His interpretation of the powers of Congress. He asserted that the Ordinance of 1784, which was the first attempt to organize a government for a territory, recognized the inalienable right of the people of the territory, when organized into political communities, to govern themselves. The ordinance itself provided that all preceding articles should be formed in a charter or compact, which means, according to Senator Douglas, that the Territories could govern themselves without the interference of Congress, just as the colonies claimed the right without interference from the British government. He laid stress upon the fact that Jefferson was the author of the Ordinance of 1784. He would have it that the Ordinance of 1787, which forbade slavery for all time, fell under the same principle, and undertook to explain the incompatibility of his theory with the congressional prohibition by silence. The least tenable position of Douglas, was his explanation of the Clause of the Constitution which reads: "The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States." He argued that territory in this connection referred to unoccupied lands owned by the government, and not by the people who settled them. This power allows Congress to dispose of public lands, military sites, cannon, muskets, old ships, etc. It applies, he insisted, to States as well as to Territories, but it did not extend to the control of domestic institutions and internal polity of the people either in State or Territory, otherwise freedom and sovereignty of the States would be exterminated. He declared such ideas repugnant to the genius of our system. It effectually blots out the line of separation of the States from the Federal government. It denies the very principle for which our fathers fought. It asserted a thing was wrong after the Revolution that was right before it. He claimed this clause referred to the power to govern the seat of government, docks, navy yards, arsenals, etc. In proof of his contention

he quoted the tenth amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Rights in a territory. He insisted that a denial of the principle of popular sovereignty would assert the right to maintain provinces within the government. This is forbidden by the United States Supreme Court in the Dred Scott decision. To avoid it the Constitution provides for the admission of new States into the Union. The power to acquire territory, he urged, carries with it the power to preserve and apply it to the purposes for which the territory was acquired; hence the right to secure to the territory self-government. The citizen and the government both enter it, and the government cannot exercise any power not conferred upon it by the Constitution. All this course of reasoning was employed to reach the end in view. Douglas had, as he thought, discovered a method by which he could allay the agitation over the slavery question, a question looked upon as having reached the critical stage. He called his method by the catch phrase, "popular sovereignty." It permitted the people of a Territory to order their own institutions without the interference of Congress. This, he believed, was the logical remedy for the acute situation. He supported his policy by asserting it to be the fundamental theory of the fathers, as revealed in their acts as well as in the Constitution itself.

Real motive of Douglas. There are those who believe that the enthusiasm of Douglas in the support of the popular sovereignty theory can be traced to his ambitions to reach the presidency. Whatever may have been the motive, the principle, as expressed in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, was the greatest political blunder of the decade. Its repeal of the Missouri Compromise, for the sake of a principle, reopened to slavery the vast Northwest which had been pledged to freedom, a consummation accepted by all parties of all sections, as final.

From that moment the West became the battle-ground between the slave and the free State interests. The "Irrepressible Conflict" seemed at hand. Disunion and Secession were words of frequent use in and about the Capitol at Washington. Opposition to the extension of slavery was rapidly unifying, while the "popular sovereignty" people of the North and the State Sovereignty people of the South were drifting away from each other.

Importance of his loyalty. As between Secession and perpetuity of the Union, there was to him but one choice for the patriot. It would be difficult to estimate the effect of Douglas's influence. As the recognized leader of the opposition to Lincoln a refusal to support the war policy of the President would have resulted in incalculable evil to the country. He died at the very outset of the test of arms, even before a single great battle had been fought, but not until he had given the weight of his powerful name to the cause of the Union. Whatever of bitterness might have been occasioned by his fatal political blunder for the sake of an untenable theory, it was all atoned for by his manly attitude toward the prosecution of the war for the preservation of the Union. "Popular sovereignty" on the one hand, and State Sovereignty on the other, with slavery as the fertile breeder of both, went down together in the crash of civil war.

CHAPTER XV

NATIONAL NOMINATING CONVENTION OF 1860

Ominous signs. The contest which elected Buchanan to the presidency by a narrow margin, though not giving him a majority of the popular vote, and the amazing growth of antislavery sentiment showed unmistakable signs of disunion. The leaders both North and South expressed their fears for the Union. The South had already solidified and was ready to present a solid column for the protection of its peculiar institution. The North was rapidly taking the same form for an opposite purpose - the arrest of the further spread of slavery. Douglas rested his claims for the presidency upon the KansasNebraska legislation of which he was author, which legislation had replaced the Missouri Compromise. This latter had been law for a quarter of a century and the anti-slavery element of the North did not take kindly to its repeal and arrayed itself against Douglas. His popular sovereignty policy was equally obnoxious to the South which declared for constitutional protection of slavery. Douglas was warned of the South's attitude toward his policy in the nominating convention, the same convention which accepted Buchanan as the presidential candidate when it could not have Pierce.

Situation of Buchanan. Buchanan's obligation to the section which nominated him embarrassed him not a little in his administration. In his attempt to honor his obligation to the South he fell beneath the wheels of his own chariot. His alleged connection with the withholding of the announcement

of the Dred Scott decision until after the election and his attempt to enforce the Lecompton constitution upon the people of Kansas, concentrated the Northern sentiment against him.

Lincoln and Douglas. The wide general interest in the Illinois contest between Lincoln and Douglas for a seat in the United States Senate was due to the position each took upon the sensitive question of slavery. Lincoln had startled the entire nation by his Springfield speech of acceptance in which he declared that the nation cannot permanently endure half slave and half free. This was accepted as the challenge to the South. Douglas partially retrieved his position by pronouncing the Lincoln doctrine revolutionary. His position of popular sovereignty as against Lincoln's position of ultimate freedom, unified the Democrats of the North, but failed to win those of the South. Then followed the widely-read debates of Lincoln and Douglas. These at once became of national interest. They cleared the political field of ambiguous issues. Lincoln at once became a national figure. Douglas had been one for years.

Democratic situation. While the spirit of sectionalism was at white heat the Democratic convention met at Charleston, South Carolina, to nominate a successor to James Buchanan. A struggle was imminent between the Northern and the Southern Democracy with the advantage to the Northern wing. But this advantage was counterbalanced by the convention being held in South Carolina, famous for her doctrines of State Sovereignty.

Charleston convention. The convention assembled on the 23d of April with every State represented and with contesting delegations from New York and Illinois. This latter fact was ominous, as one delegation from each State was anti-Douglas.

Organization. On the second day the committee on permanent organization recommended the suggestive rule of voting in the convention, "That in any State in which it has