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kept on his desk for reference the latest number of that almost indispensable periodical, the "Counterfeit Banknote Detector."

The first months of a new national administration which precede the session of Congress are not apt to 1857, breed national elections of interest. Banks, the October, late Republican Speaker of the House, rescued November. Massachusetts, this fall, from the hard-bake of hunkerism. into which Gardner and his American party had finally settled, and stumping the State in person, an innovation which to New England seemed almost scandalous where dignities so high were contended for, he won it for the Republican cause by more than 20,000 majority. In most New England States, in fact, as well as the Northwest, Republicans still held their ground, with reduced ranks; of governors they re-elected Chase in Ohio, Randall in Wisconsin, and Lowe in Iowa; but Pennsylvania chose William F. Packer, the Democratic candidate, and New York gave another triumph to the administration in a contest over inferior State officers. The apathy of such a season, hard times, and the natural reaction from the exciting campaign of 1856, were all unfavorable to the Republicans. It was early for the Lecompton tyranny to enter into general politics, and even the Dred Scott decision had scarcely advanced beyond the first quarter of a judicial encyclical.

In the progress of political strife, from our national. point of vision, it was apparent that the American or Know-Nothing party had now nearly evaporated. In New York, for instance, the decaying lodges had turned over their tinsel and insignia to help out the triumph of the Democrats; in our free States generally they divided by radical or conservative affinities, and our whole country was fast settling upon geographical lines of political action to which, as we shall soon see, things tended inevitably. Buchanan Democracy had started out as the pure embodiment of all that was national, conservative, unsectional in spirit. But that fanciful presentation was not

long to last. Democracy showed symptoms already of approaching disruption; and in each and every faction Southern and pro-slavery ideas necessarily dominated to a greater or less degree. The old Democratic party of. Andrew Jackson was essentially the party under whose shelter slavery pushed for dominion; while on the other side the Republicans, against all dogmas, whether extrajudicial or otherwise, held firmly to the faith of the most. enlightened fathers, that slavery in new territories was an evil which Congress could and ought in conscience to regulate. "We must struggle constantly for free labor and free soil in Kansas," was the injunction of their leaders, "and thus, by making good our faith, keep Nebraska, New Mexico, Dakota, and Utah from coming in hereafter as slave States."

The thirty-fifth Congress convened on the 7th of December. It was the last time that both Houses December. held sessions in their accustomed rooms, for the new wings of the capitol extension were now nearly finished, which drew their deliberations further apart; and large oblong halls whose warm and gorgeous coloring relieved the dull symmetrical effect soon supplanted these curved and elliptic chambers through whose queer sidewindows, unlike the new skylight expedients, streamed God's free sunshine. On the 15th of the present month the Representatives moved into their more commodious chamber, rejoiced to find it one where speeches could be heard. The Senate less gladly vacated, about a year later, that cell of the giants, whose concave vault, bounded by the rainbow span, and pierced with wheel-shaped windows, reverted to the judiciary. No wonder that Nestors like Crittenden, who recalled the illustrious inhabiters of these scenes, now at rest, whose national compacts and influence seemed already perishing, should have cast behind a longing, lingering glance.

A solid minority was seen for free soil where rare individuals had once raised their voices, yet the administration had a decided majority in each branch. The House organ

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ized at once by the choice of James L. Orr, of South Carolina, as Speaker, a man of Southern views and good address, sensitive upon preserving the decorum of debate.* The President's message, which was transmitted the next day, gave the first impulsion to the entering-wedge of Democratic schism, by urging the admission of Kansas as a State under the Lecompton Constitution.† A special message to the Senate soon followed, which announced the removal of Stanton and the appointment of John A. Denver, an Indian commissioner, in his place, as secretary and acting governor, a change which the Senate sustained in secret session, Walker resigning soon after.

