As yet Douglas had contributed nothing to the solution of the problem which lurked behind the Mexican cession; nor had he tried his hand at making party opinion on new issues.  He seemed to have no concern beyond the concrete business on the calendar of the Senate.  He classed all anticipatory discussion of future issues as idle abstraction.  Had he no imagination?  Had he no eyes to see beyond the object immediately within his field of vision?  Had his alert intelligence suddenly become myopic?

On the subject of Abolitionism, at least, he had positive convictions, which he did not hesitate to express.  An exciting episode in the Senate drew from him a sharp arraignment of the extreme factions North and South.  An acrimonious debate had been precipitated by a bill introduced by that fervid champion of Abolitionism, Senator Hale of New Hampshire, which purported to protect property in the District of Columbia against rioters.  A recent attack upon the office of the National Era, the organ of Abolitionism, at the capital, as everyone understood, inspired the bill, and inevitably formed the real subject of debate.[244] It was in the heated colloquy that ensued that Senator Foote of Mississippi earned his sobriquet of “Hangman,” by inviting Hale to visit Mississippi and to “grace one of the tallest trees of the forest, with a rope around his neck.”  Calhoun, too, was excited beyond his wont, declaring that he would as soon argue with a maniac from Bedlam as with the Senator from New Hampshire.

With cool audacity and perfect self-possession, Douglas undertook to recall the Senate to its wonted composure,—­a service not likely to be graciously received by the aggrieved parties.  Douglas remarked sarcastically that Southern gentlemen had effected just what the Senator from New Hampshire, as presidential candidate of the Abolitionists, had desired:  they had unquestionably doubled his vote in the free States.  The invitation of the Senator from Mississippi alone was worth not less than ten thousand votes to the Senator from New Hampshire.  “It is the speeches of Southern men, representing slave States, going to an extreme, breathing a fanaticism as wild and as reckless as that of the Senator from New Hampshire, which creates Abolitionism in the North.”  These were hardly the words of the traditional peacemaker.  Senator Foote was again upon his feet breathing out imprecations.  “I must again congratulate the Senator from New Hampshire,” resumed Douglas, “on the accession of the five thousand votes!” Again a colloquy ensued.  Calhoun declared Douglas’s course “at least as offensive as that of the Senator from New Hampshire.”  Douglas was then permitted to speak uninterruptedly.  He assured his Southern colleagues that, as one not altogether unacquainted with life in the slave States, he appreciated their indignation against Abolitionists and shared it; but as he had no sympathy for Abolitionism, he also had none for that extreme course of Southern gentlemen which was akin to Abolitionism.  “We stand up for all your constitutional rights, in which we will protect you to the last....  But we protest against being made instruments—­puppets—­in this slavery excitement, which can operate only to your interest and the building up of those who wish to put you down."[245]