USA > Illinois > The era of the Civil War, 1848-1870 > Part 7
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48
General Shields presented his credentials to the special executive session of the senate following Taylor's inaugura- tion. His eligibility was promptly challenged on the score of his inability to meet the constitutional requirement of nine years of citizenship. It was recognized at once that the chal- lenge had been made in behalf of Sidney Breese, his unsuccess- ful and disappointed rival; 35 but since he actually lacked a few months of fulfilling the requirement, the senate was compelled to reject him as ineligible. The democratic party in Illinois was racked by the controversy ; both Breese and Shields seemed to have worn each other out, but no strong neutral candidate was available to take the place.
Governor French was in no sense disposed to play the part of arbiter in this dispute. Finding himself in a tight place, pressed by the two rivals on the one hand and on the other by compromise candidates, he held, in opposition to the opinion of Douglas, that as no election had taken place, he had no power to appoint.36 He therefore called a special session of the legislature to select a senator.
By this time democratic politics had become hopelessly
34 Rockford Forum, January 17, 24, 1849; Quincy Whig, January 30, 1849. 35 Shields to French, March 17, 1849, French manuscripts. A heated cor- respondence took place between the two leaders.
36 Douglas to French, May 16, Douglas to Lanphier and Walker, August 13, Illinois State Register, August 30, 1849; French to Manly, June 8, ibid., June 21, 1849. Robert Smith and Thomas J. Turner also offered themselves as can- didates for the appointment. Robert Smith to French, March 9, 1849, Turner to French, May 17, 1849, French manuscripts.
63
AGITATION AND COMPROMISE
entangled. The friends of John A. McClernand, of lower Egypt, put him forward as a compromise candidate on the ground that the two rivals had worn each other out; they welcomed the idea of a special session as favorable to his ambition.37 Advocates of special legislation requested the governor to include their schemes in his proclamation summon- ing the legislators to Springfield. Free soilers at first feared the danger of having their Wilmot proviso instructions with- drawn; later they made their plans to have them formally renewed.38 The sectional division of the state over railroad development served as a leading line of cleavage between the advocates and opponents of a called session. When in October the session finally convened a hot contest between Breese, Shields, and McClernand took place in the democratic caucus. Shields was able to draw upon McClernand's following and win out on the twenty-first ballot; whereupon his election was formally accomplished in joint session.39
The attention of the Illinoisians was now drawn from these petty factional disturbances to the lowering cloud on the hori- zon threatening to deluge the nation in the flood tide of dis- union. North and south had grown more and more defiant in their intention to stand by their respective views on the slavery question, the north to prevent the spread of the hated insti- tution to another inch of soil already consecrated to freedom, and the south to enter the new territories with slave property on equal terms with the free states. Southerners, pushed to the wall and losing their hold on national politics, showed a disposition defiantly to insist upon their position. Should this be denied them, they were prepared to withdraw to secure their rights and to defend them with the sword.
37 Illinois State Register, July 3, 1849; Chicago Democrat, September 3, 1849; Illinois Globe, October 20, 1849.
38 John Wentworth led the northern democrats in their opposition to the called session. Wentworth to French, June 28, 1849, French manuscripts; see also Chicago Democrat, July, August, and September, 1849.
39 Illinois State Register, November 1, 1849. Breese quietly acquiesced in the result; McClernand's organ, the Shawneetown Southern Advocate, however, burst out bitterly claiming that "McClernand was defeated and betrayed by the free soil members of the legislature." " When such men as McClernand and Breese," it commented, " are beaten by an arrogant, vain, ignorant, lying Irish- man, it is high time that all men, who respect their characters should retire in disgust from the political arena." Illinois Journal, November 8, December 11, 1849.
64
THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
This ominous situation was closely followed in Illinois. The northern section was strongly committed to free soil; Egypt, still seeking some middle ground, helplessly decried agitation. The closing months of Polk's administration saw Oregon organized under a policy of slavery restriction; the Illinois votes in favor of this action were given on the ground that it was not an application of a new policy but a moral obligation created by the Missouri compromise line.40 The question of the disposition of California, of New Mexico, and of Utah remained as a bone of contention between the hostile sections.
