The Senate debate on Kansas affairs in the first session of the Thirty-fourth Congress was participated in by nearly all the members of the body. The best speech on the Republican side was made by Seward. This was a carefully prepared, farseeing philosophical oration, in which the South was warned that the stars in their courses were fighting against slavery and that the institution took a step toward perdition when it appealed to lawless violence. Sumner's speech, which in its consequences became more celebrated, was sophomorical and vituperative and was not calculated to help the cause that its author espoused; but the assault made upon him by Preston S. Brooks maddened the North and drew attention away from its defects of taste and judgment. Collamer, of Vermont, made a notable speech in addition to his notable minority report from the Committee on Territories. Wilson, of Massachusetts, and Hale, of New Hampshire, received well-earned plaudits for the thoroughness with which they exposed the frauds and violence of the Border Ruffians, and commented on the vacillation and stammering of President Pierce. That Trumbull had the advantage of his wily antagonist must be the conclusion of impartial readers at the present day.
If a newcomer in the Senate to-day should plunge in medias res and deliver a three-hours' speech as soon as he could get the floor, he would probably be made aware of the opinion of his elders that he had been over-hasty. It was not so in the exciting times of the decade before the Civil War. All help was eagerly welcomed. Moreover, Trumbull's constituents would not have tolerated any delay on his part in getting into the thickest of the fight. Any signs of hanging back would have been construed as timidity. The anti-Nebraska Democrats of Illinois required early proof that their Senator was not afraid of the Little Giant, but was his match at cut-and-thrust debate as well as his superior in dignity and moral power. The North rang with the praises of Trumbull, and some persons, whose admiration of Lincoln was unbounded and unchangeable, were heard to say that perhaps Providence had selected the right man for Senator from Illinois. Although Lincoln's personality was more magnetic, Trumbull's intellect was more alert, his diction the more incisive, and his temper was the more combative of the two.
From a mass of letters and newspapers commending Mr. Trumbull on his first appearance on the floor of the Senate, a few are selected for notice.
The New York Tribune, March 15, 1856, Washington letter signed "H. G.," p. 4, col. 5:
Mr. Trumbull's review of Senator Douglas's pro-slavery Kansas report is hailed with enthusiasm, as calculated to do honor to the palmiest days of the Senate. Though three hours long, it commanded full galleries, and the most fixed attention to the close. It was searching as well as able, and was at once dignified and convincing.
When Mr. Trumbull closed, Mr. Douglas rose, in bad temper, to complain that the attack had been commenced in his absence, and to ask the Senate to fix a day for his reply. He said Mr. Trumbull had claimed to be a Democrat; but that claim would be considered a libel by the Democracy of Illinois. Here Mr. Crittenden rose to a question of order, and a most exciting passage ensued; the flash of the Kentuckian's eye and the sternness of his bearing were such as are rarely seen in the Senate.
The New York Daily Times, Washington letter, dated June 9:
Douglas was much disconcerted to-day by Senator Trumbull's keen exposure of his Nebraska sophism. He was directly asked if he believed that the people of the territories have the right to exclude slavery before forming a state government, but he refused to give his opinion, saying that it was a question to be determined by the Supreme Court. Trumbull then exposed with great force Douglas's equivocal platform of popular sovereignty, which means one thing at the South and another at the North. The "Little Giant" was fairly smoked out.
Charles Sumner writes to E. L. Pierce, March 21:
Trumbull is a hero, and more than a match for Douglas. Illinois, in sending him, has done much to make me forget that she sent Douglas. You will read the main speech which is able; but you can hardly appreciate the ready courage and power with which he grappled with his colleague and throttled him. We are all proud of his work.
S. P. Chase, Executive Office, Columbus, Ohio, April 14, 1856, writes:
I have read your speech with great interest. It was timely—exactly at the right moment and its logic and statement are irresistible. How I rejoice that Illinois has sent you to the Senate.
John Johnson, Mount Vernon, Illinois, writes:
I wish I could express the pleasure that I and many other of your friends feel when we remember that we have such a man as yourself in Congress, who loves liberty and truth and is not ashamed or afraid to speak. Let me say that I thank the Ruler of the Universe that we have got such a man into the Senate of the United States.... Your influence will tell on the interests of the nation in years to come.
John H. Bryant, Princeton, writes:
The expectations of those who elected Mr. Trumbull to the Senate have been fully met by his course in that body, those of Democratic antecedents being satisfied and the Whigs very happily disappointed. For Mr. Lincoln the people have great respect, and great confidence in his ability and integrity. Still the feeling here is that you have filled the place at this particular time better than he could have done.28
At this time Trumbull received a letter from one of the Ohio River counties which, by reason of the singularity of its contents as well as of the subsequent distinction of the writer, merits preservation:
Green B. Raum, Golconda, Pope Co., Feb. 9, '57, wishes Trumbull to find out why he cannot get his pay for taking depositions at the instance of the Secretary of the Interior in a lawsuit involving the freedom of sixty negroes legally manumitted, but still held in slavery in Crawford County, Arkansas. The witnesses whose depositions were taken were living in Pope Co., Ill. Raum advanced $43.25 for witness fees and costs and was engaged one month in the work, for which he charged $300. This was done in May, 1855, but he had never been paid even the amount that he advanced out of his own pocket.29
In April, 1857, Trumbull received an urgent appeal from Cyrus Aldrich, George A. Nourse, and others in Minnesota asking him to come to that territory and make speeches for one month to help the Republicans carry the convention which had been called to frame a state constitution. He responded to this call and took an active part in the campaign, which resulted favorably to the Republican party.
CHAPTER V
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: