had no claim on Anti-Slavery support. But
with Douglas the case was different. He had quarreled with the
pro-slavery leaders, although of his own party. He had defied
President Buchanan in denouncing border-ruffianism in Kansas. He had
refused to give up his "popular sovereignty" dogma, although it
clearly meant ultimate free soil. The slave-masters hated him far more
than they did Lincoln. I heard them freely discuss the matter. They
were more afraid of the vindictiveness of the fiery Douglas than of
the opposition of good-hearted, conservative Lincoln. In my opinion
there was good reason for that feeling. Douglas, as President, would
undoubtedly have pushed the war for the Union with superior energy,
and slavery would have suffered rougher treatment from his hands than
it did from Mr. Lincoln's. There was another reason why the
slaveholders preferred the election of Lincoln to that of Douglas.
Lincoln's election would furnish the better pretext for the rebellion
on which they were bent, and which they had already largely planned.
They were resolved to defeat Douglas at all hazards, and they
succeeded.

Douglas had been very distasteful to the Abolitionists. They called
him a "dough-face." Nevertheless, quite a number of them where I lived
in Missouri voted for him. Missouri was the only State he carried, and
there he had less than five hundred majority. He got more than that
many free-soil votes. I was strongly tempted to give him mine. Chiefly
on account of political associations, I voted for Lincoln.

When it came to the second election, I again voted for Mr. Lincoln
with reluctance. The principal reason for my hesitancy was his
treatment of the Anti-Slavery people of the border slave States, and
especially of Missouri. The grounds for my objection on that score
will appear in the next chapter, which deals with the Missouri
embroglio, as it was called.

From what has just been stated, it will be seen that the cause of
Anti-Slaveryism had, at the formation of the Republican party, reached
a most perilous crisis. It was in danger of being submerged and
suffocated by unsympathetic, if not positively unfriendly,
associations. It ran the risk, after so many years of toil and
conflict, of being undone by those in whose support it was forced to
confide. Such would undoubtedly have been its fate if, owing to
circumstances over which no political party or other organization of
men had control, the current of Anti-Slavery