The Life of Lyman Trumbull. Horace White
he relied upon the fact that the governor had admitted some members and rejected others and that each legislative assembly had undoubted authority to determine, in the last resort, the election and qualification of its own members. Thus a principle intended to apply to a few exceptional cases of dispute was stretched to cover a case where all the seats had been obtained by fraud and usurpation. "For all present purposes," he added feebly, the "legislative body thus constituted and elected was the legitimate assembly of the Territory."
This message was referred to the Senate Committee on Territories. On the 12th of March, Senator Douglas submitted a report from the committee, and Senator Collamer, of Vermont, submitted a minority report. This was the occasion of the first passage-at-arms between Douglas and his new colleague. The report was not merely a general endorsement of President Pierce's contention that it was impossible to go behind the returns of the Kansas election, as certified by Governor Reeder, but it went much further in the same direction, putting all the blame for the disorders on the New England Emigrant Aid Company, and practically justifying the Missourians as a people "protecting their own firesides from the apprehended horrors of servile insurrection and intestine war." Logically, from Douglas's new standpoint, the New Englanders had no right to settle in Kansas at all, if they had the purpose to make it a free state. To this complexion had the doctrine of "popular sovereignty" come in the short space of two years.
Two days after the presentation of this report, Mr. Trumbull made a three hours' speech upon it without other preparation than a perusal of it in a newspaper; it had not yet been printed by the Senate. This speech was a part of one of the most exciting debates in the annals of Congress. He began with a calm but searching review of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, dwelling first on the failure of the measure to fix any time when the people of a territory should exercise the right of deciding whether they would have slavery or not. He illustrated his point by citing some resolutions adopted by a handful of squatters in Kansas as early as September, 1854, many months before any legislature had been organized or elected, in which it was declared that the squatters aforesaid "would exercise the right of expelling from the territory, or otherwise punishing any individual, or individuals, who may come among us and by act, conspiracy, or other illegal means, entice away our slaves or clandestinely attempt in any way or form to affect our rights of property in the same." These resolutions were passed before any persons had arrived under the auspices, or by the aid, of the New England Emigrant Aid Company; showing that, so far from being aroused to violence by the threatening attitude of that organization, the Missourians were giving notice beforehand that violence would be used upon any intending settlers who might be opposed to the introduction of slavery.
Douglas had wonderful skill in introducing sophisms into a discussion so deftly that his opponent would not be likely to notice them, or would think them not worth answering, and then enlarging upon them and leading the debate away upon a false scent, thus convincing the hearers that, as his opponent was weak in this particular, he was probably weak everywhere. It was Trumbull's forte that he never failed to detect these tricks and turns and never neglected them, but exposed them instantly, before proceeding on the main line of his argument. It was this faculty that made his coming into the Senate a welcome reinforcement to the Republican side of the chamber.
The report under consideration abounded in these characteristic Douglas pitfalls. It said, for example:
Although the act of incorporation [of the Emigrant Aid Company] does not distinctly declare that it was formed for the purpose of controlling the domestic institutions of Kansas and forcing it into the Union with a prohibition of slavery in her constitution, regardless of the rights and wishes of the people as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States and secured by their organic law, yet the whole history of the movement, the circumstances in which it had its origin, and the professions and avowals of all engaged in it rendered it certain and undeniable that such was its object.
Here was a double sophistry: First, the implication that, if the Emigrant Aid Company had boldly avowed that its purpose was to control the domestic institutions of Kansas and bring it into the Union as a free state, its heinousness would have been plain to all; second, that the Constitution of the United States, and the organic act of the territory itself, guaranteed the people against such an outrage. But the declared object of the Nebraska Bill was to allow the people to do this very thing by a majority vote. Mr. Trumbull brought his flail down upon this pair of sophisms with resounding force. In debate with Senator Hale, a few days earlier, Toombs, of Georgia, had had the manliness to say:
With reference to that portion of the Senator's argument justifying the Emigrant Aid Societies,—whatever may be their policy, whatever may be the tendency of that policy to produce strife,—if they simply aid emigrants from Massachusetts to go to Kansas and to become citizens of that territory, I am prepared to say that they violate no law; and they had a right to do it; and every attempt to prevent them from doing so violated the law and ought not to be sustained.22
By way of justifying the Border Ruffians the report said that when the emigrants from New England were going through Missouri, the violence of their language and behavior excited apprehensions that their object was to "abolitionize Kansas as a means of prosecuting a relentless warfare on the institution of slavery within the limits of Missouri."
What! [said Trumbull,] abolitionize Kansas! It was said on all sides of the Senate Chamber (when the Nebraska bill was pending) that it was never meant to have slavery go into Kansas. What is meant, then, by abolitionizing Kansas? Is it abolitionizing a territory already free, and which was never meant to be anything but free, for Free State men to settle in it? I cannot understand the force of such language. But they were to abolitionize Kansas, according to this report, and for what purpose? As a means for prosecuting a relentless warfare on the institution of slavery within the limits of Missouri. Where is the evidence of such a design? I would like to see it. It is not in this report, and if it exists I will go as far as the gentleman to put it down. I will neither tolerate nor countenance by my action here or elsewhere any society which is resorting to means for prosecuting a relentless warfare upon the institution of slavery within the limits of Missouri or any other state. But there is not a particle of evidence of any such intention in the document which professes to set forth the acts of the Emigrant Aid Society, and which is incorporated in this report.23
Trumbull next took up the contention of the report that since Governor Reeder had recognized the usurping legislature, he and all other governmental authorities were estopped from inquiring into its validity. No great effort of a trained legal mind was required to overthrow that pretension. Trumbull demolished it thoroughly. After giving a calm and lucid sketch of the existing condition of affairs in the territory, Trumbull brought his speech to a conclusion. It fills six pages of the Congressional Globe.24
This was the prelude to a hot debate with Douglas, who immediately took the floor. Trumbull had remarked in the course of his speech that the only political party with which he had ever had any affiliations was the Democratic. Douglas said that he should make a reply to his colleague's speech as soon as it should be printed in the Globe, but that he wished to take notice now of the statement that Trumbull claimed to be a Democrat. This, he said, would be considered by every Democrat in Illinois as a libel upon the party.
Senator Crittenden called Douglas to order for using the word "libel," which he said was unparliamentary, being equivalent to the word "lie." Douglas insisted that he had not imputed untruth to his colleague, but had only said that all the Democrats in Illinois would impute it to him when they should read his speech. He then went into a general tirade about "Black Republicans," "Know-Nothings," and "Abolitionists," who, he said, had joined in making Trumbull a Senator, from which it was evident that he was one of the same tribe, and not a Democrat. So far as the people of Illinois were concerned, he said that his colleague did not dare to go before them and take his chances in a general election, for he (Douglas) had met him at Salem, Marion County, in the summer of 1855, and had told him in the presence of thousands of people that, differing as they did, they ought not both to represent the State at the same time. Therefore, he proposed that they should both sign a paper resigning their seats and appeal to the people, "and if I did not beat him now with his Know-Nothingism,
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.
Appendix, p. 200.