When, then, under the pressure of conditions for which he was not responsible, he yielded to the demand for a repeal of the Missouri Compromise, he failed to foresee that revulsion of moral sentiment that swept over the North.  It was perfectly clear to his mind, that historically the prohibition of slavery by Federal law had had far less practical effect than the North believed.  He was convinced that nearly all, if not all, of the great West was dedicated to freedom by a law which transcended any human enactment.  Why, then, hold to a mere form, when the substance could be otherwise secured?  Why should Northerner affront Southerner by imperious demands, when the same end might be attained by a compromise which would not cost either dear?  Possibly he was not unwilling to let New Mexico become slave Territory, if the greater Northwest should become free by the operation of the same principle.  Besides, there was the very tangible advantage of holding his party together by a sensible agreement, for the sake of which each faction yielded something.

Douglas was not blind to the palpable truth that the masses are swayed more by sentiment than logic:  indeed, he knew well enough how to run through the gamut of popular emotions.  What did escape him was the almost religious depth of the anti-slavery sentiment in that very stock from which he himself had sprung.  It was not a sentiment that could be bargained away.  There was much in it of the inexorable obstinacy of the Puritan faith.  Verging close upon fanaticism at times, it swept away considerations of time and place, and overwhelmed appeals to expediency.  Even where the anti-slavery spirit did not take on this extreme form, those whom it possessed were reluctant to yield one jot or tittle of the substantial gains which freedom had made.

It is probable that with the growing sectionalism, North and South would soon have been at odds over the disposition of the greater Northwest.  Sooner or later, the South must have demanded the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, or have sought large concessions elsewhere.  But it is safe to say that no one except Douglas could have been found in 1854, who possessed the requisite parliamentary qualities, the personal following, the influence in all sections,—­and withal, the audacity, to propose and carry through the policy associated with the Kansas-Nebraska bill.  The responsibility for this measure rested in a peculiar sense upon his shoulders.

It was in the course of this post-election discussion of February 23d, that Wade insinuated that mercenary motives were the key to Douglas’s conduct.  “Have the people of Illinois forgotten that injunction of more than heavenly wisdom, that ’Where a man’s treasure is, there will his heart be also’?” To this unwarranted charge, which was current in Abolitionist circles, Douglas made a circumstantial denial.  “I am not the owner of a slave and never have been, nor have I ever received, and appropriated to