perated tones.[640] And then
Green reminded him, that in his famous report of January 4, 1854, he
had proposed to leave the slavery question to the decision of the
people "by their appropriate representatives chosen by them for that
purpose," with no suggestion of a second, popular vote. Truly, his
most insidious foes were now those of his own political household.

Anti-slavery men welcomed this revolt of Douglas without crediting him
with any but self-seeking motives. They could not bring themselves to
believe other than ill of the man who had advocated the repeal of the
Missouri Compromise. Republicans accepted his aid in their struggle
against the Lecompton fraud, but for the most part continued to regard
him with distrust. Indeed, Douglas made no effort to placate them. He
professed to care nothing for the cause of the slave which was nearest
their hearts. Hostile critics, then, were quick to point out the
probable motives from which he acted. His senatorial term was drawing
to a close. He was of course desirous of a re-election. But his
nominee for governor had been defeated at the last election, and the
State had been only with difficulty carried for the national
candidates of the party. The lesson was plain: the people of Illinois
did not approve the Kansas policy of Senator Douglas. Hence the
weathercock obeyed the wind.

In all this there was a modicum of truth. Douglas would not have been
the power that he was, had he not kept in touch with his constituency.
But a sense of honor, a desire for consistency, and an abiding faith
in the justice of his great principle, impelled him in the same
direction. These were thoroughly honorable motives, even if he
professed an indifference as to the fate of the negro. He had pledged
his word of honor to his constituents that the people of Kansas should
have a fair chance to pronounce upon their constitution. Nothing short
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 wint