But the decisive struggle over Lecompton was deferred until official results arrived from Kansas. We have seen that the convention, elected by a minority of the voters, had declined to submit its whole work to the people of the territory, making, however, a pretence of submitting the question of slavery or no slavery, by taking the sense of the inhabitants upon inserting a certain clause. The day fixed for this vote was December 21st, and the free-State men, once more refractory, stayed away from the polls; so that, quite to the dismay of many Northern friends of the administration in Congress, the pro-slavery clause was adopted by about ten to one. The choice of State officers under the new Constitution came next in the programme, on the 4th of January. The free-State men hesitated whether to abstain from this election as they had abstained from the last; and, in fact, they divided, some thinking that, with Calhoun in charge of the returns, the dice were loaded too heavily against them; others arguing, with better reason, that so long as the chance was left the majority should make every effort to capture the new government as they had captured the old. Meantime the territorial legislature, or old legitimacy renovated, met at

*Orr was chosen by 128 votes against 84 cast for Galusha A. Grow, of Pennsylvania, a Republican with sharp angles, who could not command the full strength of his party.

† President's annual message, December 8, 1857.

Lecompton on the 7th of December, convened by Stanton at the cost of his official head; and, with appropriate discretion, that body ordered that on the same day with these new elections, authorized by the late convention, the Lecompton Constitution, that convention's work, should be submitted unreservedly and as a whole to the sense of the

1858, people. That election day was a memorable one. January 4. Slave-State men and a considerable part of the free-State settlers joined issue upon candidates for State officers and members of a State legislature; though the result long remained in doubt, since Calhoun, the dictator, pocketed the whole body of returns, a part of which had been falsified on their way to him, and refused to certify to anybody's election till Congress should first dispose of the admission of Kansas under the new Constitution. But upon the question of adopting that Constitution, for which the territorial legislature had called a count, the free-State men cast their ballots with right good will, and against that spurious child of Lecompton was polled a condemning majority of over 11,000. The slave-State party, to be sure, this time abstained in turn from voting; but the ballot was honest, at all events, and a fair comparison of these figures with those of the December election made it plain that Kansas by two to one preferred freedom to slavery, and scorned the yoke which fraud had fastened upon shoulders too unresisting.*

Blind to plain signs like these, deaf to the appeals and entreaties of fair-minded men in his party, who felt that the strain of Democratic principle was more than the party of Democracy could safely bear, and forgetful, too, of his own bland observations, when he took the oath, upon the beauty of leaving all crucial tests to the will of the majority, Buchanan now showed the real subserviency of his nature by taking sides with slavery, as his predecessor had done. No sooner did official intelligence arrive of what had transpired in Kansas than he transmitted to Congress

*Newspapers; Spring's Kansas, c. 10.

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an elaborate message,* and undertook, with the aid of official patronage and his party majorities, to force through Congress the immediate admission of Kansas as a slave State, under a swindling Constitution, red and reeking with fraud upon the most fundamental of popular rights. The message was not, as many had expected it to be, weak and wavering, for the ground it took was open and decided, and its statement of the situation perversely partial. Southern leaders had been consulted in its composition, and passages had been altered to please them.† One need not blame the President at this lapse of time for recognizing the territorial legislature which began in fraud and outrage as the legitimate one; but why sanction the trick which subverted that legislature as soon as the free-State men gained honest control of it? Well might he have besought Congress to terminate this protracted contest which threatened the peace of the Union; but why expect to terminate it by admitting Kansas as a State under a minor ity Constitution, and a minority rule, on a specions promise to the oppressed people that, under the organic law they loathed, the majority might at some future period gain rightful control and set measures on foot for amending that Constitution under the forms of law?

Anticipating this step by the administration, Douglas had already launched out against the whole deceptive project with an energy and haughty defiance which did. him honor. It was the most courageous stand of his whole political life, and brought him nearly in concert this winter with the Republicans, who execrated the President's message most heartily. "It is a perverted and incorrect history, from the beginning to the end," exclaimed Trumbull, of Illinois, in the Senate, who opened the debate upon this subject in a powerful and denunciatory speech. "The President wants Kansas admitted under the Lecompton

*Special message, February 2, 1858.

† See, e. g., Johnston's A. H. Stephens, c. 31. Some amendments which Stephens proposed were accepted by the President, while one which he insisted on was not.