Lincoln, the unknown

LINCOLN THE UNKNOWN•101The term "Bleeding Kansas" was written on the pages of history.Now, Stephen A. Douglas knew that a constitution framedby a bogus legislature in the midst of all that fraud and treacherywas not worth the blotting-paper that it took to dry it.So Douglas demanded that the people of Kansas be permittedto vote at an honest and peaceful election on the questionof whether Kansas should be admitted as a slave or a freeState.His demand was altogether right and proper. But the Presidentof the United States, James Buchanan, and the haughtypro-slavery politicians in Washington wouldn't tolerate such anarrangement.So Buchanan and Douglas quarreled.The President threatened to send Douglas to the politicalshambles, and Douglas retaliated: "By God, sir, I made JamesBuchanan; and by God, sir, I'll unmake him."As Douglas said that, he not only made a threat, but he madehistory. In that instant, slavery had reached the apex of itspolitical power and arrogance. From that moment on, its powerdeclined with a swift and dramatic abruptness.The battle that followed was the beginning of the end, forin that fight Douglas split his own party wide open and preparedthe way for Democratic disaster in 1860, and so madethe election of Lincoln not only possible but inevitable.Douglas had staked his own political future on what hebelieved, and on what almost every one in the North believed,was an unselfish fight for a magnificent principle. And Illinoisloved him for it. He had now come back to his home State, themost admired and idolized man in the nation.The same Chicago that had hooted and lowered the flags tohalf-mast and tolled the church bells as he entered the city in1854—that same Chicago now despatched a special train withbrass bands and reception committees to escort him home. Ashe entered the city, one hundred and fifty cannon in DearbornPark roared a welcome, hundreds of men fought to shake hishand, and thousands of women tossed flowers at his feet. Peoplenamed their first-born in his honor; and it is probably no exaggerationto say that some of his frenzied followers would actuallyhave died for him on the scaffold. Forty years after hisdeath men still boasted that they were "Douglas Democrats."A few months after Douglas made his triumphal entry into