Illinois had contributed large numbers of her citizens to the settlement of California and naturally watched with great interest developments on the Pacific coast. Great was her applause, therefore, when a constitution was drawn up in the new territory which refused to make provision for the insti- tution of slavery. This was a development even more satis- factory than congressional prohibition of slavery because it promised to add a new free state to the union and to destroy the even balance between the north and south in the senate. Taylor's annual message and his special California message urging the admission of this new state were warmly received by the Wilmot provisoists and furnished them with a practical working platform.
The situation naturally provoked bitter hostility in the south. The admission of California as a free state, it was declared in alarm, would be followed by New Mexico and Utah. Even sober-minded southerners, influenced by a new and more aggressive generation of leaders, began to calculate the value of the union; separation was threatened in terms of more or less passion and violence. In the tense and heated atmosphere legislators at Washington became overwrought and excited. Illinoisians were for the first time convinced that there were southern politicians "determined, if possible, to bring about a dissolution of the Union." 41 Their reply was that it was the duty of the state, of the entire west, to
40 Illinois whigs were flattered that the office of governor of Oregon was tendered to Abraham Lincoln, although he found it necessary to decline the honor. Illinois State Register, October 4, 1849.
41 Illinois Journal, February 1, 1850.
65
AGITATION AND COMPROMISE
prevent the accomplishment of this foul plan. "The great and patriotic West," declared the Alton Telegraph, "has become strong enough to strangle the monster of disunion the moment it shall venture to raise its head." 42 It was denied that ground for disunion existed.43 William H. Bissell, the Alton representative in congress, maintained an admirable self-control under these trying conditions; but on the floor of the house on February 21, he declared after an analysis of the southern threats that the people of Illinois and of the northwest would spring to arms to save the union. 44
Douglas eloquently claimed for his section a deciding rôle in this stirring controversy: "There is a power in this nation greater than either the North or the South-a growing, in- creasing, swelling power, that will be able to speak the law to this nation, and to execute the law as spoken. That power is the country known as the great West-the Valley of the Mississippi, one and indivisible from the gulf to the great lakes, and stretching, on the one side and the other, to the extreme sources of the Ohio and Missouri - from the Allegha- nies to the Rocky mountains. There, sir, is the hope of this nation -the resting place of the power that is not only to control, but to save the Union. This is the mis- sion of the great Mississippi Valley, the heart and soul of the nation and the continent." 45
John A. McClernand, Douglas' right-hand man in the lower house, felt that the situation demanded that the west prepare to display her strength. On the seventy-fourth anni- versary of American independence he greatly feared for the continuance of the union; Texas was making ready to defy the federal government by force of arms; such action many felt to be the signal for a disunion movement on the part of the whole south. McClernand, therefore, confidentially giv- ing his view of the interests of Illinois to Governor French, advised the governor to take measures immediately to give the state militia the greatest efficiency: "I would prepare for the storm-I would provide against portentous violence. This
42 Alton Telegraph, February 1, 1850.
43 Chicago Democrat, April 8, 1850.
4+ Congressional Globe, 31 congress, I session, 225-228.
45 Ibid., 365; Johnson, Stephen A. Douglas, 175-176.
66
THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
as a citizen of Illinois and a lover of the Union, I call upon you to do." 46
Thus did the "raw head and bloody bones" of disunion leer over the horizon to terrify the more timid. Soon a union- saving cry arose promising to checkmate the strong sectionalism that had been dominating the situation. Henry Clay, the great compromiser, had left his retirement at Ashland to play the rôle of peacemaker; his bold leadership made the idea of compromise popular, and all sorts of schemes were brought forward under that guise. Senator Douglas, though calm amid the prevailing hysteria, became one of the union savers. His clear fresh vision enabled him to foresee the failure of any single comprehensive compromise proposition such as Clay had recommended. Northern supporters of a California admis- sion bill, aided by advocates of popular sovereignty in the south, might easily enact that measure; propositions for terri- torial governments for New Mexico and Utah on the same principle would receive support from moderate men in both parties; and in both sections, after extreme sectional devices had failed, the slave trade in the District of Columbia and the fugitive slave evil could be dealt with on their merits; but to tie all these into a single bungling scheme as Clay had urged would bring defeat because of the unanimity of opposition to specific objectional features. He commended the self-sacrificing spirit of Clay and of Webster, but optimistically declared : "The Union will not be put in peril; California will be admit- ted; governments for the territories must be established; and thus controversy will end, and I trust forever." 47
Douglas held that the effective solution of the slavery ques- tion would come through " the laws of nature, of climate, and production " recognized and ratified by the people of a state or territory, not by act of congress. He stressed the great demo- cratic principle of leaving each community to determine and regulate its own local and domestic affairs in its own way. This was a safe road to freedom because the vast territory stretch- ing from the Mississippi to the Pacific was rapidly filling up with a hardy, enterprising, and industrious population, des-
