The Life of Lyman Trumbull. Horace White

16

Cong. Globe, July, 1856, Appendix, p. 712.

17

Letter to the Missouri Democrat, dated March 1, 1856, quoted in P. Ormon Ray's Repeal of the Missouri Compromise, p. 232.

18

Some testimony as to the effect produced upon Douglas himself by this speech was supplied to me long afterwards from a trustworthy quarter in the following letter:—

Mr. Gowdy was a state senator in 1854 and his home was at or near Peoria. There was no joint debate between Lincoln and Douglas at or near Gowdy's residence, except that of 1854.

19

The following manuscript, written by one of Lincoln's supporters who was himself a member of the legislature, was found among the papers of William H. Herndon:

"In the contest for the United States Senate in the winter of 1854-55 in the Illinois Legislature, nearly all the Whigs and some of the 'anti-Nebraska Democrats' preferred Mr. Lincoln to any other man. Some of them (and myself among the number) had been candidates and had been elected by the people for the express purpose of doing all in their power for his election, and a great deal of their time during the session was taken up, both in caucus and out of it, in laboring to unite the anti-Nebraska party on their favorite, but there was from the first, as the result proved, an insuperable obstacle to their success. Four of the anti-Nebraska Democrats had been elected in part by Democrats, and they not only personally preferred Mr. Trumbull, but considered his election necessary to consolidate the union between all those who were opposed to repeal of the Missouri Compromise and to the new policy upon the subject of slavery which Mr. Douglas and his friends were laboring so hard to inaugurate. They insisted that the election of Mr. Trumbull to the Senate would secure thousands of Democratic votes to the anti-Nebraska party who would be driven off by the election of Mr. Lincoln—that the Whig party were nearly a unit in opposition to Mr. Douglas, so that the election of the favorite candidate of the majority would give no particular strength in that quarter, and they manifested a fixed purpose to vote steadily for Mr. Trumbull and not at all for Mr. Lincoln, and thus compel the friends of Mr. Lincoln to vote for their man to prevent the election of Governor Matteson, who, as was ascertained, could, after the first few ballots, carry enough anti-Nebraska men to elect him. These four men were Judd, of Cook, Palmer, of Macoupin, Cook, of LaSalle, and Baker, of Madison. Allen, of Madison, went with them, but was not inflexible, and would have voted for Lincoln cheerfully, but did not want to separate from his Democratic friends. These men kept aloof from the caucus of both parties during the winter. They would not act with the Democrats from principle, and would not act with the Whigs from policy.

"When the election came off, it was evident, after the first two or three ballots, that Mr. Lincoln could not be elected, and it was feared that if the balloting continued long, Governor Matteson would be elected. Mr. Lincoln then advised his friends to vote for Mr. Trumbull; they did so, and elected him.

"Mr. Lincoln was very much disappointed, for I think that at that time it was the height of his ambition to get into the United States Senate. He manifested, however, no bitterness towards Mr. Judd or the other anti-Nebraska Democrats, by whom practically he was beaten, but evidently thought that their motives were right. He told me several times afterwards that the election of Trumbull was the best thing that could have happened.

"There was a great deal of dissatisfaction throughout the state at the result of the election. The Whigs constituted a vast majority of the anti-Nebraska party. They thought they were entitled to the Senator and that Mr. Lincoln by his contest with Mr. Douglas had caused the victory. Mr. Lincoln, however, generously exonerated Mr. Trumbull and his friends from all blame in the matter. Trumbull's first encounter with Douglas in the Senate filled the people of Illinois with admiration for his abilities, and the ill-feeling caused by his election gradually faded away.

"Sam C. Parks."

20

Edited by B. F. Stringfellow, author of African Slavery no Evil, St. Louis, 1854.

21

Cited in Villard's John Brown, p. 94.

22

Cong. Globe, Appendix, 1856. p. 118.

23

The writer of this book was intimately acquainted with the doings of the Emigrant Aid Societies of the country, having been connected with the National Kansas Committee at Chicago. The emigrants usually went up the Missouri River by rail from St. Louis to Jefferson City and thence by steamboat to Kansas City, Wyandotte, or Leavenworth. They were cautioned to conceal as much as possible their identity and destination, in order to avoid trouble. Such caution was not necessary, however, since the emigrants knew that their own success depended largely upon keeping that avenue of approach to Kansas open. Later, in the summer of 1856, it was closed, not in consequence of any threatening language or action on the part of the emigrants, but because the Border Ruffians were determined to cut off reinforcements to the Free State men in Kansas. The tide of travel then took the road through Iowa and Nebraska, a longer, more circuitous, and more expensive route.

24

Appendix, p. 200.

25

Cong. Globe, 34th Congress, Appendix, p. 281.

26

In this debate Clayton, of Delaware, contended that the word "forever" was meant to apply to any future political body, whether territory or state, occupying the ground embraced in the defined limits. Hence he considered the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, but he had opposed the Nebraska Bill because he was not willing to reopen the slavery agitation. Cong. Globe, 34th Congress, Appendix, p. 777.

27

Cong. Globe, 1856, p. 1371.

28

John H. Bryant, a man of large influence in central Illinois, brother of William Cullen Bryant.

29

Green B. Raum, Lawyer, Democrat, brigadier-general in the Union army in the Civil War.

30

Cong. Globe, vol. 42, p. 16.

31

Cong. Globe, 85th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 571.

32

Lincoln and Herndon, by Joseph Fort Newton, p. 148.

33

Frederick Trevor Hill in Harper's Magazine, July, 1907.

34

Herndon-Weik. Life of Lincoln, 2d edition, vol. ii, chap. iv.

35

When Lincoln, at the Freeport debate, asked Douglas whether the people of a territory could in any lawful way exclude slavery from their limits prior to the formation of a state constitution, Douglas replied that Lincoln had heard him answer that question "a hundred times from every stump in Illinois." He certainly had answered it more than once, and his answer had been published without attracting attention or comment either North or South. On the 16th of July, 1858, six weeks before the Freeport joint debate, he spoke at Bloomington, and there announced