Just as the Buchanan administration excoriated Douglas, certain leading Eastern Republicans suddenly embraced him. Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune decided to jump on Douglas’s bandwagon. He had condemned him before he embraced him. He had once called him “a criminal.” In private he continued to call him “a low and dangerous demagogue” puffed up with “enormous self-conceit.” Now Douglas’s heresy inspired Greeley’s latest enthusiasm. “His course has not been merely right,” he wrote, “but conspicuously, courageously, eminently so.” The editor’s career had been marked by erratic twists and turns and curdled political ambitions of his own. Now he rushed to Washington to plot strategy with Douglas. In a stream of adulatory editorials, he urged that Douglas be returned to the Senate “with substantial unanimity.” No newspaper exceeded the Tribune in its glowing coverage. “The speech of Senator Douglas today is universally admitted to be a great speech, perhaps the greatest he has ever made. It is admired by all aides for it compact force and plain solid strength . . . masterly skill . . . bold . . . defiant . . . brave . . . great energy.” Greeley said “a million copies should be distributed among Democrats by Republicans.” Greeley, who had made a practice of holding politicians to his high standard, said, “The Republican standard is too high; we want something practical.” The result of 1856 had impressed upon Greeley that Republicans could not elect a president strictly on their own strength and he seemed to believe that Douglas would be an ally of the Republicans if not become one. Somehow Greeley might have thought that his promotion of Douglas would thwart Seward. He could never forgive Seward and Weed for failing to slate him for lieutenant governor of New York. Seward meanwhile joined in praising Douglas, imagining that he might use him to further his own presidential ambition. Douglas was obviously the strongest possible Democratic candidate for president in 1860. Lending him encouragement would accelerate the Democratic split and might lead to denial of Douglas’s nomination. The New York Times, the newspaper closest to Seward, published speculative columns that Douglas’s apostasy might lead to the creation of a new political party combining Douglas Democrats and Republicans.
The Chicago Tribune’s Charles Ray never trusted Douglas’s motives. “I think I see his tracks all over our State; they point only in one direction; not a single toe is turned toward the Republican camp. Watch him, use him, but do not trust him—not an inch.” Yet Ray encouraged Colfax in a letter on December 22 to continue cultivating him. “But if Douglas falters in this crisis, he is a dead man. Now is his time to make a ten-strike, and redeem the great blunder he made three years ago”—the Kansas Nebraska Act. “Tell him, and rub in the idea.”
Douglas invited more Republicans for secret conclaves to share his confidences: Congressmen Nathaniel Banks of Massachusetts, Galusha Grow of Pennsylvania, and Senator Wilson. His charm offensive seemed to be making some headway. Colfax, Burlingame, and Congressman Frank Blair, the youngest son of Francis P. Blair, urged their colleagues not to criticize him in the hope he might even leap to the Republicans. Wilson was especially excited at the prospect of Douglas switching parties. “He is as sure to be with us in the future as Chase, Seward, or Sumner,” he wrote Theodore Parker. “I leave motives to God, but he is to be with us, and he is today of more weight to our cause than any ten men in the country.” Douglas’s courting of the Republicans played on both cynicism and wishful thinking that he could be used for their ends and that he was not using them for his. “Don’t fear him,” advised Senator Henry Wilson. “He will sink the Democratic Party.”
As Douglas performed for the Republicans, news from Kansas crashed in waves as though scripted to heighten the drama. Two days after he spoke in the Senate, acting governor Stanton was fired. Then Walker issued a scathing statement and quit his post entirely. On December 21, the referendum on the Lecompton Constitution delivered a vote of 6,226 for “constitution with slavery” and 569 “constitution with no slavery.” Free state men boycotted. Commissioners appointed by the free state legislature to investigate the fraudulent vote that had elected the Lecompton convention delegates extended their mandate to include a probe of this dubious election. They unearthed 2,720 illegal ballot-stuffed votes, at least the number they could determine. On January 4, 1858, the free state legislature conducted another referendum. This time the result was 10,226 “against the Lecompton constitution,” 138 “for the Lecompton constitution with slavery,” and 24 “for the Lecompton constitution without slavery.”
