save the Union." And then, anticipating
the sneers of his interrogator, he said sharply, "If the senator will
just follow me, instead of going off to Texas; sit here, and act in
concert with us Union men, we will make him a very efficient agent in
accomplishing that object."[927] But to the obdurate mind of Wigfall
this Union talk was "the merest balderdash." Compromise on the basis
of non-intervention, he pronounced "worse than 'Sewardism,' for it had
hypocrisy and the other was bold and open." There was, unhappily, only
too much truth in his pithy remark that "the apple of discord is
offered to us as the fruit of peace."

It was a sad commentary on the state of the Union that while the six
cotton States were establishing the constitution and government of a
Southern Confederacy, the Federal Senate was providing for the
territorial organization of that great domain whose acquisition had
been the joint labor of all the States. Three Territories were
projected. In one of these, Colorado, a provisional government had
already been set up by the mining population of the Pike's Peak
country. To the Colorado bill Douglas interposed serious objections.
By its provisions, the southern boundary cut off a portion of New
Mexico, which was slave Territory, and added it to Colorado. At the
same time a provision in the bill prevented the territorial
legislature from passing any law to destroy the rights of private
property. Was the new Territory of Colorado to be free or slave?
Another provision debarred the territorial legislature from condemning
private property for public uses. How, then, could Colorado construct
even a public road? Still another provision declared that there should
be no discrimination in the rate of taxation between different kinds
of property. How, then, could Colorado make those necessary exemptions
which were to be found on all statute books?[928]

In his encounter with Senator Green, who had succeeded him as chairman
of the Committee on Territories, Douglas did not appear to good
advantage. It was easy to prove his first objection idle, as there was
no slave property in northern New Mexico. As for the other
objectionable provisions, all--by your leave!--were to be found in the
Washington Territory Act, which had passed through Douglas's committee
without comment.[929]

Douglas proposed a substitute for the Colorado bill, nevertheless,
which, besides rectifying these errors,--for such he still deemed them