46 McClernand to French, July 4, 1850, French manuscripts.
47 Congressional Globe, 31 congress, I session, 364 ff.
67
AGITATION AND COMPROMISE
tined by the laws of nature and of God to dedicate the new territories to freedom.
For these reasons Douglas offered his solution on March 25 in the form of a California bill and a territorial bill; they were drafted after conferences with Richardson and McClernand, who introduced the same bills into the house.48 Clay arranged to incorporate these bills as the first part of the omnibus bill which the select compromise committee of thirteen reported. Douglas' territorial bill was silent on the slavery question; the committee's measure contained an additional clause, prohibiting the territorial legislatures from legislating on the slavery ques- tion. This Douglas attacked as a restriction on the right of the inhabitants of the territory to decide what their institutions should be, for he was already in the lists as a champion of popular sovereignty.49
Congress began a long discussion of the Clay compromise, of President Taylor's proposal to await the action of the people of the territories in question, and of the northern and southern schemes for the disposition of slavery. Douglas' proposal and other plans were subordinated to these leading propositions. Douglas was frequently on his feet in the senate; Shields, his colleague, usually followed his lead, while McClernand, Rich- ardson, and Harris urged the same course in the house. Douglas carefully explained his objection to the Wilmot pro- viso but found it necessary in accordance with the instructions of the Illinois legislature to vote with Shields for proposi- tions embodying that principle; 50 he was always much relieved to find himself in the minority. The house delegation was under no such formal obligation; its vote was usually divided, with a majority against congressional intervention to restrict slavery. John Wentworth, the strongest Wilmot proviso man in the delegation, voted consistently for that principle; he seldom took the floor, however, except to press the passage of the California bill at times when its success was threatened by other distracting questions.51 Edward D. Baker, the lone
48 McClernand offered them, however, as parts of a single bill, a plan " not of my authorship." Ibid., 628.
49 Ibid., 1114 ff. He was later gratified by the dropping of this clause.
50 Senate Journal, 31 congress, I session, 375.
51 Congressional Globe, 31 congress, I session, 1444, 1468.
68
THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
whig, usually voted with Wentworth, while the other five demo- cratic members opposed congressional restriction.
Douglas, preferring the separation of the various items in the omnibus bill, had the satisfaction of witnessing the failure of that measure in line with his predictions. By midsummer, the omnibus had jolted over the rocks of sectionalism until all its occupants had been spilled out save one-the Utah terri- torial proposition. Then Douglas, in accordance with his original plan, began to press the items separately. The Utah bill was given the right of way and rushed to passage. Then in quick succession came the enactment of the New Mexico territorial law, the California admission bill, and measures for the more effective rendition of fugitive slaves and for the aboli- tion of the slave trade in the District of Columbia.
The Illinois representatives at Washington voted solidly for the California and the District slave trade measures; but Wentworth and Baker opposed the Utah, New Mexico, and fugitive slave laws, which the other congressmen supported. Douglas and Shields voted in favor of every one of these measures of adjustment except the fugitive slave law. On the days when it was brought up for final action, Douglas was absent from Washington on business, but his colleagues knew that he was in favor of the bill.52 Shields, however, had no alibi; the evidence suggests that he was one of the vote- dodgers with whom Douglas was classed in the popular mind.53 It is bootless to attempt to apportion the exact amount of credit due to the different advocates of an amicable adjustment of the slavery controversy, but Douglas was able to claim in all modesty that he had played "an humble part in the enact- ment of all these great measures." 54
Coincident with the struggle in congress the same forces in Illinois were fighting for a decision. Whig journals that had led in the demand for slavery restriction as essentially part of the whig creed issued the call: "Rally! friends of
52 Congressional Globe, 32 congress, I session, appendix, 65.
53 At any rate he answered roll call on other propositions on two differ- ent days when he abstained from voting on the fugitive slave bill. Senate Journal, 31 congress, I session, 565, 581.