At the dawn of the New Year, Colfax observed that the Buchanan-Douglas feud was in its opening scenes. “It looks as though the Democratic Party was going to be hopelessly divided and blown to atoms. . . . The split may be healed, but I don’t see how, for the Administration has already commenced war on him, and he has a perfect appetite for fighting those who fight him.” The Washington correspondent of the Chicago Tribune reported, “It is agreed by all that Douglas’ position toward the Administration is daily growing more defiant, and that all sides have ceased to think that his opposition is a mere game. . . . A well informed and discreet Senator says that the President is taking steps to make war upon him by striking at his friends in Illinois. . . . Another says, ‘Buchanan declares openly that Douglas has fallen into the hands of his enemies, and indicates by his manner that he is determined to have his blood.’ ”
On February 2, Buchanan sent a message to the Congress, announcing he had received the election results certified from “J. Calhoun, Esq., President of the late constitutional convention of Kansas,” and submitted the Lecompton Constitution for approval to admit Kansas as a slave state. “A great delusion seems to pervade the public mind in relation to the condition of parties in Kansas,” he stated. The “dividing line” was not between “two violent political parties in that Territory, divided on the question of slavery,” but “between those who are loyal to this government and those who have endeavored to destroy its existence by force and by usurpation.” The Lecompton convention and the vote it conducted was loyal and legal while the free state legislature and its election was “treasonable” and illegal. He proclaimed he was in favor of accepting Kansas into the Union under the Lecompton Constitution. “Kansas is therefore at this moment as much a slave State as Georgia or South Carolina.”
Just before Buchanan sent his message, Alexander Stephens came to the White House to advise him. “At my suggestion he made three very important modifications.” Stephens thought Buchanan was near a breaking point. “The conclusion I came to is that Mr. Buchanan really means to do right. What he most needs is wise and prudent counsellors. He is run down and worn out with office-seekers, and the cares which the consideration of public affairs has brought upon him. He is now quite feeble and wan. I was struck with his physical appearance; he appears to me to be failing in bodily health.”
Congressman Thomas Harris of Illinois, a close ally of Douglas, wrote the editor of the Illinois State Register, Douglas’s paper, Charles H. Lanphier, “Rough times ahead. . . . The Pres is mad—crazy.”
Rough times manifested themselves first in Congress. Harris served as Douglas’s floor leader in the House on a proposition to refer the Lecompton Constitution to a select committee that would be instructed to investigate the underlying election fraud. Knowing they were in the minority, the anti-Lecompton representatives stalled, refusing to yield the floor. Late into the night of February 5, Pennsylvania Republican Galusha Grow wandered across the aisle to chat with a Democratic colleague from his state. John A. Quitman of Mississippi demanded an explanation. Grow said he was objecting to speeches out of order. As Grow returned to his seat, Keitt, Brooks’s accomplice, shouted belligerently, “Why don’t you go over on your own side, God damn you, if you want to object? What business have you over on this side, anyhow?” Grow, “quietly and coolly,” according to the New York Times correspondent, replied, “This is a free hall, and I have a right to object from any part, when I choose.” And he withdrew his objection. “What did you mean by that answer which you gave me just now?
