352 Chapter 13 The Coming of the Civil War
both blacks and whites, but he refused to admit that
any moral issue was involved. He cared not, he
boasted, whether slavery was voted up or voted down.
This was not really true, but the question was interfer-
ing with the rapid exploitation of the continent.
Douglas wanted it settled so that the country could
concentrate on more important matters.
Douglas’s success in steering the Compromise of
1850 through Congress added to his reputation. In
1851, he set out to win the Democratic presidential
nomination, reasoning that since he was the bright-
est, most imaginative, and hardest-working Democrat
around, he had every right to press his claim.
This brash aggressiveness proved his undoing. He
expressed open contempt for James Buchanan and
said of his other chief rival, Lewis Cass, who had won
considerable fame while serving as minister to France,
that his “reputation was beyond the C.”
At the 1852 Democratic convention Douglas had
no chance. Cass and Buchanan killed each other off,
and the delegates finally chose a dark horse, Franklin
Pierce of New Hampshire. The Whigs, rejecting the
colorless Fillmore, nominated General Winfield Scott,
who was known as “Old Fuss and Feathers” because
of his “punctiliousness in dress and decorum.” In the
campaign both sides supported the Compromise of
- The Democrats won an easy victory, 254 elec-
toral votes to 42.
So handsome a triumph seemed to ensure stability,
but in fact it was a prelude to political chaos. The Whig
party was crumbling fast. The shifting amalgam of eth-
nic and cultural issues that held the party together at
the local level dissolved as the slavery debate became
more heated. The “Cotton” Whigs of the South, alien-
ated by the antislavery sentiments of their northern
brethren, were flocking into the Democratic fold. In
the North the Whigs, divided between an antislavery
wing (“conscience Whigs”) and another that was
undisturbed by slavery, found themselves more and
more at odds with each other. Congress fell over-
whelmingly into the hands of proslavery southern
Democrats, a development profoundly disturbing to
northern Democrats as well as to Whigs.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
Franklin Pierce appeared a youthful forty-eight years
old when he took office. He was generally well-liked
by politicians. His career had included service in both
houses of Congress. Alcohol had become a problem
for him in Washington, however, and in 1842 he had
resigned from the Senate and returned home to try to
best the bottle, a struggle in which he was successful.
His law practice boomed, and he added to his reputa-
tion by serving as a brigadier general during the
Mexican War. Although his nomination for president
came as a surprise, once made, it had appeared per-
fectly reasonable. Great things were expected of his
administration, especially after he surrounded himself
with men of all factions: To balance his appointment
of a radical states’ rights Mississippian, Jefferson
Davis, as secretary of war, for example, he named a
conservative Northerner, William L. Marcy of New
York, as secretary of state.
Only a strong leader, however, can manage a
ministry of all talents, and that President Pierce was
not. The ship of state was soon drifting; Pierce
seemed incapable of holding firm the helm.
This was the situation in January 1854 when
Senator Douglas, chairman of the Committee on
Territories, introduced what looked like a routine bill
organizing the land west of Missouri and Iowa as the
Nebraska Territory. Since settlers were beginning to
trickle into the area, the time had arrived to set up a civil
administration. But besides his expansionist motives,
Douglas also acted because a territorial government was
essential to railroad development. As a director of the
Illinois Central line and as a land speculator, he hoped toThis engraving of Franklin Pierce shows him on his horse during the
Mexican War. In actuality, he did not remain there long. During one
battle, Pierce was thrown from his horse and sustained pelvic and
knee injuries. While leading his men the next day, he fainted.
Another officer assumed that Pierce was drunk. For years, Whigs
attacked Pierce’s military record, calling him “hero of many a bottle.”