ss this improvised political bridge as
both inglorious and treacherous. Agitated by conflicting emotions,
Douglas made a decision which probably cost him more anguish than any
he ever made; and when all has been said to the contrary, love of fair
play would seem to have been his governing motive.[663]

When Douglas rose to address the Senate on the English bill, April
29th, he betrayed some of the emotion under which he had made his
decision. He confessed an "anxious desire" to find such provisions as
would permit him to support the bill; but he was painfully forced to
declare that he could not find the principle for which he had
contended, fairly carried out. He was unable to reconcile popular
sovereignty with the proposed intervention of Congress in the English
bill. "It is intervention with inducements to control the result. It
is intervention with a bounty on the one side and a penalty on the
other."[664] He frankly admitted that he did not believe there was
enough in the bounty nor enough in the penalty to influence materially
the vote of the people of Kansas; but it involved "the principle of
freedom of election and--the great principle of self-government upon
which our institutions rest." And upon this principle he took his
stand. "With all the anxiety that I have had," said he with deep
feeling, "to be able to arrive at a conclusion in harmony with the
overwhelming majority of my political friends in Congress, I could not
bring my judgment or conscience to the conclusion that this was a
fair, impartial, and equal application of the principle."[665]

As though to make reconciliation with the administration impossible,
Douglas went on to express his distrust of the provision of the bill
for a board of supervisors of elections. Instead of a board of four,
two of whom should represent the Territory and two the Federal
government, as the Crittenden bill had provided, five were to
constitute the board, of whom three were to be United States
officials. "Does not this change," asked Douglas significantly, "give
ground for apprehension that you may have the Oxford, the Shawnee, and
the Delaware Crossing and Kickapoo frauds re-enacted at this
election?"[666] The most suspicions Republican could hardly have dealt
an unkinder thrust.

There could be no manner of doubt as to the outcome of the English
bill in the Senate. Douglas, Stuart, and Broderick were the only
Democrats to oppose its passage, Pugh having joined the m