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He patronizingly apologized for Buchanan's error in supposing that the Kansas-Nebraska act provided only for the submission of the slavery question to a vote, recalling the fact that, at the time that act was passed he was representing the country with great wisdom and distinction at a foreign court and had never given the matter serious thought.
In the Kansas-Nebraska Act hypothetical communities were endowed with the capacity of self-government, and told to decide for themselves a question which would become a burning issue the very moment that the first settlers set foot in the Territories. Congress attempted thus to solve an equation without a single known quantity. Moreover, slavery was no longer a matter of local concern.
To further his ambitious aspirations, Douglas began now to court the favor of Southern leaders, and introduced his famous Kansas-Nebraska Bill, which was virtually the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, inasmuch as it opened the vast territories to the north of 36° 30' to the introduction of slavery if their people should so elect.
In the fall of 1854 the elections were generally adverse to the Democrats. The slavery agitation at the North, intensified by the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, resulted in a large number of Free-Soil candidates and "anti-Nebraska" Whigs being elected to the House.
He came out of the Mexican war with a good reputation as a brilliant and dashing officer, and a man of approved courage. As a politician he had been highly favored by the people of Indiana. He was in the convention that nominated President Pierce. He was in Congress at the time of the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and aided in its enactment. He was the friend of Stephen A. Douglas.
Douglas in 1854, as we have already seen, incorporated in the Kansas-Nebraska Bill a clause declaring it to be "the true intent and meaning of the Act not to legislate Slavery into any State or Territory, or to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States."
Douglas, the ablest northern Democrat, led in this, succeeding, as official pacificator between North and South, somewhat to the office of Clay, who had died June 29, 1852. The aim of most who were with him was to make Kansas-Nebraska slave soil, but we may believe that Douglas himself cherished the hope and conviction that freedom was its destiny.
When Douglas opened his speech at the State House, he unconsciously lent new importance to Lincoln by announcing that he understood that he was to answer him, and requesting him to come forward and arrange terms for the debate. But Lincoln was not present and he plunged into his argument, defending the Kansas-Nebraska bill, his own course and that of his party.
In 1864, when I was campaigning on the Red River in Louisiana, I noticed with interest a device that had been put into shape for the purpose of lifting river steamers over shoals. The difficulty on the Red River was that the Rebel sharp-shooters from the banks made the management of the stilts irregular. In 1854, Douglas carried through Congress the Kansas-Nebraska Bill.
His absence from the country as Minister to England, during the exciting events just mentioned, it was thought would make him a safer candidate than his chief competitor, Douglas. He had been in no manner identified with the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, or the stormy events which immediately followed its passage. In his letter of acceptance, however, Mr.
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