5+ Senator Jefferson Davis declared to his colleagues in these words: " If any man has a right to be proud of the success of these measures, it is the Senator from Illinois."
69
AGITATION AND COMPROMISE
the Union, rally !! " Whigs were divided into advocates of the Clay compromise and supporters of the president's no-action plan; both groups, however, agreed to waive the Wilmot proviso policy as one no longer necessary.55 The democrats, moreover, welcomed the opportunity to heal the division in their own ranks over the slavery issue.56
The union savers at an early date began organizing to influence public sentiment in favor of compromise. Belleville, a town where the populace gathered in mass meeting at the slightest provocation -usually ex-Governor John Reynolds - was one of the first cities in the country to hold a union meet- ing; on January 24 it adopted resolutions offered by Reynolds that the union be saved at all hazards.57 A little later union mass meetings in Jacksonville, Edwardsville, and a few small towns voiced the same sentiment; the large Illinois cities, how- ever, remained inactive until the middle of June. When, finally, a Springfield meeting indorsed the report of the com- promise committee of thirteen, it was in numbers scarcely representative of that community.58 The Jacksonville com- promisers again summoned the voters of Morgan county to a union gathering, but three days later the Wilmot provisoists were able to arrange an equally successful meeting.59
The cry of "compromise" stimulated the activity of the agitators throughout the nation; in Illinois such excitement on the slavery question had never been known as prevailed in March of 1850. Proviso meetings were held at Waukegan, Ottawa, and other places.60 A considerable stir was caused by a nonpartisan free soil meeting at the city hall in Chicago presided over by Mayor J. H. Woodworth, in which resolu- tions were adopted expressing utter abhorrence at all com- promises that permitted the further extension of human slavery ; condemning a compromise scheme attributed to Douglas by the press; and firmly declaring in favor of the Wilmot proviso and of the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.
55 Illinois Journal, May 2, 1850; Joliet Signal, May 28, 1850.
56 Belleville Advocate, May 30, 1850.
57 Alton Telegraph, February 8, 1850.
58 Illinois Journal, June 18, 1850.
59 Morgan Journal, June 22, 1850.
60 Chicago Democrat, March 15, April 6, 1850; Ottawa Free Trader, March 16, 1850.
70
THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
In spite of the " no-party " appeal, whig provisoists were dis- appointed because Henry Clay's name was received with cold- ness while Benton's brought an outburst of applause; demo- crats, moreover, claimed that it was the work of fanatics and of political opponents of Senator Douglas - a charge corrobo- rated by the Illinois Journal, which disapproved of this "knot of politicians bent on driving Mr. Douglas from the Senate." 61
The free soilers sought to utilize the opportunity to strengthen their independent party organization; local and district conventions were arranged and the propriety of a state convention discussed. This activity was sufficient to douse completely the interest of old-line party men, who, for fear of embarrassing their own organizations, withdrew from the movement. Finally the Chicago Tribune, for two years a free soil organ, announced its decision to sever its ties with the free democratic organization.62
By this time, moreover, the union antidote had begun to work; the suggestion that it was "THE UNION VS. THE WIL- MOT PROVISO " left no alternative but to yield the principle of congressional intervention in the territories to the preserva- tion of the compromises of the constitution.63 Webster's sev- enth of March speech, though characterized by the Belleville Advocate as "profound but soulless" and "lacking in hon- esty," circulated in large editions, and strengthened the argu- ment of those who held that slavery could never go into New Mexico or Utah. Clay's compromise scheme began to win support as an arrangement which despite its defects was likely to allay the excitement that was pervading the country. 64
The main obstacle in the way of the union savers was the hostility to the proposed fugitive slave legislation. Douglas was known to be in favor of the measure as simple justice to the south under the constitution ; papers like the State Register,
61 Chicago Daily Journal, February 22, 1850; Illinois Journal, February 27, 1850; Illinois State Register, February 27, 28, 1850; Joliet Signal, February 26, 1850. Douglas repudiated the alleged compromise proposition and denounced the resolution of censure. Douglas to Woodworth, March 5, Illinois Journal, March 26, 1850.
