My thoughts on Stephen Douglas have never been vary deep. I feel that most Americans think of him (if they even know who he is) in connection with the famous "Lincoln / Douglas Debates" and how he handed Lincoln a political loss. Some might connect him also with his infamous proposal "Kansas / Nebraska Act", which contained in it the concept of "popular sovereignty", viewed by many as one of the major causes of the Civil War.
I consider the passage of this legislation to be a major turning-point. From the moment this bill becomes law, the Civil War is truly inevitable. The K/N Act, by virtue of its ambiguity (designed by Douglas to have his cake and eat it too) was supposed to please both sides and stop the squabbling over which states would allow slavery. It sought to do this through the concept of "popular sovereignty", which let the people living in the states decide for themselves the legality of slavery within their borders. However, this ran counter to the Missouri Compromise, which stated that no land above Line 36 º 30' N, which both the Kansas and the Nebraska Territories were, could have legal slavery. Though the statements about "the states deciding for themselves" on slavery should have solved the matter, Southerns in the Congress wanted it codified as an amendment, which appealed the restrictions on slavery along Latitudinal lines. This concession caused more problems and more of an uproar than there had been before. In the end, the "Compromise of 1854" served truly to accomplish only 3 things:
1) Created many more abolitionists
2) Was the impetus for the creation of the Republican party
3) Fatally divided the Democratic Party in the North
As for the architect of this Kansas/Nebraska Fiasco, though I personally dislike Douglas for being apathetic towards slavery, I cannot hate him for trying to preserve unity. He was simply trying to do his job as a "politician", but should have been striving to instead act as befitting a "statesman". Thoughts on Douglas' motives behind the creation of the K/N Act have run the gauntlet from sympathy for slavery to the over-riding desire to see Manifest Destiny realized. I cannot believe that he either had sympathy for the South or was so mercenary as to be willing to trade in his moral convictions for Southern presidential votes and a transcontinental railroad through Illinois. Douglas was trying to please both North and South and the end result was that he only inflamed both sides, leading eventually to war.
As a side note, Bleeding Kansas should have been seen as an early warning to the North that the South would do WHATEVER it took to get their own way. They were eagerly willing to flagrantly break both Federal and State laws and even shed blood all to get what they wanted. The fact that Senator Brook's wasn't even prosecuted for nearly beating an unarmed man to death on the floor of the Senate should have shown the North the lengths to which the South was willing to go. No one should have been surprised that the war lasted 4 years.
Buchanan's election as President was a double-edged sword for the South. Though he strongly favored Southern interests and pushed their causes forward. His obvious prejudicial thoughts and actions helped to strengthen the Anti-slavery group in the North.
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