, which had been Whig for more than
a decade, went to the Democrats in the 1848 election. Disheartened and with
Illinois heavily Democratic Lincoln stepped away from politics, with little
hope for a future career.
His life in
politics resumed after the Kansas-Nebraska act rekindled his political passion.
He made several speeches in opposition to the Democratic incumbent for the
other Senate seat in Illinois held by James Shields. Lincoln was well aware the
Whig Party was dying nationwide but he nevertheless hoped for a successful
fusion between anti-Nebraska Democrats and anti-slavery Whigs much as how Henry
Wilson has first won a seat in the Senate on a similar method in Massachusetts.
However Douglas quickly scuttled that idea and replaced him with a more
formidable candidate .
Then Lincoln
released his supporters and asked them to vote for the anti-Nebraska Lyman
Trumbull. This would lead to Trumbull winning and Lincoln gained notice as a
selfless figure willing to place principle over ambition.
During this
period Lincoln spent much of his career trying to find a middle ground between
reason and passion. That meant seeing all sides of the struggle. He subscribed
both to Garrison's Liberator and Rhett's Charleston Mercury, even
though he disagreed with much of what both publications said.
One of the ironies
of the career of the man who would day be called The Great Emancipator was that
for most of his life the abolitionists considered him too soft on the issue of
slavery. Like them, he considered slavery morally wrong but unlike them he
considered the sanctity of the Union above the passion for immediate emancipation.
Therefore he accepted the Constitution sanctioned slavery, reluctantly
supported the Fugitive Slave Act because it was the law of the land and had
deep skepticism of the higher law construct that the abolitionists held too.
Regarding the concept he said, "In so far as it may attempt to foment a
disobedience of the Constitution, or of the constitutional laws of the country,
it has my unqualified condemnation." This causes many abolitionists to
dismiss him as "that slave hound from Illinois' and would later cause him
to be disdained by the Radical Republicans.
Lincoln spent
much of the next few years trying to usher in the new Republican Party in
Illinois, enhance his public profile through wide speechmaking during the 1856
election and unseat Stephen Douglas for Senate by electing a pro-fusion
legislature in 1858 and getting the nod from the lawmakers the following January.
By June 16th of that year the Illinois Republican Party convened in
Springfield and unanimously nominated him as their standard bearer in the
coming election.
Accepting the
nomination Lincoln would say the famous words: "A house divided itself cannot
stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half
free."
Also in that
speech while not attacking the Dred Scott ruling or the court, he implied that
they had been part of a common plan by the present political dynasty of which
Douglas had played a critical role. "To meet and overthrow the power of
that dynasty is the work now before all those who would prevent the consummation
(of the nation becoming all slave.)
A little more
than three weeks later Douglas gave the first speech of his reelection
campaign. He made it clear he would remain faithful to his doctrine of popular
sovereignty, that Lincoln's uniformity was an offense to states rights. He also
made it clear that the state should also make determinations on how to treat
free blacks. They shouldn't be treated cruelly by the citizens but they
shouldn't be treated as the equal of whites.
In mid-July the
two men agreed to engage in seven debates between August 21 and October 15th
– one in each congressional district except those in Chicago or Springfield
where the candidates had already campaigned. The formula was simple: the first man
would speak for an hour; his opponent an hour and a half, and the first man
would have half an hour for a final response. Because Douglas was the incumbent
he took the opening and closing position in four of those seven debates.
The events were
hugely attended, with approximately 15,000 apiece in Ottawa and Galesburg, and
nearly 13,000 in Charleston and Quincy. Newspapers across the country covered
the confrontations extensively. The best approach to both men was related by
the New York journalist Henry Villiard. Douglas, he said, displayed:
" a strong,
sonorous voice, a rapid vigorous utterance, a telling play of countenance, impressive
gestures and all the other arts of the practiced speaker. In terms of
outward performance "there was nothing in favor of Lincoln and his
voice while robust soared to an unnatural pitch. But Douglas's talent couldn't
match Lincoln's sincerity and soundness of thought. "There was nothing in
all of Douglas' powerful efforts that appealed to the higher instincts of human
nature, while Lincoln always touched sympathetic chords." The debates also
noted for a national audience Lincoln's style for gentle jabs and playful
humor.
The Ottawa debate
perhaps gave the clearest indication of the two men's principles. It was so crowded
by onlookers that it's two o'clock start time had to be delayed half an hour so
that the candidates could get through the throng to the platform.
Douglas opened
with his typical polemical pugnacity. He quickly attacked Lincoln saying his
opposition to the Mexican war was "taking the side of the common enemy
against his own country," He accused him of a plan to 'abolitionize' both
the old Whig Party and the Northern Democrats and embrace an early Republican resolution
calling for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act, abolition of slavery and the
prohibition of any more slave states emanating from current or prospective
territories.
