STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS
AND THE
AMERICAN UNION
7. The Crisis of Secession
Douglas approached the 1860 presidential race with renewed enthusiasm. Determined not to repeat the mistakes of 1852 and 1856, he put together a disciplined campaign organization. James W. Sheahan, editor of the pro-Douglas Chicago Times, published a campaign biography of Douglas. The office staff was expanded to handle the surge of correspondence, and newspapers in both the North and South were persuaded to climb aboard the Douglas bandwagon.
However, deep divisions within the Democratic party brought the Charleston convention in April to an early standstill. Dissatisfied with the platform, southern delegates walked out of the convention. Delegates from the North and West could not agree on a nominee, and the convention was adjourned for six weeks. When the Democrats reassembled in Baltimore in June, dissention over delegate credentials provoked another walkout of southern and border state delegations, along with representatives from Massachusetts. Douglas was nominated by the remaining delegates, but the party had lost its national cohesion.
Three other candidates were also in the presidential race. The Constitutional Union party nominated John Bell of Tennessee. The breakaway southern Democrats nominated John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, Douglas's next-door neighbor in Washington. And the Republican party chose Douglas's familiar Illinois rival, Abraham Lincoln.
Douglas believed that the disintegration of the Democratic party threatened to break up the Union. "Secession is disunion," he proclaimed to a crowd outside his house. "Secession from the Democratic party means secession from the federal Union."
So great was Douglas's concern that he decided to break the historical precedent that had kept presidential candidates from campaigning actively on their own behalf. Urged on by Adele, Douglas planned a personal campaign that would touch all regions of the country, both north and south. He hoped to take northern votes away from Lincoln and persuade southern Democrats to return to the party. If all else failed, he wanted to ensure that the Democratic party survived as a truly national rather than sectional political organization.
The Douglas campaign began with a stump tour of New York and New England. Surprised by the strength of Lincoln and the Republicans, Douglas next turned south to Norfolk, Raleigh, and Richmond, urging his listeners not to follow the breakaway Democrats out of the party fold. He moved through Pennsylvania and New York, trying to lure voters away from Lincoln and the Republicans. In Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Michigan, Douglas pressed the case for the preservation of the Union. With time running out and secession still threatening, Douglas returned to the South. Adele joined him as he moved through Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. Douglas received death threats. In Montgomery, he and Adele were hit by eggs thrown at them, and at Selma the deck of a steamboat gave way, severely bruising Senator and Mrs. Douglas. Adele stayed behind to recover, but Douglas hobbled on with a crutch, arriving in Mobile for his final stop on the day before the election.
As the election returns began to come in, it was apparent that Douglas's dogged effort to keep the country and the Democratic party united had failed. In the four-man presidential race, Douglas came in second with twenty-nine per cent of the popular vote. The Democratic vote in the North was solidly in Douglas's favor; but apart from a few border states, most of the South had remained adamantly dedicated to slavery and secession. While the four-way split of the vote denied Lincoln a popular majority, the Republican candidate carried the electoral college and won the presidential contest.
Douglas had lost more than the election; he had also put himself in financial peril by selling some of his land and borrowed extensive sums of cash to finance his campaign. As collateral for his loans, Douglas mortgaged his remaining Chicago properties, sparing only the Oakenwald tract on which he and Adele intended to build their house. With the campaign over and his resources exhausted, Douglas now confronted the possibility of personal bankruptcy.
The cause of the Union was nearly lost. The desertion of southern Democrats had produced such bitterness that the party might never again function as an effective national organization. The grand dream of continental expansion and national prosperity on which Douglas had staked his political career and personal fortune now lay shattered by the forces of secession.
STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS AND THE AMERICAN UNION