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LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS 255

The presidential canvass of 1860 was three sided, and each side had its
distinctive doctrine as to the question of slavery and slavery extension. We
had three candidates in the field, Stephen A. Douglas was the standard-bearer
of what may be called the western faction of the old divided democratic party,
and John C. Breckinridge was the standard-bearer of the southern or slaveholding
faction of that party. Abraham Lincoln represented the then young,
growing, and united republican party. The lines between these parties and
candidates were about as distinctly and clearly drawn as political lines are
capable of being drawn. The name of Douglas stood for territorial sovereignty,
or in other words, for the right of the people of a territory to admit or
exclude, to establish or abolish, slavery, as to them might seem best. The
doctrine of Breckinridge was that slaveholders were entitled to carry their
slaves into any territory of the United States and to hold them there, with or
without the consent of the people of the territory; that the Constitution of its
own force carried slavery into any territory open for settlement in the United
States, and protected it there. To both these parties, factions, and doctrines,
Abraham Lincoln and the republican party stood opposed. They held that the
Federal Government had the right and the power to exclude slavery from the
territories of the United States, and that that right and power ought to be
exercised to the extent of confining slavery inside the slave States, with a
view to its ultimate extinction. The position of Mr. Douglas gave him a splendid
pretext for the display of a species of oratory of which he was a distinguished
master. He alone of the three candidates took the stump, as the
preacher of popular sovereignty, called in derision at the time "Squatter
Sovereignty." This doctrine, if not the times, gave him a chance to play fast
and loose, and blow hot and cold, as occasion might require. In the South and
among slaveholders he could say, "My great principle of popular sovereignty
does not and was not intended by me to prevent the extension of slavery; on
the contrary it gives you the right to take your slaves into the territories and
secure legislation legalizing slavery; it denies to the Federal Government all
right of interference against you, and hence is eminently favorable to your
interests." When among people known to be indifferent he could say, "I do
not care whether slavery is voted up or voted down in the territory," but when
addressing the known opponents of the extension of slavery, he could say that
the people of the territories were in no danger of having slavery forced upon
them since they could keep it out by adverse legislation. Had he made these
representations before railroads, electric wires, phonography, and newspapers
had become the powerful auxiliaries they have done Mr. Douglas might have
gained many votes, but they were of little avail now. The South was too saga-