The Constitutional and Political History of the United States (Volume 1) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1889 edition. Excerpt: ...in all non-national affairs, within the limits of the federal constitution, more systematically, boldly and perfidiously than it had ever before been done in the United States, and than had been hitherto supposed possible. He intentionally did not use slavery as an illustration. With revolting straightforwardness he declared that it was perfectly indifferent to him whether the slavery provision, as he expressed himself, was voted down or not. That, in view of the next presidential election, he meant to tell the slavery interest that it must not harbor the ridiculous suspicion that he had, because he said this, become suddenly infected with either abolitionism or even free-soilism, is unquestionable. But just as little did his whole past allow the slightest doubt that the statement was entirely true. In their want of understanding of the moral phase of the slavery question, Buchanan and he had still the same ground under their feet; only, Douglas, who was a coarser man, was entirely wanting in the purely humane feeling for the sad fate of the slaves--a feeling which, it certainly could not be denied, Buchanan possessed to a great extent. But, on the other hand, Douglas understood the nature of the slavery question, as a politico-party problem, incomparably better than Buchanan, and hence it was not of the least use to the slavocracy that the brutally cynical expression voting "up" or voting "down" the slavery provision was honestly meant. The doctrine of the message, he said, destroyed the platform of the party; if the party had defined the right of self-determination as it had now been interpreted by the Lecompton convention in its resolutions, the democratic presidential candidate, and every man who sided with him, ...