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Page 5
This was the hazardous situation into which the Democratic managers
chose to thrust one of the most momentous pieces of legislation in our
political history-the Kansas-Nebraska bill. The responsibility for it is
clearly on the shoulders of Stephen A. Douglas. The over-land travel to
the Pacific coast had made it necessary to remove the Indian title to
Kansas and Nebraska, and to organize them as Territories, in order to
afford protection to emigrants; and Douglas, chairman of the Senate
committee on Territories, introduced a bill for such organization in
January, 1854. Both these prospective Territories had been made free
soil forever by the compromise of 1820; the question of slavery had been
settled, so far as they were concerned; but Douglas consented, after a
show of opposition, to reopen Pandora's box. His original bill did
not abrogate the Missouri compromise, and there seems to have been no
general Southern demand that it should do so. But Douglas had become
intoxicated by the unexpected success of his "popular sovereignty"
make-shift in regard to the Territories of 1850; and a notice of an
amendment to be offered by a southern senator, abrogating the Missouri
compromise, was threat or excuse sufficient to bring him to withdraw the
bill. A week later, it was re-introduced with the addition of "popular
sovereignty": all questions pertaining to slavery in these Territories,
and in the States to be formed from them, were to be left to the
decision of the people, through their representatives; and the Missouri
compromise of 1820 was declared "inoperative and void," as inconsistent
with the principles of the territorial legislation of 1850. It must
be remembered that the "non-intervention" of 1850 had been confessedly
based on no constitutional principle whatever, but was purely a matter
of expediency; and that "non-intervention" in Utah and New Mexico was no
more inconsistent with the prohibition of slavery in Kansas and Nebraska
than "non-intervention" in the Southwest Territory, sixty years before,
had been inconsistent with the prohibition of slavery in the Northwest
Territory. Whether Douglas is to be considered as too scrupulous, or too
timid, or too willing to be terrified, it is certain that his action was
unnecessary.
After a struggle of some months, the Kansas-Nebraska bill became law.
The Missouri compromise was abrogated, and the question of the extension
of slavery to the territories was adrift again, never to be got rid of
except through the abolition of slavery itself by war. The demands of
the South had now come fully abreast with the proposal of Douglas:
that slavery should have permission to enter all the Territories, if
it could. The opponents of the extension of slavery, at first under the
name of "Anti-Nebraska men," then of the Republican party, carried the
elections for representatives in Congress in 1854-'55, and narrowly
missed carrying the Presidential election of 1856. The percentage
of Democratic losses in the congressional districts of the North was
sufficient to leave Douglas with hardly any supporters in Congress from
his own section. The Democratic party was converted at once into a
solid South, with a northern attachment of popular votes which was not
sufficient to control very many Congressmen or electoral votes.
Immigration into Kansas was organized at once by leading men of the two
sections, with the common design of securing a majority of the voters of
the territory and applying "popular sovereignty" for or against slavery.
The first sudden inroad of Missouri intruders was successful in securing
a pro-slavery legislature and laws; but within two years the stream
of free-State immigration had become so powerful,in spite of murder,
outrage, and open civil war, that it was very evident that Kansas was
to be a free-State. Its expiring territorial legislature endeavored
to outwit its constituents by applying for admission as a slave State,
under the Lecompton constitution; but the Douglas Democrats could not
support the attempt, and it was defeated. Kansas, however, remained a
territory until 1861.
The cruelties of this Kansas episode could not but be reflected in the
feelings of the two sections and in Congress. In the former it showed
too plainly that the divergence of the two sections, indicated in
Calhoun's speech of 1850, had widened to an absolute separation in
thought, feeling, and purpose. In the latter the debates assumed a
virulence which is illustrated by the speeches on the Sumner assault.
The current of events had at least carried the sections far enough apart
to give striking distance; and the excuse for action was supplied by the
Dred Scott decision in 1857.
Dred Scott, a Missouri slave, claiming to be a free man under the
Missouri compromise of 1820, had sued his master, and the case had
reached the Supreme Court. A majority of the justices agreed in
dismissing the suit; but, as nearly every justice filed an opinion, and
as nearly every opinion disagreed with the other opinions on one or
more points, it is not easy to see what else is covered by the decision.
Nevertheless, the opinion of the Chief justice, Roger B. Taney,
attracted general attention by the strength of its argument and the
character of its views. It asserted, in brief, that no slave could
become a citizen of the United States, even by enfranchisement or State
law; that the prohibition of slavery by the Missouri compromise of 1820
was unconstitutional and void; that the Constitution recognized property
in slaves, and was framed for the protection of property; that Congress
had no rights or duties in the territories but such as were granted or
imposed by the Constitution; and that, therefore, Congress was bound
not merely not to forbid slavery, but to actively protect slavery in
the Territories. This was just the ground which had always been held by
Calhoun, though the South had not supported him in it. Now the South,
rejecting Douglas and his "popular sovereignty," was united in its
devotion to the decision of the Supreme Court, and called upon the North
to yield unhesitating obedience to that body which Webster in 1830 had
styled the ultimate arbiter of constitutional questions. This, it was
evident, could never be. No respectable authority at the North pretended
to uphold the keystone of Taney's argument, that slaves were regarded as
property by the Constitution. On the contrary, it was agreed everywhere
by those whose opinions were looked to with respect, that slaves were
regarded by the Constitution as "persons held to service or labor" under
the laws of the State alone; and that the laws of the State could not
give such persons a fictitious legal character outside of the State's
jurisdiction. Even the Douglas Democrats, who expressed a willingness to
yield to the Supreme Court's decision, did not profess to uphold Taney's
share in it.
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