” Keitt asked “in a ruffianly tone.” “I meant precisely what I said—that this is a free hall, and I will object from whatever part of it I see fit,” said Grow. The ghost of Sumner loomed. “I’ll show you, you damned Black Republican puppy!” threatened Keitt. “You may think me what you please, Mr. Keitt,” answered Grow, “but let me tell you that no nigger-driver shall come up from his plantation to crack his lash about my ears.” “We’ll see about that,” said Keitt, lunging to grab Grow’s throat. Grow threw off his hand. Reuben Davis of Mississippi tried to interpose himself, but Keitt leaped at Grow to strangle him. Grow punched him in his head, “which sprawled him fairly upon his face on the floor.” Grow stood back while Keitt dusted himself off and stumbled out of the chamber under the care of “some friends who sponged his bruises.” Keitt’s knockout was a signal for about a dozen Southern members to rush the Republicans. William Barksdale of Mississippi, a friend of Keitt, who had stood at Brooks’s side when he caned Sumner, attacked Grow. John F. Potter of Wisconsin stunned him with a sharp blow. Thinking that he had been hit by Elihu Washburne of Illinois, Barksdale wound up to land a haymaker. Washburne’s brother, Cadwallader Washburn (a different spelling), of Wisconsin, grabbed Barksdale by the hair. The Times reported: “Horrible to relate, Mr. Barksdale’s wig came off in Cadwallader’s left hand—and his right fist expended itself with tremendous force against the unresisting air.” The fighting instantly ceased as congressmen on both sides gawked at the wig, “and its effect was heightened not a little by the fact that in the excitement of the occasion Barksdale restored his wig wrong side foremost.” The House adjourned.
In early February, John Calhoun surfaced in Washington claiming to possess the physical ballots of the January 4 legislative election and refusing to certify them. The National Intelligencer greeted his appearance by publishing an exposé of the frauds that the pro-Lecompton forces had committed. Back in Kansas, the free state legislature’s investigative committee received information about stolen ballots, obtained a search warrant, and discovered them buried in a candle box under a wood pile at the home of Calhoun’s chief clerk in the town of Delaware Crossing. Calhoun had been avoiding Douglas, his old sponsor, since he had arrived in the capital, but the senator summoned him to his house. “What about Delaware Crossing?” he demanded, and like a lawyer questioning a false witness he flourished depositions proving the fraud that he pulled from his desk drawer. “Then how about this evidence?” Calhoun quaked and left. “Why Does He Not Decide?” ran the editorial in the Intelligencer about his continuing stonewalling on certifying the election results. On March 2, a member of the Kansas investigating committee brought the actual ballots to Washington. Calhoun reluctantly felt compelled to certify them. He was so thoroughly discredited that for his safety Buchanan had to relocate his office from Lecompton to Nebraska City.
Douglas opened his offensive against the administration’s position on Lecompton with a proposal on February 4, demanding to see the communications between executive departments and Kansas officials. It was a precision strike aimed at the Southern Directorate of the cabinet in order to expose their control of Calhoun. Counterattacking, the Democratic caucus expelled him from its meetings on the grounds that no senator opposed to Lecompton could attend.
Jefferson Davis rose in the Senate on February 8 to defend Buchanan’s position on Lecompton as “the sentiment of a patriot.” With Pierce gone, Davis began a new phase in his career. On the morning of Pierce’s last day in office, he confided to Davis, who had been his guiding hand, “I can scarcely bear the parting from you, who have been strength and solace to me for four anxious years and never failed me.” Pierce departed from Washington never to return, but Davis entered the Senate.
In the winter of 1858, Davis suffered one of his periodic recurrences of herpes simplex, a venereal disease that afflicted his eyes with hundreds of black growths causing temporary blindness and enervation for several weeks before receding. He also caught what his wife, Varina, described as “a very severe cold,” probably pneumonia. “He lay speechless and blind,” she wrote, “only able to communicate his thoughts by feeling for the slate and writing them, more or less intelligibly, for four weeks.” Every day Davis received a visit from William Seward, who came to tell him of the “passing show.” “Your man out-talked ours,” he said about the ongoing debates. “You would have liked it, but I didn’t.”
