idden.

The doctrine of Cass seemed to accord best with that democratic theory
of the government which Douglas had always professed. It accorded well
with his faith in the builders of the West. It alone, of all the
doctrines advanced, accorded fully with his attitude of indifference to
the moral quality of slavery. He soon embraced it, therefore, and for
the rest of his life he was oftenest occupied embodying it in
legislation, defending it, restating it to suit new conditions,
modifying it to meet fresh exigencies. Cass, though his authorship of
the doctrine is disputed, was at first held responsible for it, and he
advocated it with great ability. But in the end men well-nigh forgot who
the author of the principle was, so preeminent was Douglas as its
defender. He made it his, whosesoever it was at first, and his it will
always be in history.

During the session of 1848-49, he introduced a bill to admit California
as a State, leaving the people to settle the slavery question as they
pleased. But his first great opportunity came in the session of 1849-50.

Cass had been beaten in the election. Zachary Taylor, the successful
candidate of the Whigs, was a Southerner and a slaveholder, but he was
elected on a non-committal platform, and he had never declared, if
indeed he had ever formed, any opinions on the questions in dispute. His
first message merely notified Congress that California, whither people
were rushing from all parts of the country in search of gold, had of her
own motion made ready for statehood; he expressed a hope that New Mexico
would shortly follow her example, and recommended that both be admitted
into the Union with such constitutions as they might present.
Immediately, the House, where the free-soilers held a balance of power,
fell into a long wrangle over the speakership; and the Senate was soon
in fierce debate over certain anti-slavery resolutions presented from
the legislature of Vermont. The North seemed to be united on the Wilmot
Proviso as it had never before been united on any measure of opposition
to slavery, and the South, fearing to lose the fruits of her many
victories in statesmanship, in diplomacy, and on Mexican battlefields,
was threatening disunion if, by the admission of California as a free
State with no slave State to balance, her equality of representation in
the Senate should be destroyed. The portents were all of disagreement,
struggle, disaster.

But at the end of January,