Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas first met in 1834,
as rising first-term representatives in the Illinois General Assembly.
The two men were twenty-four and twenty-one, respectively. From
the first, they had been healthy rivals, each pulling a considerable
amount of weight within his own party. Additionally, Douglas had
briefly courted Mary Todd before Lincoln won her hand.
Although three years Lincoln's junior, Douglas enjoyed
a quicker ascent to national prominence. As Lincoln's last term
in the state legislature expired, Douglas earned an appointment
to the state supreme court. When Lincoln was elected to Congress
in 1846, Douglas enjoyed a promotion to senator in the bargain.
By the early 1850s, Douglas enjoyed a reputation as one of the
sharpest young orators and politicians in the Senate.
From the beginning, Douglas's position slavery stood in
stark contrast to Lincoln's. Whereas Lincoln was wont to style
slavery as a moral evil, Douglas was somewhat indifferent as to
the morality of slavery, and far more concerned with the politics
of the issue that was beginning to tear the nation apart at the
seams.
Henry Clay, in his inimitable way, had once again stepped
in to save the union with his Compromise of 1850, which provided
for the admission of California as a free state, the organization
of the New Mexico and Utah territories without mention of slavery,
the abolishment of the slave trade in the District of Columbia,
and, most significantly, a powerful federal fugitive slave law
designed to restore runaway slaves back to their masters. Lincoln,
always a great admirer of Clay, personally approved of the Compromise
of 1850. Two years later, upon Clay's death, Lincoln would praise
him for his compassionate moderate politics in a public eulogy.
Therefore, it must have been especially galling to Lincoln
when Douglas effectively nullified Clay's Missouri Compromise with
the passage of his controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.
In this piece of legislation, the original line dividing free states
from slave states was ignored, since each territory seeking entry
into the union was empowered to decide the question of slavery
for themselves under the system of popular sovereignty.
Douglas was primarily motivated to advance the doctrine
of popular sovereignty in order to garner support for quite another project.
Plans for the transcontinental railroad were being laid out, and
there was some debate as to whether the eastern terminus of the track
should be at Chicago or New Orleans. Wishing to improve the lot
of his home state, and recognizing the necessity of the railroad
to the industrial growth of the middle west, Douglas threw the Kansas-Nebraska
Act into the ring in hopes that he could earn southern votes for
his Chicago campaign. In the short term, this proved to be a brilliant
political move for Douglas, as he succeeded in securing the railroad
for the north and won the approval and support of the south in
one fell swoop. However, in the longer view, Douglas's politicking
would prove to be his own undoing, and indeed, the undoing of the
union.
At this time, Lincoln was not an abolitionist per se,
but he was firmly committed to the containment of slavery within
the United States. Though he was morally opposed to slavery, he
had no wish to upset the balance of the union by campaigning too
harshly against the rights of the southern states. His approach
had always been to campaign for state-sponsored repeal rather than
the force of federal legislation. There can be no disputing that
Lincoln accepted the existence and continuation of slavery in the
southern states during much of the 1850s. However, with the introduction
of Douglas's popular sovereignty, Lincoln aired his fears that
the African slave trade would presently be revived, turning America
into vast slave empire.
In an effort to prevent this scenario from occurring,
Lincoln decided to re- enter politics, with the clearly defined
goal of assailing Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska Act. Originally he
had no intention of campaigning directly, but after a powerful
speech at Peoria, he was elected once again to the Illinois General
Assembly, and found himself as a potential candidate for a Senate
seat.
After gaining the support of the Whigs, Lincoln resigned
his newly won seat in the state legislature and made a concerted
push for Senate election. Although the balloting was close, Lincoln
again came up short at the hands of his Democrat opposition, and
found himself sidelined once again. This was a keen disappointment
for Lincoln, and once again he retreated into the confines of his
legal practice, his political future uncertain at best.
Despite Lincoln's loss, the national tide against Douglas
was beginning to rise. Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska Act was fiercely opposed
in the Senate by politicians of national reputation such as Salmon
Chase of Ohio, William Seward of New York and Charles Sumner of
Massachusetts. After Sumner aired a series of sharp criticisms
against several supporters of popular sovereignty, he was attacked
on the Senate floor by Preston Brooks of South Carolina. The nation
was beginning to come apart at the seams.
Nowhere was the tension over popular sovereignty more
palpable than in Kansas, where Douglas's legislation was being
put to the test. With the gauntlet laid down for a shouting match,
free-soilers and slavers alike rushed in to settle Kansas in hopes
of controlling state policy. Rival delegations quickly emerged,
with a pro-slavery government assembling in Lecompton and a rival
free- soil government assembling in Topeka. Then, in May of 1856,
a group of slavers sacked the free-soil stronghold of Lawrence.
Throughout the summer and into the fall, open civil war raged
in Kansas between the rival factions. In one of the most significant
incidents, a virulent abolitionist named John Brown hacked five
slavers to death at Pottawatomie Creek. Popular sovereignty was
quickly degenerating into anarchy.
Out of the increasingly heated debate over the slavery
question, a new political party emerged in time for the 1856 presidential
elections. Called the Republicans, they were an amalgamation of
various factions united by their opposition to the spread of slavery.
For president, they nominated the western explorer John C. Fremont
on a platform of expansionism and opposition to popular sovereignty.
At the convention, Lincoln himself received a significant portion
of votes for vice president, but slipped off the list on succeeding
ballots due to his regional obscurity.
Lincoln campaigned actively on Fremont's behalf, and the Republicans
gained significant support particularly in the Northeast. However,
certain southern politicians threatened secession in the event
of a Fremont win, and a moderate electorate eventually swept the
more conservative Democrat, James Buchanan, into office.
By early 1857, free-soilers outnumbered slavers in Kansas,
but slavers still controlled the political machine. Like President
Franklin Pierce before him, Buchanan supported the entry of Kansas
as a slave state. However, Douglas united with a block of Republican voters
to prevent this prospect, insisting on a proper application of popular
sovereignty. A series of corrupt and inconclusive statewide referendums
ensued, and eventually the issue was tabled in the face of continued
bloodshed. Ultimately, Kansas would be admitted to the union in
January of 1861 as a free state. But by then, the very state of
the union itself had been called into question.
