United States or North Macedonia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Who, then, shall come in at this day and claim that he invented it? The Lecompton Constitution connects itself with this question, for it is in this matter of the Lecompton Constitution that our friend, Judge Douglas, claims such vast credit.
Discussing the admission of California, he proclaimed the "higher law" doctrine in 1850; reviewing Dred Scott and Lecompton, he announced the "irrepressible conflict" in 1858. He had tact as well as talent; he was a consummate politician, as well as a profound statesman.
Now he was confronted by two popular votes, of which the one made somewhat the better technical and formal showing, and the other undeniably expressed the true will of a large majority of lawful voters. He selected the former, and advised Congress to admit Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution with slavery. But Douglas took the other side.
"The election of Mr. Buchanan and his opening policy in Kansas, soothed the irritation, and was rapidly demoralizing the new Party, when the Pro-Slavery Party in Kansas perpetrated, and the President and the South accepted, the Lecompton fraud, and again united the North more resolutely in resistance to that invasion of the rights of self-government.
When the question of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was agitated, he earnestly opposed it, and thus became identified with the "free labor" party in Missouri, and united with it, in opposition to the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution. He afterwards became a prominent anti-slavery man, and in 1859 was mentioned as a candidate for the presidency.
Guerilla warfare continued to vex the Territory as with unconscious humor the settlers illustrated the doctrine of popular sovereignty in practical operation. On January 12th, 1857, the legislature met at Lecompton. On the same day the pro-slavery party held a convention in which it was decided that it was useless to continue the struggle.
The Constitution was not submitted to the convention to popular vote, but in due time forwarded to the President, and by him laid before Congress, accompanied by a recommendation for its approval, and the early admission of the new State into the Union. When the Lecompton Constitution came before the Senate, it at once encountered the formidable opposition of Senator Douglas.
Had the discussion of the Lecompton Constitution been carried on simultaneously with that of a couple of dozen roast turkeys, I sometimes think we might have avoided this war. Not only in public but in private rejoicings, is the table the scene of chief enjoyment. When was it that the fatted calf was killed? On what occasion was the water turned into wine?
I agree that in opposing the Lecompton Constitution, so far as I can perceive, he was right. * All the Republicans in the Nation opposed it, and they would have opposed it just as much without Judge Douglas's aid as with it. They had all taken ground against it long before he did. Why, the reason that he urges against that Constitution, I urged against him a year before.
It was a year of financial distress in America, which recalled the hard times of twenty years before. The United States treasury was empty. Early in this year a Legislature had met at Topeka, Kansas, and was immediately dissolved by the United States marshals. A Territorial Legislature also met at Lecompton and provided for a State Constitution.
Word Of The Day