t of view of the Jacksonian Democratic party, and it
deserves more respectful historical treatment than it sometimes
receives. It was, after all, the first attempt which had been made to
legislate in relation to slavery on the basis of a principle, and the
application of any honest idea to the subject-matter of the controversy
served to clear an atmosphere which for thirty years had been clouded by
unprincipled compromises. The methods and the objects of the several
different parties were made suddenly definite and unmistakable; and
their representatives found it necessary for the first time to stand
firmly upon their convictions instead of sacrificing them in order to
maintain an appearance of peace. It soon became apparent that not even
this erection of national irresponsibility into a principle would be
sufficient to satisfy the South, because the interests of the South had
come to demand the propagation of slavery as a Constitutional right, and
if necessary in defiance of local public opinion. Unionists were
consequently given to understand that the South was offering them a
choice between a divided Union and the nationalization of slavery; and
they naturally drew the conclusion that they must de-nationalize slavery
in order to perpetuate the Union. The repeal, consequently, hastened the
formation of the Republican party, whose object it was to prevent the
expansion of slavery and to preserve the Union, without violating the
Constitutional rights of the South. Such a policy could no longer
prevail without a war. The Southerners had no faith in the fair
intentions of their opponents. They worked themselves into the belief
that The whole anti-slavery party was Abolitionist, and the whole
anti-slavery agitation national disloyalty. But the issue had been so
shaped that the war could be fought for the purpose of preserving
American national integrity; and that was the only issue on which a
righteous war could be fought.

Thus the really decisive debates which preceded the Civil War were not
those which took place in Congress over states-rights, but rather the
discussion in Illinois between Lincoln and Douglas as to whether
slavery was a local or a national issue. The Congressional debates were
on both sides merely a matter of legal special pleading for the purpose
of justifying a preconceived decision. What it was necessary for
patriotic American citizens and particularly for Western Democrats to
understand was, not whe