by Paul Mitchell
In the midst of an excellent piece on the abortion issue, Teri O'Brien recently asked the question, "could one be a 'centrist' on the issue of slavery?"
The answer is, of course one could. Back in the day, U.S. Senator Stephen A. Douglas (D-IL; who was Barack Obama's direct predecessor in the U.S. Senate), was the voice of moderation on the slavery issue. Douglas could be described as "pro-choice" on slavery, although he preferred to speak of "popular sovereignty," by which he meant the rights of the people of the several states and territories to decide the slavery question for themselves.
This made him very unpopular with the abolitionists and other anti-slavery types like Abraham Lincoln, who believed of slavery (to use Lincoln's words) that, "if this is not wrong, then nothing is."
It ultimately also made him very unpopular with southern slave-holding interests, who wanted to assert their right to migrate with their slave property to the territories, and have their property rights recognized there in law.
(Of note: Douglas himself owned slaves through his first wife, and later his sons. He was not the owner of record, but on their behalf he managed a cotton plantation in Mississippi which was worked by slave labor.)
Douglas contended that, contrary to Lincoln's assertion in his "House Divided" speech that the nation could not long endure half-slave and half-free, that the nation had already endured half-slave and half-free since its founding, and he could see no reason why it should not continue so, if only people would would uphold the doctrine of "popular sovereignty."
Douglas was born within four years after Lincoln, and died within four years before Lincoln. The two were opponents for the U.S. Senate in 1858 and for President in 1860. For most of their careers, Douglas was by far the more famous of the two. Douglas had toured Europe, and after the death of his first wife was considered the most eligible bachelor in Washington. He was all the things Democrats today claim for themselves: highly intelligent, articulate, self-made, worldly, and irreligious. (Douglas was never baptized in any Christian denomination, and virtually never attended religious services. His Catholic wife arranged for his funeral to be according to Catholic rites.)
Both Lincoln and Douglas are remembered with memorials in Illinois, Lincoln's in Springfield and Douglas' in Chicago. I wonder which gets more visitors?
Douglas was wrong on the most important moral issue of his day. That single fact has stained the memory of a man who would otherwise have been remembered as among the greatest of Illinoisans. How will the moderates and pro-choicers of today be remembered, I wonder, when this nation again comes to recognize the right to life of its most innocent and vulnerable?
(Paul Mitchell blogs at http://regularthoughts.blogspot.com.)
