tics"). In his "Repeal of the Missouri
Compromise", P.O. Ray contends that the legislation of 1854
originated in a factional controversy in Missouri, and that
Douglas merely served the interests of the proslavery group
led by Senator David R. Atchinson of Missouri. Still
another point of view is that presented in the "Genesis of
the Kansas-Nebraska Act," by F. H. Hodder, who would explain
not only the division of the Nebraska Territory into Kansas
and Nebraska, but the object of the entire bill by the
insistent efforts of promoters of the Pacific railroad
scheme to secure a right of way through Nebraska. This
project involved the organization of a territorial
government and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.
Douglas was deeply interested in the western railroad
interests and carried through the necessary legislation.

CHAPTER II. THE PARTY OF POLITICAL EVASION

In order to understand Douglas one must understand the Democratic party
of 1854 in which Douglas was a conspicuous leader. The Democrats boasted
that they were the only really national party and contended that their
rivals, the Whigs and the Know-Nothings, were merely the representatives
of localities or classes. Sectionalism was the favorite charge which the
Democrats brought against their enemies; and yet it was upon these very
Democrats that the slaveholders had hitherto relied, and it was upon
certain members of this party that the label, "Northern men with
Southern principles," had been bestowed.

The label was not, however, altogether fair, for the motives of the
Democrats were deeply rooted in their own peculiar temperament. In the
last analysis, what had held their organization together, and what had
enabled them to dominate politics for nearly the span of a generation,
was their faith in a principle that then appealed powerfully, and that
still appeals, to much in the American character. This was the principle
of negative action on the part of the government--the old idea that the
government should do as little as possible and should confine itself
practically to the duties of the policeman. This principle has seemed
always to express to the average mind that traditional individualism
which is an inheritance of the Anglo-Saxon race. In America, in the
middle of the nineteenth century, it reenforced that tradition of local
independence which was strong throughout the West