A History of the American People

always accepted it-as a convenient or inescapable fact-but they did not want it spelled out. To do
so sounded amoral or even immoral. And most Americans, then as now, wanted to sound moral.
Then again, Douglas said: When the struggle is between the white man and the negro, I am for the white man. When it is between the negro and the crocodile, I am for the negro.' That too played into Lincoln's hands: it was a remark which would do for a saloon but not for a public platform. Lincoln rightly saw that the debate, the entire controversy, had to be conducted on the highest moral plane because it was only there that the case for freedom and Union became unassailable. He pointed out again and again that even the South was, in its heart, aware that slavery was wrong. The United States had made it a capital offense half a century ago to import slaves from Africa, and that fact, over the years, had wormed its way into Southern attitudes, however much they might try to defend slavery. Hence, even in the South, the slave-dealer was treated with abhorrence. Slave-owners would not let their children play with his-though they would cheerfully see them playing with slave-children. And the South knew that not only slave- dealing was wrong but slavery itself-why else did they manumit:Why have so many slaves
been set free, except by the promptings of conscience?' As for the Dred Scott decision, it was an
aberration, which would shortly be set right, at the next presidential election: You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.' Lincoln's object was not merely to put his name and his case before the American people, as well as Illinois voters. It was also to expose the essential pantomime-horse approach of a man who tried to straddle North and South. He succeeded in both. He put to Douglas the key question:Can the people of a United States territory, in any lawful way, against the wish of a
citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a state
constitution?' If Douglas said yes, to win Illinois voters, he lost the South. If he said no, to win
the South, he lost Illinois. Douglas' answer was: It matters not what way the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to the abstract question whether slavery may or may not go into a territory under the Constitution; the people have the lawful means to introduce it or exclude it as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist a day or an hour unless it is supported by the local police regulations.' This answer won Douglas Illinois but it lost him the South and hence, two years later, the presidency. Lincoln, normally a generous and forgiving man, had no time for Douglas and did not regret destroying his future career. He thought less of Douglas than he did of the Southern leaders. He said:He is a man with tens of thousands of blind followers. It is my
business to make some of those blind followers see.'
The debates gave Lincoln precisely the impetus he needed. He quoted Clay many times and in
a way he inherited Clay's mantle. The rhyme went: Westward the star of empire takes its way- the girls link onto Lincoln, their mothers were for Clay.' He was told:You are like Byron, who
woke to find himself famous.' By 1859 he knew he ought to be president, wanted to be president,
and would be president. The campaign autobiography he wrote December 20, 1859 is brief (800
words), plain, and self-dismissive, yet it exudes a certain confidence in himself and his purpose.
He sums up his bid for the presidency in two laconic sentences: I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again. What I have done since then is pretty well known.' William Henry Seward (1801-72) and Salmon Portland Chase (1808-73) were both initially considered stronger contenders for the Republican nomination than Lincoln. Seward, first governor then Senator for New York, was the leader of the abolitionists, who said he wasguided by a higher law than the Constitution.' Chase was senator, then governor of Ohio,
a free-soiler and Democrat who drafted the first Republican Party set of beliefs. Both had strong