Still weak, Davis’s speech on behalf of Lecompton was an act of will, his resurrection from a deathbed. He applied illness as metaphor to a senatorial critic as the shadow of death. “It ill becomes such a man to point to Southern institutions as to him a moral leprosy, which he is to pursue to the end of extermination, and, perverting everything, ancient and modern, to bring it tributary to his own malignant purposes.” Davis spoke as an innocent victim pushed to the edge of an abyss. “Sir, we are arraigned day after day as the aggressive power,” he said. “What Southern senator during this whole session has attacked any portion or any interest of the North?” The South was being forced into an existential struggle. “You have made it a political war. We are on the defensive. How far are you to push us?” He concluded in an outpouring of self-pity and morbid nostalgia to compose his epitaph, regretting the passing of the Pierce administration and foreseeing his own. “I think I have given evidence, in every form in which patriotism is ever subjected to a test, and I trust, whatever evil may be in store for us by those who wage war on the Constitution and our rights under it, that I shall be able to turn at least to the past and say, ‘Up to that period when I was declining into the grave, I served a Government I loved, and served it with my whole heart.’ ”
On February 15, Buchanan, feeling besieged, sent a self-justifying letter of blind optimism to Robert Tyler, who had been private secretary to his father, President John Tyler. “The Kansas question brightens daily,” he wrote. “Everybody with the least foresight can perceive that, Kansas admitted, and the Black Republican party are destroyed; whilst Kansas rejected, and they are rendered triumphant throughout the Northern States.”
On March 3, Seward, Davis’s constant visitor and political adversary, delivered his speech on Lecompton, opening with an accusation and ending with a challenge. It was in this speech that Seward charged Buchanan with corruptly conspiring on the inaugural stand with Taney about the Dred Scott decision. The incident, he pointed out, was part of a fundamental conflict. “The question of slavery involves a struggle of two antagonistical systems, the labor of slaves and the labor of freemen, for mastery in the Federal Union. Such a struggle is not to be arrested, quelled, or reconciled, by temporary expedients or compromises.” On one side, free labor stood as “the ruling idea” of the nation; on the other, loomed the vampire slavery. “To attempt to aggrandize a country with slaves for its inhabitants, would be to try to make a large body of empire with feeble sinews and empty veins.” For his role in siding with slavery Buchanan would be condemned to historical ignominy. “A pit deeper and darker still is opening to receive this Administration, because it sins more deeply than its predecessors.” Seward could foresee the storm coming. “The nation has advanced another stage; it has reached the point where intervention by the Government for slavery and slave States will no longer be tolerated. Free labor has at last apprehended its rights, its interests, its power, and its destiny; and is organizing itself to assume the government of the Republic.” He offered a prophecy. “The interest of the white race demands the ultimate emancipation of all men.” How emancipation would occur “is all that remains for you to decide.”
The next day, Senator James Henry Hammond, of South Carolina, answered Seward with a speech that was as grandiose as Davis’s had been funereal. “If we never acquire another foot of territory for the South, look at her. Eight hundred and fifty thousand square miles. As large as Great Britain, France, Austria, Prussia and Spain. Is not that territory enough to make an empire that shall rule the world?” In Davis’s account, the South was being pushed to the wall. In Hammond�
��s, slavery was the wave of the future.
Hammond gave a disquisition on the wealth of the South as “the wealth of a nation,” superior in land mass to the North, able to muster a million men in “a defensive war,” and endlessly rich in cotton. “But if there were no other reason why we should never have war, would any sane nation make war on cotton? Without firing a gun, without drawing a sword, should they make war on us we could bring the whole world to our feet. . . . What would happen if no cotton was furnished for three years? I will not stop to depict what every one can imagine, but this is certain: England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her, save the South. No, you dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth dares to make war upon it.” Then he uttered his memorable phrase, which became a rallying cry: “Cotton is king.”
Hammond threw Seward’s challenge back at him. Slavery, not freedom, was the best system. “But, sir, the greatest strength of the South arises from the harmony of her political and social institutions. This harmony gives her a frame of society, the best in the world, and an extent of political freedom, combined with entire security, such as no other people ever enjoyed upon the face of the earth. Society precedes government; creates it, and ought to control it.”
Class domination, inequality, and hierarchy were the foundation of the South’s “harmony.” Aristocracy required subservience. “In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life. That is, a class requiring but a low order of intellect and but little skill. Its requisites are vigor, docility, fidelity. Such a class you must have, or you would not have that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement. It constitutes the very mud-sill of society and of political government; and you might as well attempt to build a house in the air, as to build either the one or the other, except on this mud-sill. Fortunately for the South, she found a race adapted to that purpose to her hand.”
All the Powers of Earth Page 44
