the precise relationship and fundamental significance
of all that was then in process of saying and doing.
Time must elapse, and distance must enable one to
get a comprehensive view, before the philosophy of
an era like that of the civil war becomes intelligible.
But the philosophy is not the less correct because
those who were framing it piece by piece did not at
any one moment project before their mental vision the
whole in its finished proportions and relationship.
[75] As an example of Greeley’s position, see
letter quoted by N. and H. ii. 140, note. The
fact that he was strenuously pro-Douglas and anti-Lincoln
is well known. Yet afterward he said that it “was
hardly in human nature” for Republicans to treat
Douglas as a friend. Greeley’s American
Conflict, i. 301.
[76] Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power,
ii. 567; for sketches of Douglas’s position,
see Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, i. 141-144;
von Holst, Const. Hist. of U.S. vi. 280-286;
Herndon, 391-395; N. and H. ii. 138-143; Lamon, 390-395;
Holland, 158. Crittenden was one of the old Whigs,
who now sorely disappointed Lincoln by preferring
Douglas. N. and H. ii. 142.
[77] Several months afterward, October 25, 1858, Mr.
Seward made the speech at Rochester which contained
the famous sentence: “It is an irrepressible
conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and
it means that the United States must and will, sooner
or later, become either entirely a slaveholding nation
or entirely a free-labor nation.” Seward’s
Works, new edition, 1884, iv. 292. But
Seward ranked among the extremists and the agitators.
See Lincoln and Douglas Deb. 244. After
all, the idea had already found expression in the Richmond
Enquirer, May 6, 1856, quoted by von Hoist,
vi. 299, also referred to by Lincoln; see Lincoln
and Douglas Deb. 262.
[78] Letter to Hon. Geo. Robertson, N. and H. i. 392;
and see Lamon, 398; also see remarks of von Holst,
vi. 277.
[79] Lincoln and Douglas Deb. 93. W.P.
Fessenden, “who,” says Mr. Blaine, “always
spoke with precision and never with passion,”
expressed his opinion that if Fremont had been elected
instead of Buchanan, that decision would never have
been given. Twenty Years of Congress, i. 133.
[80] Stephen A. Douglas, Franklin Pierce, Roger B.
Taney, James Buchanan.
[81] Lincoln and Douglas Deb. 198. At
Chicago he said that he would vote for the prohibition
of slavery in a new Territory “in spite of the
Dred Scott decision.” Lincoln and Douglas
Deb. 20; and see the rest of his speech on the
same page. The Illinois Republican Convention,
June 16. 1858, expressed “condemnation of the
principles and tendencies of the extra-judicial opinions
of a majority of the judges,” as putting forth
a “political heresy.” Holland, 159.
