Nothing mattered until the
newmade state itself took action after its admission to the
Union. Until that time, no power, national or local, could
lawfully interfere with the introduction of slaves. In the case
of Kansas, it was no longer of the least importance what became
of the Lecompton constitution or of any other that the settlers
might make. The territory was open to settlement by slaveholders
and would continue to be so as long as it remained a territory.
The same conditions existed in Nebraska and in all the Northwest.
The Dred Scott decision was accepted as orthodox Democratic
doctrine by the South, by the Administration, and by the
"Northern men with Southern principles." The astute masters of
the game of politics on the Democratic side struck the note of
legality. This was law, the expression of the highest tribunal
of the Republic; what more was to be said? Though in truth there
was but one other thing to be said, and that revolutionary, the
Republicans, nevertheless, did not falter over it. Seward
announced it in a speech in Congress on "Freedom in Kansas," when
he uttered this menace: "We shall reorganize the Court and thus
reform its political sentiments and practices."
In the autumn of 1858 Douglas attempted to perform the acrobatic
feat of reconciling the Dred Scott decision, which as a Democrat
he had to accept, with that idea of popular sovereignty without
which his immediate followers could not be content.
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