In January, 1853, Mrs. Douglas died. In 1856 he married Miss Adele Cutts of Washington, a Southern lady of good family.
He was reelected Senator in 1853 without serious opposition. He had hitherto been one of the most earnest defenders of the sacredness of the Missouri Compromise. He had strenuously sought to extend it to the Pacific. In 1848 he had declared it as inviolable as the Constitution, "canonized in the hearts of the American people as a sacred thing which no ruthless hand would ever be reckless enough to disturb." But events had moved fast and he moved with them, adjusting his opinions to the advancing demands of the dominant wing of his party.
During half a century the people of the South had been in control of the Government, but Nature and advancing civilization had been steadily against them. They had won a brilliant victory in the Southwest, but found it barren. The only remaining territory in which they could hope to plant slavery was that stretching westward from Missouri, Iowa and Minnesota to the borders of Utah and Oregon.
It was wholly unorganized, devoted mainly to Indian reservations.
The plan was to organize this region, embracing the present States of Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming, into a Territory to be called Nebraska.
The final contest between freedom and slavery for the possession of the public domain was now to be waged.
The South was at this time in peculiarly favorable situation. The right to recover runaway slaves was secured. Both the political parties had declared in favor of maintaining and faithfully executing the Compromise. The people of both sections were in favor of maintaining and faithfully executing the Compromise. The people of both sections were in favor of standing by their bargain in good faith, the South enjoying its slavery and the North its freedom in peace. There is no apparent reason why this could not have lasted for many years. But the South could not rest easy under the sense of increasing hostility to slavery and wanted to entrench it more strongly against assault. It would like more Senators and was ready to stake everything on the capture of this last territory out of which new States could be carved.
Congress met for a memorable session on December 5th, 1853. Douglas was chairman of the Committee on Territories, and his trusted lieutenant, Richardson, was chairman of the Territorial Committee of the House. He was thus in position to control the legislation of deepest importance and greatest political interest. During the closing days of the last session Richardson had pushed through the House a bill to organize the Territory of Nebraska. It was reported to the Senate, referred to the Committee on Territories and Douglas attempted in vain to hurry it through.
Dodge of Iowa, now introduced in the Senate a bill for the organization of the Territory which was a copy of the House bill of the last session. It was referred to the Committee on Territories. Douglas as chairman on January 4th reported it to the Senate in an altered form, accompanied by an elaborate report. It provided that when the Territory or any part of it should be admitted as a State it should be with or without slavery as its Constitution should provide.
The report justified this non-committal attitude by citing the similar provisions in the Utah and New Mexico bills. It declared it a disputed point whether slavery was prohibited in Nebraska by valid enactment. The constitutional power of Congress to regulate the domestic affairs of the Territories was doubted. The Committee declined to discuss the question which was so fiercely contested in 1850. Congress then refrained from deciding it. The Committee followed that precedent by neither affirming nor repealing the Missouri Compromise, nor expressing any opinion as to its validity. It intimated that in 1850 Congress already doubted its constitutionality. The Compromise was now doomed. The inventive genius of the Senate now applied itself to the task of shifting the odium of its repeal upon the previous Congress.
While this bill was pending in the Senate Douglas was anxiously scanning the field to ascertain what effect it was producing among the people. The South was not likely to be duped. If the Missouri Compromise was in force that alone excluded slavery, and no advantage could accrue from organizing the new Territory without mention of the subject. It did not care to take the risk of proving the law of 1820 invalid. Let it be repealed. But the thought of explicitly repealing the Missouri Compromise, which he had been wont to declare inviolably sacred, appalled him. He dreaded its effect in Illinois and throughout the Puritanical North, where moral ideas were annoyingly obtrusive. The South, though not demanding the repeal of the Compromise, would surely welcome it with joy and gratitude.
The question of expediency was a hard one.
The bill, consisting of twenty sections, was printed on January 2d in the Washington Sentinel. Again, on the 10th of January, it appeared in the same paper with another section added. The new section provided that the question of slavery during the territorial period should be left to the inhabitants, that appeals to the Supreme Court should be allowed in all cases involving title to slaves or questions of personal freedom, and that the Fugitive Slave Law should be executed in the Territories as in the States. This remarkable change in the form and spirit of the bill was explained as resulting from an error of the copyist, who had omitted this vital section from it as originally printed.
