CHAPTER XLII POLITICS AND SLAVERY, 1856-1860 With the Whigs actually going through the process of dissolution, and the Democrats threatened with a similar fate, and with the Know-Nothings piling up votes in state after state, the chaotic congressional elections of 1854 placed the Republicans in a position to jump from nothing into one of the major parties in the course of a single campaign. They had behind them the whole accumulated force of antislavery feeling, the intensity of which was greater than ever. By taking advantage of the loss of confidence in the Whigs, and of the distrust of the Know-Nothings they could capitalize any new issue that happened to arise. They found one in the civil war in Kansas. Democrats and Know-Nothings were both anxious to settle the contest there, partly because they saw in it the surest stimulus to Republican progress, while the Republicans were not unwilling to let it continue, at least during the presidential campaign, knowing that every attack upon the antislavery settlers would bring them votes. THE CAMPAIGN OF 1856 The nominations of all the parties were influenced in one way or another by "bleeding Kansas." The Democrats had to select a candidate who would conciliate the wavering members of their party in the North, so they dropped both Pierce and Douglas. On the seventeenth ballot they picked James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, an old, conservative, easy-going man not likely to make trouble. One of his chief assets was his absence from the country during the debate over the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. He had at least antagonized no one, and voters might reasonably consider him safe. The platform upheld the doctrine of popular sovereignty as the best solution of the slavery problem, in spite of the unfortunate attempt to apply it in Kansas. The Republicans had to be even more careful in their selection than the Democrats. As a new party, composed of dissatisfied Democrats and Whigs, they could not afford to show undue favoritism THE CAMPAIGN OF 1856 453 to either wing. Chase had been too good a Democrat to satisfy the Whigs, while Seward, as the ruler of the Whig machine in New York, would never draw the vote of a single convert from the Democrats. They finally took John C. Frémont, the "Pathfinder," so called, whose career in California could be made to look like an asset. Frémont could never have traveled far in politics on his own merits, but the Republicans relied upon the widespread antislavery feeling to conceal the weakness of their candidate. The platform demanded the abolition of slavery in the territories and the admission of Kansas under the Topeka Constitution. After the campaign started, the Democrats in Congress, under the guidance of Robert Toombs, introduced a bill designed to get a fair vote of the Kansans themselves on the subject of slavery. The measure passed the Senate, but the Republicans killed it in the House. They would not consider the admission of Kansas as a slave state, even if the inhabitants there favored slavery. Because of the Republican determination to prevent Congress from acting, nothing more was done, and the new party was able to draw upon "bleeding Kansas" for the whole campaign. The Know-Nothing party went to pieces during the campaign of 1856, even more rapidly than it had arisen. The northern and southern wings could not agree on slavery, and the northern members went over in groups to the Republicans. As the sectional party steadily gathered strength in the North, the more radical southern leaders began to renew their threats of secession. If the Republicans should win, they declared, the South would leave the Union. Senator Mason, of Virginia, went so far as to urge Jefferson Davis, the Secretary of War, to provide the militia in the southern states with arms from federal arsenals. There is no doubt that this renewed danger of disunion seriously affected the more conservative voters in the North. They were pleased by Buchanan's promise to secure a fair vote in Kansas, and they hesitated to goad the South by voting Republican. Buchanan was elected, with 174 electoral votes, to 114 for Frêmont. The Democrats also secured control of both houses of Congress. In spite of the fact that the total popular vote of all non-Democratic parties and groups was larger than the Democratic total, the old party was well satisfied with the result. There seemed to be more than an even chance of getting along with no more trouble. THE DRED SCOTT CASE Two days after Buchanan's inauguration, the Supreme Court unexpectedly departed from its normal course, and took a sudden plunge into the torrent of slavery agitation. It had hitherto kept clear of trouble in this quarter, by rendering decisions dealing only with legal, rather than constitutional aspects of the question. The sudden change of policy of the court, in the Dred Scott case, proved to be another great asset for the Republican Party. The facts of the case are simple. Dred Scott was the slave of one Dr. Emerson, an army physician. In the course of his professional duties Dr. Emerson took Scott with him to Illinois, a free state by virtue of the Ordinance of 1787 and the state constitution, and then into the northern part of the Louisiana Purchase, made free by the Missouri Compromise. In 1838 master and slave returned to Missouri. Emerson died in 1844, and Scott became the property of his executor, one Sandford, of New York. Several years later Scott brought suit in a Missouri court to secure his freedom, on the ground that residence in Illinois had automatically released him from slavery. The Missouri courts decided against him. The case was then carried on appeal to the federal courts. The circuit court followed precedent, and upheld the decision of the Missouri tribunal, whereupon, by another appeal, the case was carried to the federal Supreme Court. There was ample