Stephen A. Douglas eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 492 pages of information about Stephen A. Douglas.

Stephen A. Douglas eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 492 pages of information about Stephen A. Douglas.

After all, as Douglas said good-naturedly, all these objections were predicated on a reluctance to return a slave to his master under any circumstances.  Did his hearers realize, he insisted, that refusal to do so was a violation of the Constitution?  And were they willing to shatter the Union because of this feeling?  At this point he was again interrupted by an individual, who wished to know if the provisions of the Constitution were not in violation of the law of God.  “The divine law,” responded Douglas, “does not prescribe the form of government under which we shall live, and the character of our political and civil institutions.  Revelation has not furnished us with a constitution—­a code of international law—­and a system of civil and municipal jurisprudence.”  If this Constitution were to be repudiated, he begged to know, “who is to be the prophet to reveal the will of God, and establish a theocracy for us?”

At the conclusion of his speech, Douglas offered a series of resolutions expressing the obligation of all good citizens to maintain the Constitution and all laws duly enacted by Congress in pursuance of the Constitution.  With a remarkable revulsion of feeling, the audience indorsed these sentiments without a dissenting voice, and subsequently repudiated in express terms the resolutions of the Common Council.[371] The triumph of Douglas was complete.  It was one of those rare instances where the current of popular resentment is not only deflected, but actually reversed, by the determination and eloquence of one man.

There were two groups of irreconcilables to whom such appeals were unavailing—­radical Abolitionists at the North and Southern Rights advocates.  Not even the eloquence of Webster could make willing slave-catchers of the anti-slavery folk of Massachusetts.  The rescue of the negro Shadrach, an alleged fugitive slave, provoked intense excitement, not only in New England but in Washington.  The incident was deemed sufficiently ominous to warrant a proclamation by the President, counseling all good citizens to uphold the law.  Southern statesmen of the radical type saw abundant evidence in this episode of a deliberate purpose at the North not to enforce the essential features of the compromise.  Both Whig and Democratic leaders, with few exceptions, roundly denounced all attempts to nullify the Fugitive Slave Law.[372] None was more vehement than Douglas.  He could not regard this Boston rescue as a trivial incident.  He believed that there was an organization in many States to evade the law.  It was in the nature of a conspiracy against the government.  The ring-leaders were Abolitionists, who were exciting the negroes to excesses.  He was utterly at a loss to understand how senators, who had sworn to obey and defend the Constitution, could countenance these palpable violations of law.[373]

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Stephen A. Douglas from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.