In response
Lincoln countered him for misrepresenting his position on the early elements of
Republican resistance which he said he had no involvement. He repeated his warning
of a second Dred Scott type decision that would nationalize slavery once again
into the kind of moral framework that Douglas was cold too.
It was at Alton
in the last debate that Lincoln would crystalize the moral dimension of slavery
while advocating what he called the mildest policy to thwart its spread – and hopefully
placing it on the path to extinction:
The sentiment
that contemplates the institution of slavery as being wrong, is the sentiment
of the Republican Party…They look upon slavery as a moral, social, and
political wrong and while they contemplate it as such, they nevertheless have
due regard for its actual existence among us and the difficulties of getting
rid of…and for all the constitutional obligations thrown around it;
nevertheless, they do desire to see a policy that looks to the thing not
growing any larger.
Lincoln, as has
been noted, didn't advocate for a perfect social and political equality between
whites and blacks, the same way such men as Garrison and Seward did. He was in
harmony with the prevailing sentiment of his home state which wanted an end to
slavery but didn't want full equality for blacks or intermingling of the races.
Small wonder men in New England felt little initial warmth to a man from what
was very much a border state.
In the second debate
at Freeport Lincoln would pose a provocative question to his opponent. He asked
him whether, in the face of the Dred Scott decision, how he could
reconcile a ruling that declared slavery exclusion unconstitutional in
the territories, with his popular sovereignty which allowed territorial
residents to decide that for himself.
Douglas would
argue that, irrespective of the ruling of the Court, the people of a territory
could preclude slavery simply by enacting 'local police regulations' and various
laws 'unfriendly' to the Constitution. This is an example of the ambiguity most
politicians have to engage in on even the most controversial issues and its worth
noting how it was regard broke down on sectional lines. Southern papers thought
that he was negating Dred Scott, New York papers thought he was holding two
irreconcilable positions but in Illinois – where Douglas was trying to win
reelection – it managed to balance both horses.
When the votes
were counted on November 2nd the Republican candidates outnumber Democrats
125,000 to 121,000. However do to unequal district populations, 46 Democrats
won legislative seats to 41 Republicans.
It's worth noting
Douglas has managed to survive the onslaught by the President and the
Republicans statewide rise and it did make him the contender for the Presidential
nomination in 1860. But given the reaction to Douglas's victory in the south,
he might very well have pondered Lincoln's famous admonition whether his win
"hurt too much to laugh, but he was too old to cry."
The Mercury made
it clear that they Douglas's victory was a 'slap in the face for the President'
and that Douglas had campaigned much like a Republican himself, particularly
given his argument in Freeport. "It would be difficult to determine on
what ground Douglas can claim the slightest sympathy or support of the Southern
states. It was a foreshadowing of things to come for Douglas during the next
two years.
The 1858
elections themselves had been a huge rebuke to the Buchanan administration. The
Democrats would lost 49 seats while the Republicans would gain 23 and take majority
control of the House.
Lincoln had
gained the benefit of national exposure that now placed him within the leading
circle of Republican spokesman. That said it wasn't clear what avenues of
political ambition would be open to them. The Democrats would still control the
Senate but the margin was now 38 Democrats to 25 Republicans, along with 2
Know-Nothings. And it was clear where the gains were. Ohio's 22 member
delegation would have only four Democrats. Only four of New York's 32 seats
would be Democrat. And Republicans nearly swept New England and take all four
Senate seats in Minnesota and Iowa.
That March William
Herndon, a prominent Republican would travel to Boston and try to meet with the
leading abolitionist figures: Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips and Garrison.
The former would snub a man they considered a hinterland figure but Garrison saw
him.
In that meeting
Herndon made it clear he shared elements of Garrison's radicalism. He made no effort
to recruit him to the party but he tried to tell him that if the Republicans
won the Presidency in 1860 they were the best hope for eventual emancipation
which would be his goals.
Garrison made it
clear that he thought the Republican's 'moderate positions' were too little for
him. His aim was to strike at the heart of the institution with fatal blows
just as he had been doing for thirty years. Herndon brushed it aside: "You
hate Republicanism but never mind that…it is a condition – absolute and unannihilable
to your march.
Garrison was
facing a very real problem in the aftermath of Dred Scott. He'd been casting
lightning-bolt aspersions upon all who didn't share his ideological purity. Herndon
was telling him that if he wanted to change things he had to stop being an
outsider and be 'an independent participant, rather than an alien
fanatic."
Garrison would
not drop that position all the way up to the 1860 election and even the early
movements of secession. But as the South increasingly seemed willing to march
to a Southern rebellion it was beginning to look like Garrison and the abolitionists
were going to have to do something they had gone out of their way to avoid
doing for thirty years. Pick a political side that could help them bring an end
to the scourge of slavery or let the division exist and allow for their to be
two nations, one slave, one free.
In the next article
in the series I will deal with the 1860 election arguably the most important in
our nation's history to that point.
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