precedent covering a case of that sort, which, if followed, would have brought a mere matter-of-fact decision, upholding the previous decisions. The majority of the court decided to follow this course, and one of the associate justices was instructed to write the decision. Then Justice Wayne, of Georgia, conceived the idea that it would be well to seize this opportunity to have the Supreme Court put an end, for all time, to this troublesome wrangling over slavery. He succeeded in converting a majority of the Court, and Chief-Justice Taney was ordered to write the opinion. In his famous decision, Taney upheld the lower courts in declaring that Scott was not free. Then the Chief-Justice entered into a long, involved, and historically unsound dissertation upon slavery in the United States. No negro could be a citizen, he said, because there were no negro citizens when the Constitution was adopted, and the document therefore applied only to whites. If he was not a citizen, Scott could not sue in the federal courts. BUCHANAN AND KANSAS 455 Once that question was settled, there was nothing more to be said, but Taney kept on going. Taking up Scott's plea that residence in Illinois and in the Louisiana Purchase had released him from slavery, the Chief-Justice argued that Congress had no authority to legislate against the property rights of any citizen which were duly guaranteed by the Constitution. Slavery was one of these rights, therefore the prohibition of slavery in the territories was unconstitutional, and the Missouri Compromise had been unconstitutional and void from the date of its enactment. This final assertion had no logical place in the decision, and it had the force solely of Taney's personal opinion, or, as lawyers put it, it was obiter dictum, with no authority as a precedent. Associate Justice Curtis riddled Taney's whole argument. It was easy to show that the assertion regarding negro citizens had no foundation in fact, and equally easy to prove that there had been negro citizens, before, during, and after 1787. The theory that Congress had no right to prohibit slavery in the territories was contrary to unbroken custom followed since 1789. Curtis concluded by asserting that the Missouri Compromise was constitutional up to 1854, when it was repealed, and that Scott had been freed by his residence on free soil. Instead of allaying the bitterness over slavery, the decision, like the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, made it worse than ever. Antislavery leaders pointed to it as further proof of the determination of the "slave power" to dominate all branches of the federal government. The Republicans were ready to ignore the decision, and they promised to reorganize the court so that its decisions would be in keeping with antislavery views. At the same time, their leaders must have felt an inward satisfaction as they saw their strength increased by Taney's blunders. BUCHANAN AND KANSAS The Dred Scott Decision was not a propitious introduction to any program for settling the Kansas troubles. Buchanan, however, felt that if he could put an end to the contest there, he would strengthen his party, and render a genuine service to the whole country. His policy called for the appointment of an impartial, fearless, honest governor, who would secure a fair registration of voters, guarantee honest elections, and give the voters in the territory a genuine opportunity to decide for or against slavery. This they could do, regardless of the Dred Scott Decision, when they drew up their state constitution. The new governor was a man of national prominence, Robert J. Walker of Mississippi. He had been a Senator from his state and Secretary of the Treasury under Polk. He seemed to possess the qualities required. When he arrived in Kansas, he found a movement well under way, the purpose of which was the framing of a proslavery constitution. The Free State party steadily refused to vote in any territorial elections, so there would be no opposition to the plan. On June 15, 1857, delegates were elected to a proslavery convention, to draft the constitution. Walker tried to induce the Free State men to vote, but they refused. As a result, fewer than one eighth of the voters took part, and the convention chosen was unanimously proslavery. Walker still persisted in his efforts to have the Free State group vote, especially in the approaching election of a territorial legislature. This time he was successful, and by rigidly insisting upon the exclusion of all those not qualified to vote, Walker secured an honest election. This left the Free State party in control of the legislature, because by that time they heavily outnumbered the proslavery group. The minority, however, held its convention at Lecompton, and framed its constitution. Instead of submitting the whole document to popular vote, they submitted only a single article dealing with slavery. But other parts of the document provided for the protection of slave property already in Kansas, regardless of the vote on that particular section. The Free State party and the North in general characterized the plan as a miserable trick and a contemptible fraud. Governor Walker himself, a slave owner from the lower South, told the leader in the enterprise to his face that the scheme was "a vile fraud, a base counterfeit, and a wretched device to keep the people from voting." After the convention adjourned, Walker made a hurried trip to Washington, to lay the matter before the President. Once there, he found that the President, under the influence of Jefferson Davis, had concluded to support the Lecompton Constitution. Walker very naturally resigned, in a letter which would have aroused a stronger man than Buchanan into at least a realization of his stupidity. His decision to approve the proslavery scheme, and to repudiate the governor whom he had promised to support, wrecked the Democratic Party. |