Abstract
The often shrill ideological arguments, that we take to be of
recent vintage in American politics, in fact have roots in our earliest
cultural and political antagonisms, especially as they related to the
"inconvenient truth" of slavery. In their contentions, in 1858 for a
Senate seat, in 1860 for the Presidency, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A.
Douglas all but acted out an allegory of these antagonisms, both
claiming the conservative high ground – both claiming, that is, to stand
with the "Founding Fathers."
We need to think of the debates between Lincoln and Douglas
as encompassing not alone the series of formal meetings that punctuated
their campaigns to represent Illinois in the U. S. Senate but the entire
rivalry between them, which began with the passage of Douglas'
Kansas-Nebraska Bill in 1854 and only ended with Lincoln's election to
the Presidency in 1860. Douglas insisted on the primacy of states' and
of territorial rights: the right of the people living within each state
and/or territory with potential for becoming a state to decide for
themselves, by the process he called "popular sovereignty," whether to
sanction slavery inside its borders. Lincoln insisted that the Founding
Fathers, finding slavery already established in America, and left with
no recourse but to accommodate it if the Union was to be preserved,
instead built into the Constitution measures that would insure slavery's
gradual erosion and eventual end.
In short, the argument between Lincoln and Douglas was an
argument over history as well as policy. At Cooper Institute in
February, 1860, in the speech that, more than any other single act, won
him the Republican nomination, Lincoln systematically made his
historical case – with results that, four years of catastrophe
intervening, transformed America almost despite itself.
Glossary
Border States: those states (including Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri)
that remained loyal to the Union, despite allowing slavery and abutting
on states that seceded to join the Confederacy. The geopolitical
importance of the border states might be summed up by the report of a
Congressman who, after a conference with Lincoln early in the war,
reported the President as feeling that he would like to have God on his
side, but he must have Kentucky.
Contract or Compact Theory: a theory of the Union that treated the
Constitution as an agreement among the states, from which (by the
South's lights) states could withdraw if their rights were unprotected.
Cooper Institute: otherwise known as Cooper Union, a venerable
Chautauqua-like institution in New York – it still exists – which over the
years has hosted numerous distinguished speakers and events.
Dred Scott Decision: Dred Scott was a slave, taken north into a free
state by his owner. Finding himself in a state where slavery was
prohibited, he sued for his freedom. His case reached the U. S. Supreme
Court in 1857 and was decided 7-2 in favor of his owner. The decision
was complicated, however, by a variety of concurrences and dissents
that, Lincoln insisted, left Chief Justice Roger Taney's majority
opinion with little authority. In what amounted to contradictory legal
logic, Taney argued, on the one hand, that. Since he was not a citizen,
Dred Scott had no standing to sue in federal court, and therefore should
not have been heard, but that, on the other hand, having been heard, his
suit was without merit because his owner was entitled to claim Dred
Scott as propery to which he had an unquestionable right.
Emancipation Proclamation: extant in two versions; the first, a
Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, issued shortly after the battle
of Antietam, in which the Army of the Potomac turned back Lee's
incursion into Maryland; the second and final Emancipation Proclamation,
issued at midnight or a little after, on New Year's Day, 1863. Based on
the so-called "war powers" assumed by President Lincoln to meet the
emergency, the Emancipation Proclamation freed, in principle, all slaves
in states still in rebellion against the government as of January 1,
1863. It did not free slaves in states that remained loyal.
The Federalist Papers: a series of 85 essays, written in 1787 and 1788
mainly by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, abetted in a few
instances by John Jay, and aimed at influencing the ratification debate
in New York State. They are, so far as I know, still considered as
authoritative as any commentary on the Constitution ever attempted.
Horace Greeley: the volatile but influential editor of the New York
Tribune and an irritant to Lincoln throughout the war.
Kansas-Nebraska Bill: a bill written and steered to passage by Stephen
A. Douglas in 1854 to implement his conviction that the Founding
Fathers, and therefore the Constitution, mandated "popular sovereignty"
(by which he meant the will of the majority claiming residence in any
state or territory) as the determinant of whether that state or
territory would sanction slavery within its borders. The Dred Scott
decision, with its predication that individual property rights trumped
state and federal law, was no less a threat to popular sovereignty than
to Lincoln's view that Congress had the constitutional power to forbid
slavery in the territories.
Lincoln-Douglas Debates: a series of seven debates between Lincoln and
Douglas in the summer and fall of 1858, with one of Illinois' seats in
the U. S. Senate at stake. At the time, these debates constituted an
almost unique event in American politics, since election to the Senate
was still the prerogative of state legislatures, and therefore
senatorial candidates did not campaign in the sense that we have come to
understand campaigning.
Louisiana and Mississippi Territories: large expanses of land stretching
west from the original 13 states all the way to the Rockies, and north
and south from Canada to Mexico. Whether the states carved out of these
territories would be slave or free became an issue of major political
tension.
Missouri Compromise: an agreement between North and South, worked out
mainly by Henry Clay (one of Lincoln's political heroes), and codified
into law in 1819 and 1820. The Missouri Compromise in effect drew a
longitudinal line at 36 degrees, 30 minutes and established that states
formed north of that line would be free, states south of the line slave.
The Missouri Compromise was undermined by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of
1854, and then, in 1857, ruled unconstitutional by the Dred Scott
decision.
The Northwest Ordinance: legislation that existed in three versions, the
first two introduced in 1784 and 1787, before the Constitutional
Convention at Philadelphia, the third in 1789, after it. All three
versions affirmed the power of Congress to prohibit slavery in the
territories.
Popular Sovereignty: a policy advocated by Stephen A. Douglas, and
incorporated into his Kansas-Nebraska Bill, it empowered the population
of each territory and/or state to decide for itself whether to permit or
prohibit slavery within its borders.
Slave Trade Clause: The relevant clause in the original Constitution
(Article 1, Section 9) reads as follows:
The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the
States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not
be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand
eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on
such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.
State Ratification Conventions: After the Philadelphia Convention of
1787 had produced a draft Constitution, states followed suit with
conventions of their own to ratify or reject it. Nine affirmatives were
required for the new Constitution to take effect.
States' Rights: implies a theory of federalism whereby power is divided
between state and federal governments. The extreme of states' rights
advocacy, centered in the South and embodied chiefly by John C. Calhoun,
insisted that the preponderant power lay with the states.
Strict v. Broad Construction: two rival views of how the Constitution
should be interpreted. Strict construction, analogous to the way
fundamentalist Protestants read the Bible, argues that the Constitution
is to be read narrowly, literally, with the intentions of the Framers as
a guiding principle. Broad construction argues that the Constitution is
organic, analogous to a tree, growing and developing to meet the needs
of the times.
Thirteenth Amendment: the amendment that in 1865 ended slavery in the
United States. It reads, in part, as follows:
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a
punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly
convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any
place subject to their jurisdiction.
It is a reflection of the difficulties Lincoln faced that, when he was
elected in 1860, there was an earlier thirteenth amendment before
Congress. That one would have affirmed the existence of slavery in
America in perpetuity.