When, forty years later, a law of Congress establishing an equitable income tax was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, and a Democratic national convention protested against that decision, the Republican papers of the day denounced the protest as hardly less than treason. But the Republicans of an earlier day were not so reverential toward the Supreme Court as an infallible authority. Could the court as a finality outlaw the negro from the common rights of man, and prevent Congress from establishing freedom in the national domain? Not so thought the men who led the Republican party and the sentiment of the North. The New York Legislature, for example, promptly enacted that African descent should not disqualify from State citizenship; that any slave brought into the State by his master became free, and any attempt to hold him was a penal offense. It passed a resolution declaring that the Supreme Court had lost the confidence and respect of the people. Lincoln said in his dry way that the Republican party did not propose to declare Dred Scott a free man (by the way, he was soon manumitted by his former master's daughter)—but neither did they propose to accept the court's decision as a political rule binding the voters, or Congress, or the President; and they intended so to oppose it as to have it reversed if possible, and a new judicial rule established. Seward was very outspoken. He said a year later, in the Senate, "The people of the United States never can and never will accept principles so unconstitutional, so abhorrent. Never, never! Let the court recede. Whether it recede or not, we shall reorganize the court, and thus reform its political sentiment and practices, and bring them in harmony with the Constitution and the laws of Nature."

The court's decision, obiter dictum and all, extended only to the power of Congress over the Territories. What a Territorial Legislature might do by way of excluding slavery

had not been passed on; and Douglas thus found room for his doctrine of "popular sovereignty." But as to just what that meant, he was adroitly non-committal, till the more adroit Lincoln in the joint debate in 1858 drew from him the statement that a Territorial Legislature might by "unfriendly legislation" practically exclude slavery-a committal which ended his favor from the South.

But meanwhile attention was focused on a different and more concrete question. Buchanan began his administration with an effort to pacify Kansas, by sending a new governor, Robert J. Walker, of Mississippi, with strong pledges from the President that the people should have fair dealing. But the situation was badly complicated. The Legislature had provided for a convention to frame a State Constitution. This was to be elected on the basis of a census taken by the county officials. But the Free State men having never recognized this Territorial Legislature, and having kept up the form of a State government of their own, there were no officials to take the census and register the votes in fifteen out of the thirty-four counties, and the registration was confined to the part of the Territory lying convenient for invasion from Missouri. Under these circumstances the Free State party resisted all Governor Walker's appeals to take part in the election, and the convention was chosen by a small vote. It met at Lecompton, and drew up a constitution. One article provided for the exclusion of free negroes, and another forbade any amendment for seven years. One section affirmed ownership of slaves as an inviolable right of property, and forbade any adverse legislation; and this section alone of the Constitution was submitted to the popular vote. A vote of the people was ordered, as between "constitution with slavery" and "constitution without slavery." The Free State men scouted the whole proceeding, and refused to vote. So, by

the form of a popular election, the "constitution with slavery" was adopted.

The administration now gave its whole strength to the admission by Congress of Kansas with the Lecompton constitution. The same election that made Buchanan President had made the House as well as the Senate Democratic. But it was no longer the disciplined and docile Democracy of old. The proposal to admit a State under a constitution of which only a single article had been submitted to even the form of a popular vote, was too obnoxious for any but the most unflinching partisans. It was impossible to a leader whose watchword was "popular sovereignty."

Douglas broke squarely with the administration, and acted with the Republicans against the bill. He came in close touch with their leaders, and his open accession to their party seemed probable. Meanwhile in the Democratic party he had a small following in Congress and a large following among the people. The struggle in Congress over the Lecompton bill was obstinate. Senator Crittenden, of Kentucky, belonging nominally to the remnant of the American party, which sheltered some of the moderate Southerners, and himself one of their best leaders-proposed a bill submitting the entire Constitution to a direct popular vote. This was defeated in the Senate, but passed by the House, with the support of the Republicans. A committee of conference sought for some agreement, and found a singular one: a bill proposed by and named from Mr. English, a Douglas Democrat from Illinois. It provided that the Constitution should be submitted to a popular vote; if accepted, Kansas was at once to become a State and receive an immense land grant; if rejected, it was to remain a Territory until it had the population requisite for one representative in the House,-93,340,-and get no land grant. The combination of a bribe and a threat gave an almost

grotesque air to the proposition. Party lines were broken in the vote; Douglas and a part of his associates joined with the bulk of the Republicans in opposing the bill; but enough of both sides saw in it the best they could get, to win a majority in both houses, and the English bill became law, in April, 1858.

In the previous summer, the assurances of Governor Walker and the advice of sagacious politicians like Henry Wilson had induced the Free State men to give up their separate organization and take part in the election of the Territorial Legislature. They carried the election by two to one. But again fraud was attempted. From a hamlet with eleven houses was sent in a return of 1624 votes,―the names, it was found, copied in alphabetical order from a Cincinnati directory; and from another district an equally dishonest return was made; and the two would have changed the majority in the Legislature. This catastrophe was averted by the firmness of Walker, who threw out the fraudulent returns. In this he was vainly opposed by the Territorial chief justice, a servile partisan. After this the President turned against Walker and in the following December drove him into resignation. He protested in an indignant letter that the President had betrayed and deserted him, and that his policy had saved the Territory from civil war and brought the entire people together for the first time in a peaceable election.

Indeed the troubles of Kansas were practically ended. The people rejected the Lecompton constitution and its land grant by a heavy majority. They framed and ratified a Constitution of their own at Wyandotte, and came into the Union as a free State when secession had left the Republicans in full control of Congress in the winter of 1860-1.

The accession of Kansas to the Free States was full of significance. It was fresh evidence that in the actual settle

ment of the new country the inevitable preponderance lay with free labor. Its industrial advantage could not be overborne by a hostile national administration, nor by the inroads of aggressive and lawless neighbors. The management of their affairs by the Free State settlers was a great vindication of the methods of peace. The guerrilla warfare undertaken by Brown and his party had won no real advantage. The decisive triumph came from the habitual selfcontrol of the Free State men, their steady refusal to resist the Federal authority, and the sympathy they thus won from the peaceful North, turning at last the scales of Congressional authority in their favor. Thus far, peace and freedom moved hand in hand.

The tide in the country was running strongly with the Republicans. The alliance with Douglas failed, because his price was the Senatorship from Illinois, and the Republicans of that State were "willing to take him on probation, but not to make him the head of the church." They named Abraham Lincoln as their candidate for the Senatorship, and these two men held a series of joint debates which fixed the attention of the country; with the result that Lincoln won the popular majority, but Douglas the Legislature and the Senatorship. In the country at large, the Republicans made such gains, in this election of 1858, that they won the control of the National House. The Whigs were defunct, the Americans were a dwindling fraction; the "Constitutional Union" party held a number who sought peace above all things; but the great mass divided between the Republicans and the Democrats. Douglas, the most dextrous of rope-dancers, had regained his place as the foremost man in his old party. The Republicans held firmly to their constitutional principles; but the depth of the antagonism of the two industrial systems grew ever more apparent.

Lincoln had declared: "A house divided against