€2 Chicago Tribune, May 29, clipped in Western Citizen, June 4, 1850.
63 Quincy Whig, February 19, 1850.
64 Alton Telegraph, March 1, 8, 22 and other numbers, 1850.
71
AGITATION AND COMPROMISE
therefore, came out in support of the proposed measure. 65 This only served, however, to arouse protests from those who denied that they were so destitute of humanity and feeling as to accept such a clear violation of the principle of common justice.
The news of its passage inflamed these objectors to action; the measure, they declared, had no moral or constitutional justification and ought to be resisted.66 Petitions for its imme- diate repeal were widely circulated. Thirteen thousand copies of an anti-fugitive slave bill pamphlet were sold in three weeks at the rate of five cents per copy. "In our candid judgments," declared the Ottawa Free Trader, " there has not been, during the present century a law passed, or an edict issued by any government claiming to be free, which outrages justice as this law does." "The law will be a dead letter. It cannot be enforced." 67
The friends of the Negro rallied to express their opinion in indignation meetings. Kenosha citizens on October 18 appointed a vigilance committee and listened to a deputy mar- shall assert that he would not serve a writ for the arrest of a fugitive slave.68 The Congregational church at Aurora became the meeting place of a similar assembly. From many pulpits and ministerial associations were thundered violent denunciations. Chicagoans in mass meeting assembled spoke in strong, earnest condemnation of the obnoxious law.69 Re- flecting the popular indignation, the Chicago common council, with only two dissenting votes, formally pronounced the law cruel, unjust, and unconstitutional, a transgression of the laws of God, and declared that congressmen from the free states who assisted in its passage or " who basely sneaked away from their seats, and thereby evaded the question," were "fit only to be ranked with the traitors; " it was formally resolved that the city police would not be required to render any assistance for the arrest of fugitive slaves.70
65 Illinois State Register, September 19, 26, 1850.
66 Western Citizen, October 8, 29, November 5, 19, 1850.
67 Ottawa Free Trader clipped in Chicago Democrat, October 14, 1850.
68 Ibid., October 23, 1850.
69 Aurora Beacon, October 24, 1850; Chicago Journal, October 26, 1850.
70 Illinois State Register, October 31, 1850; Joliet Signal, December 3, 1850.
72
THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
Shields and Douglas, returning to their homes while public opinion was in this state of ferment, tried to stem the tide of protest, the former at a speech in Springfield on October 29 and the latter in an address at Chicago on the evenings of October 21 and 23. In spite of his absence at the final roll call Douglas, greeted by the hisses and jeers of a hostile audience, assumed the full responsibility of an affirmative vote; in his speech he so boldly and eloquently reminded his hearers that refusal to return a fugitive slave to his master was a violation of the constitution and a blow at the permanence of the union that at its close occurred one of those remarkable instances of mob spirit dropping a set of old idols for a new shrine at which to worship. Douglas presented a series of resolutions declaring the obligation of all good citizens to maintain the constitution and all laws enacted in accordance with it; these were adopted without a dissenting vote, where- upon a bolder step was taken and the audience was actually induced to vote an express repudiation of the resolutions of the common council.71
This unexpected indorsement of Douglas' position may be interpreted as a personal triumph of a masterful statesman in the very citadel of fanaticism, the laurels won by the per- suasive eloquence of a lion-hearted orator. Time, however, showed that it had a deeper significance. Public opinion, wearied of agitation, was especially susceptible to any appeal for political quiet; the practical man realized the difficulty of effecting a repeal of legislation that had formally reached the statute books, while the agitator exhausted himself in futile condemnation of the most strenuous nine months of legislative controversy in American history.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.