The Judge's eye is farther south now.

Then it was very

peculiarly and decidedly north. His hope rested on enlisting the great "Black Republican" party, and making it the tail of his new kite. He was then expecting from day to day to turn Republican, and place himself at the head of our organization.'

He has found that these despised "Black Republicans" estimate him by a standard which he has taught them only too well. Hence he is crawling back into his old camp, and you will eventually find him installed in full fellowship among those whom he was then battling, and with whom he now pretends to be at fearful variance."

The remaining debates were held at Jonesboro, Charleston, Galesburg, Quincy, and Alton. While many strong arguments were presented on old issues, and new issues were even started up, the historical importance of the controversy had culminated in Lincoln's securing from Douglas a statement and defense of his doctrine of "unfriendly legislation" toward slavery by the Territorial assemblies to defeat the effect of the Dred Scott decision and preserve the principle of Popular Sovereignty. This was known, from the place where first enunciated, as the "Freeport Doctrine." For this declaration Lincoln had been angling from the beginning. In a letter to Henry Asbury, of July 31, 1858, he had written of Douglas:

He cares nothing for the South; he knows he is already dead there. He only leans Southward more to keep the Buchanan party from growing in Illinois. You shall have

Indeed, Horace Greeley, the editor of the chief Republican organ, the New York Tribune, proposed that the Republican party should ally itself with Douglas in his quarrel with the Administration.

2 As we shall see, Lincoln was mistaken, if not as to the intention of Douglas, as to its realization.

hard work to get him directly to the point whether a Territorial legislature has or has not the power to exclude slavery. But if you succeed in bringing him to it-though he will be compelled to say it possesses no such power-he will instantly take ground that slavery cannot actually exist in a Territory unless the people desire it, and so give it protection by Territorial legislation. If this offends the South, he will let it offend them, as at all events he means to hold on to his chances in Illinois.

At a conference of Republican leaders the night before the Freeport debate Lincoln announced his intention of forcing this declaration from Douglas. He was counseled not to do this, since the theory would be popular with the Illinois voters, and would probably win the Senatorship for Douglas. Lincoln replied that the South would never accept as President the man who enunciated the doctrine.

"I am gunning for larger game. The battle of 1860 is worth a hundred of this."

Events fulfilled Lincoln's prophecy. The South accused Douglas of violating a bargain with it. On February 2, 1860, Jefferson Davis [Miss.] introduced in the Senate resolutions repudiating the Freeport Doctrine. These were passed by a strictly partisan vote, thus "reading out" of the party the Senator who had enunciated the obnoxious theory.'

For the debate on the resolutions see Great Debates in American History, vol. v., chap. vii. Of this debate Dr. Hermann von Holst, in his Constitutional History, says: “The debates on the Davis resolutions, to which American historians have hitherto paid scarcely any attention, are of much greater importance for the right understanding of the irrepressibleness of the conflict than the numberless compromise proposals and the endless negotiations between the Federal Executive and the seceded States which they never tire of following into the remotest details."

On May 22, 1860, Judah P. Benjamin [La.] said in the Senate:

"We accuse Douglas for this: that, having here bargained with us that the issue between us should be considered a judicial point, and that he would abide by the decision as a doctrine of the party, he went home, and, under the stress of a local election, his knees gave way and his whole person trembled. His adversary stood upon principle and was beaten; and lo! he is the candidate of a mighty party for the Presidency. Douglas got the prize for which he faltered, the Senatorship, but lo! the grand prize of his ambition slips from his grasp because of his ignoble faltering in the former and lesser contest.

In the election of State assemblymen which followed the Lincoln-Douglas debates the Republicans received a total majority of the votes cast, showing that Lincoln was the choice of the people for Senator. However, owing to a Democratic "gerrymander" of the State senatorial districts, a majority of Democratic senators were elected, which enabled the legislature to return Douglas to the United States Senate.

Lincoln was contented with the result, believing that Douglas's election on the Freeport Doctrine would divide the Democratic party into Northern and Southern factions, and so assure the election of a Republican President.

The Moral Climate Line. Because of the opposition to him by the leading statesmen of the South Douglas made a speaking tour through that region. In a speech at Memphis, Tenn., in December, 1858, he declared:

The Almighty has drawn a line on this continent on one side of which the soil must be cultivated by slave labor; on the other, by white labor. That line does not run

inflexibly along the parallel of the Missouri Compromise, but meanders through the border States and Territories where the self-interest of the inhabitants forms the natural means for its determination.

On March 1, 1859, Lincoln replied to this theory at Chicago.

Once we come to acknowledge that it is the law of the Eternal Being for slavery to exist on one side of such a line, have we any sure ground to object to slaves being admitted on the other side? Once admit that a man rightfully holds another man as property on one side, you must admit that, when it suits his convenience, he has the same right to hold his property on the other side. Step by step, first south of the Judge's moral climate line in the States and Territories, and then in all the States, he would lead us inevitably to the nationalization of slavery.

Referring to the suggestion of some of the Republican leaders that the party should support Senator Douglas in his contest with the Administration, Lincoln said:

Our only serious danger is that we shall be led upon this ground of Judge Douglas on the delusive assumption that it is a good way of whipping our opponents, when in fact it leads straight to final surrender.

CHAPTER XIII

THE MORALITY OF SLAVERY

[The Issue in the Presidential Contest of 1860]

Raid on Harpers Ferry by John Brown (1859)-His Abolition Principles-Meetings in the North on the Day of his Execution-Address of Charles O'Conor, Esq., of New York City, Defining the Issue between North and South as the Morality of Slavery, and Contending that Slavery is Right-Debate in the Senate on Investigating the Brown Raid and a Pro-Slavery Raid in 1855 on the Liberty [Mo.] Arsenal: in Favor of the Latter Investigation, Lyman Trumbull [Ill.], Henry Wilson [Mass.), John P. Hale [N. H.]; Opposed, James M. Mason [Va.], Albert G. Brown [Miss.], Alfred Iverson [Ga.]-Sketches of Trumbull, Wilson, and Brown-Futile Attempt of John J. Crittenden [Ky.] as a Peacemaker-Contest over Speaker of the House: John Sherman [O.] Forced to Withdraw because of his Endorsement of Hinton R. Helper's The Impending Crisis—The Presidential Campaign of 1860-Debate on Platform in the Charleston Democratic Convention between William L. Yancey [Ala.] and George E. Pugh [O.]—Sketches of the Debaters-Division of the Democratic Party over Popular Sovereignty-Constitutional Union Party Nominates for President John Bell [Tenn.] and for Vice-President Edward Everett [Mass.]—Sketches of NomineesGrooming of Abraham Lincoln as the "Dark Horse "of the Republicans-His Speech at Cooper Union, New York City, on "Slavery as the Fathers Viewed It"-His Peroration on the Immorality of Slavery-He is Nominated for President-Hannibal Hamlin [Me.] is Selected as his Running Mate—Sketch of Hamlin-The Republican Platform-Northern Democrats Nominate Stephen A. Douglas [Ill.] for President, and Herschel V. Johnson [Ga.] for Vice-President -Sketch of Johnson-Southern Democrats Nominate John C. Breckinridge [Ky.] for President, and Joseph Lane [Ore.] for VicePresident-Sketches of Nominees-Republican Victory.

EVERY great political movement is in form as well as in nature an "argument." In the beginning general principles, "postulates," are laid down. Then these