ected), and in so unobtrusive a manner as
scarcely to attract a ripple of public notice, was a light task
compared with that which confronted him as Senator, at the meeting of
Congress in December, in the light of John Calhoun's doings and
powers, of the scandal of the Oxford fraud, and of the indignation of
Northern Democrats against the betrayal of Walker and Stanton.

One of his first experiences was a personal quarrel with Buchanan.
When he reached Washington, three days before the session, he went to
the President to protest against his adopting the Lecompton
Constitution and sending it to Congress for acceptance. Buchanan
insisted that he must recommend it in his annual message. Douglas
replied that he would denounce it as soon as it was read. The
President, excited, told him "to remember that no Democrat ever yet
differed from an administration of his own choice without being
crushed. Beware of the fate of Tallmadge and Rives."

[Sidenote] Douglas, Milwaukee Speech, October 13, 1860.

"Mr. President," retorted Douglas, "I wish you to remember that
General Jackson is dead."

In the election of Mr. Buchanan as President the South had secured a
most important ally for the work of pro-slavery reaction. Trained in
the belief that the South had hitherto been wronged, he was ready on
every occasion to appear as her champion for redress; and Southern
politicians were now eager to use his leadership to make their views
of public policy and constitutional duty acceptable to the North.
Respectable in capacity but feeble in will, he easily submitted to
control and guidance from a few Southern leaders of superior
intellectual force. In his inaugural, he sought to prepare public
opinion for obedience to the Dred Scott decision, and since its
publication he had undertaken to interpret its scope and effect.
Replying to a memorial from certain citizens of New England, he
declared in a public letter, "Slavery existed at that period, and
still exists in Kansas, under the Constitution of the United States.
This point has at last been finally decided by the highest tribunal
known to our laws. How it could ever have been seriously doubted is a
mystery."[1] In the same letter he affirmed the legality of the
Lecompton Convention, though he yet clearly expressed his expectation
that the constitution to be framed by it would be submitted to the
popular vote for "approbation or rejection."

[Sidenote] 1857.

But when that conve