ess to certain fundamental traits in his
constituents. Americans admire self-reliance even in an opponent, and
the spectacle of a man fighting against personal injustice is often
likely to make them forget the principle for which he stands. So
Seward, who surely had no love for Douglas and no respect for his
political creed, was moved to exclaim in frank admiration, "I hope the
Senator will yield for a moment, because I have never had so much
respect for him as I have tonight." When Chase assured Douglas that he
always purposed to treat the Senator from Illinois with entire
courtesy, Douglas retorted: "The Senator says that he never intended
to do me injustice.... Sir, did he not say in the same document to
which I have already alluded, that I was engaged, with others, 'in a
criminal betrayal of precious rights,' 'in an atrocious plot'?... Did
he not say everything calculated to produce and bring upon my head all
the insults to which I have been subjected publicly and privately--not
even excepting the insulting letters which I have received from his
constituents, rejoicing at my domestic bereavements, and praying that
other and similar calamities may befall me!"[490]

In much the same way, he turned upon Sumner, as the collaborator of
the _Appeal_. Here was one who had begun his career as an Abolitionist
in the Senate, with the words "Strike but hear me first," but who had
helped to close the doors of Faneuil Hall against Webster, when he
sought to speak in self-defense in 1850, and who now--such was the
implication--was denying simple justice to another patriot.[491]

Personalities aside, the burden of his speech was the reassertion of
his principle of popular sovereignty. He showed how far he had
traveled since the Fourth of January in no way more strikingly, than
when he called in question the substantive character of the Missouri
Compromise. In his discussion of the legislative history of the
Missouri acts, he easily convicted both Chase and Seward of
misapprehensions; but he refused to recognize the truth of Chase's
words, that "the facts of the transaction taken together and as
understood by the country for more than thirty years, constitute a
compact binding in moral force," though expressed only in the terms of
ordinary statutes. So far had Douglas gone in his advocacy of his
measure that he had lost the measure of popular sentiment. He was so
confident of himself and his cause, so well-assured that he had
sac