ist in claiming his freedom; and the provisions for the payment of
damages to the claimant, if he should lose through violence a fugitive
slave to whom he had a valid title. The Federal government in turn
might bring suit against the county where the rescue had occurred, and
the county might reimburse itself by suing the offenders to the full
amount of the damages paid.[924] Had this bill passed, it would have
made good the most obvious defects in the much-defamed legislation of
1850; but the time had long since passed, when such concessions would
satisfy the South.

Douglas had to bear many a gibe for his publicly expressed hopes of
peace. Mason denounced his letter to Virginia gentlemen as a "puny,
pusillanimous attempt to hoodwink" the people of Virginia. But Douglas
replied with an earnest reiteration of his expectations. Yet all
depended, he admitted, on the action of Virginia and the border
States. For this reason he deprecated the uncompromising attitude of
the senator from Virginia, when he said, "We want no concessions."
Equally deplorable, he thought, was the spirit evinced by the senator
from New Hampshire who applauded that regrettable remark. "I never
intend to give up the hope of saving this Union so long as there is a
ray left," he cried.[925] Why try to force slavery to go where
experience has demonstrated that climate is adverse and where the
people do not want it? Why prohibit slavery where the government
cannot make it exist? "Why break up the Union upon an abstraction?"
Let the one side give up its demand for protection and the other for
prohibition; and let them unite upon an amendment to the Constitution
which shall deny to Congress the power to legislate upon slavery
everywhere, except in the matter of fugitive slaves and the African
slave-trade. "Do that, and you will have peace; do that, and the Union
will last forever; do that, and you do not extend slavery one inch,
nor circumscribe it one inch; you do not emancipate a slave, and do
not enslave a free-man."[926]

In the course of his eloquent plea for mutual concession, Douglas was
repeatedly interrupted by Wigfall of Texas, whose State was at the
moment preparing to leave the Union. In ironical tones, Wigfall
begged to be informed upon what ground the senator based his hope and
belief that the Union would be preserved. Douglas replied, "I see
indications every day of a disposition to meet this question now and
consider what is necessary to