Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

DEMOCRATIC SUPREMACY.

251

more to become the precondition of the preservation of the Union, and patriotic anxiety for the Union induced. them, after a hard internal struggle, to prostitute themselves not only in the eyes of the world but in their own eyes; habit had given constitutional sophistry such power over political thought that these people were able to convince themselves that conscious self-degradation was ennobled by love of country. Not only the Union but American nationality itself had lost the right to continued existence, and therefore the possibility of continued existence, if self-degradation was the price to be paid for it.

When the vote was taken on English's bill, the twentythree anti-Lecompton democrats of the house had been reduced to twelve. If the eleven renegades believed that they could confidently rely on the fact that the population of Kansas had become tired enough of the troubles, or that they would be so greedy for the material advantages offered as to agree also to this conscious selfdegradation, their blindness to the consequences of their disgraceful treason to their own principles was explicable to some extent. Even then English's bill would have remained a sharp-edged weapon in the hands of the republicans, which they certainly would not have neglected to use with terrible effect; but the struggle of the two great parties for Kansas would thereby have been brought to a close; for all idea of a revolt of the republicans against the legal decision was excluded. But would this have justified the shout of jubilation with which Bigler, in the senate, had greeted the announcement that the house had adopted the bill "the magnetic telegraph is spreading, with the speed of lightning, a message of peace all over the land?" If the earth had swallowed up all Kansas, and with it all remembrance of the contest over it, the struggle would still have to go on without

interruption,' because the slavery question could disappear only with slavery. What chapter in the history of the territory up to date warranted one to estimate so low the firmness and spirit of sacrifice of the men of Kansas in defense of the rights guarantied them by the democratic party against that same democratic party? Would they, now that that party was divided, throw into the mouth of the sneaking fox what, at the price of their blood, they had snatched out of the jaws of the raging wolf, in the days of the border ruffians, while fighting the externally serried ranks of the democratic party? The lip-democrats from the free states, who sold the right of the self-determination of the people in whose name they had torn to pieces the perpetual charter of liberty of the northwestern territories, had now to listen to Crittenden, the slave-holding senator, when he told them: "I am perfectly certain" that Kansas will resist "all these temptations and reject your offers." If he was not deceived in this expectation, nothing could be gained by this bill; "not a straw, not the dust in the balance in which the peace of the country is weighed."2

1 Lincoln on September 18, 1858, in Charleston. Debates between Lincoln and Douglas, p. 157.

2 Congr. Globe, 1st Sess. 35th Congr., p. 1814.

THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT.

253

[ocr errors]

CHAPTER VI.

THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT."

The first session of the thirty-fifth congress lasted until June 14, 1858. Some of the questions which, after the passage of English's bill, had to be disposed of, were of much greater importance than could be inferred from the interest public opinion took in the deliberations concerning them. This fact could not teach the presumptuous narrowness of the routine politicians that it was not a happy thought to have given the republicans the nickname of the "party of one idea." Precisely because they were a party of one idea, the future belonged to them; for the intellectual and moral elasticity of the people became more and more completely absorbed with the struggle for this one idea. All else could excite no great interest except to the extent that it promised to be, directly or indirectly, of importance in the progress of this struggle. The attention with which a few questions were still followed was attributable not so much to these questions themselves as to their presumptive influence on the attitude of the masses towards the administration and the democratic party.

On the 18th of May, the bill for the admission of Oregon as a state was passed by the senate by a vote of thirty-five against seventeen, although everything that had been said in defense of English's bill, in reference to its provisions about the number of the population, was just as applicable here. The republicans very naturally threw a glaring light on the wry faces made by the members of the administration party at one another; but the majority of them-ten against six-voted, notwith

[ocr errors]

standing, for the bill. They did not want to let Oregon atone for the sins of congress against Kansas, and estimated the gain which every increase of the free states would bring to the cause of freedom higher than the loss which would be caused to it by the direct strengthening of the democratic party in congress and in the electoral college. The administration party, on the other hand, did not believe that it should allow any considerations to weigh against this strengthening of the democratic party. The adininistration party might easily disregard the fact that it was obliged to expose its perfidious intervention against the free-state party in Kansas thus plainly; but it was certainly a great trial for the south to admit a free state without having the admission of a new slave state in prospect within any conceivable time. But Oregon was sure for the democrats: three, votes more or less, in the electoral college might easily turn the scales; and it became plain to the south, day after day, that in the next presidential election the decisive throw of the dice of fate would be cast.

That the bill at first lay quietly in the house was a matter of no consequence. It would be time enough. if it were passed in the next session; and that it would be passed then might, considering the attitude of the republicans in the senate, be looked upon as almost undoubted.

If, therefore, Buchanan had good reason to be satisfied with the course of this matter, he was—at least so far as he was personally concerned - certainly much better pleased with the turn which things took in Utah. The debate on the so-called deficiency bill had caused him many unpleasant hours. Fifteen millions had been originally granted for the army, and now eight millions more were asked for it. Even if the coffers of the treasury had been full, and if normal prosperity had prevailed in

THE DEFICIENCY BILL.

255

the economic condition of the country, this would not have been looked upon with equanimity. But trade had not yet, by any means, recovered from the crash of the preceding year; the revenues from the customs duties under the new tariff still flowed in scantily, and the gov ernment's coffers were still so empty that the country might be expected at any moment to hear the secretary of the treasury declare that recourse must be again had for money to the printing-press. And, in the first place, it was the campaign arbitrarily undertaken against the Mormons which had made this enormous extra demand necessary. The criticism would, therefore, not have been undeserved, even if the administration had proved that with the greatest economy and the strictest honesty the cost could not have been lessened one cent. But the contracts entered into for this expedition were not the least cause that led Toombs, in the senate, to express the conviction that, in the whole world, there was no government so corrupt as that of the United States.1

The bill was rejected by the house on the 8th of April, by a vote of one hundred and twenty-four against one hundred and six. The most material objection was, indeed, to the third section, which did not have reference to the army, but which, contrary to an express legal prohibition, granted extra remuneration to the appointees of the house. Reconsideration was resolved upon the very next day, and the bill passed by a vote of one hundred and eleven against ninety-seven. Still, the first vote, by which it was defeated, when twenty seven democrats voted with the majority, contained a censure of extraordinary severity, and discontent over the Utah expedition had contributed not a little to the administration of that censure.

Buchanan might, therefore, look upon it as a special I Congr. Globe, 1st Sess. 35th Congr., App., p. 358.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »