of this would have been consistent with popular sovereignty as he had
expounded it again and again. And Douglas was personally a man of
honor. Yet when all has been said, one cannot but regret that the
sense of fair play, which was strong in him, did not assert itself in
the early stages of the Kansas conflict and smother that lawyer's
instinct to defend, a client by the technicalities of the law. Could
he only have sought absolute justice for the people of Kansas in the
winter of 1856, the purity of his motives would not have been
questioned in the winter of 1858.

Even those colleagues of Douglas who doubted his motives, could not
but admire his courage. It did, indeed, require something more than
audacity to head a revolt against the administration. No man knew
better the thorny road that he must now travel. No man loved his party
more. No man knew better the hazard to the Union that must follow a
rupture in the Democratic party. But if Douglas nursed the hope that
Democratic senators would follow his lead, he was sadly disappointed.
Three only came to his support--Broderick of California, Pugh of Ohio,
and Stuart of Michigan,--while the lists of the administration were
full. Green, Bigler, Fitch, in turn were set upon him.

Douglas bitterly resented any attempt to read him out of the party by
making the Lecompton constitution the touchstone of genuine Democracy;
yet each day made it clearer that the administration had just that end
in view. Douglas complained of a tyranny not consistent with free
Democratic action. One might differ with the President on every
subject but Kansas, without incurring suspicion. Every pensioned
letter writer, he complained, had been intimating for the last two
weeks that he had deserted the Democratic party and gone over to the
Black Republicans. He demanded to know who authorized these