It is none of my
business which way the slavery clause is decided. I care not
whether it is voted up or down."
There followed one of those prolonged legislative battles for
which the Congress of the United States is justly celebrated.
Furious oratory, propositions, counter-propositions, projected
compromises, other compromises, and at the end nothing positive.
But Douglas had defeated the attempt to bring in Kansas with the
Lecompton constitution. As to the details of the story, they
include such distinguished happenings as a brawling, all-night
session when "thirty men, at least, were engaged in the
fisticuff," and one Representative knocked another down.
Douglas was again at the center of the stage, but his term as
Senator was nearing its end. He and the President had split
their party. Pursued by the vengeful malice of the
Administration, Douglas went home in 1858 to Illinois to fight
for his reelection. His issue, of course, was popular
sovereignty. His temper was still the temper of political
evasion. How to hold fast to his own doctrine, and at the same
time keep to his programme of "nothing doing"; how to satisfy the
negative Democrats of the North without losing his last hold on
the positive men of the South--such were his problems, and they
were made still more difficult by a recent decision of the
Supreme Court.
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