omance. This new
vision of the destiny of the country had the practical effect of making
the Northerners identify themselves in their imaginations with all
mankind and in creating in them an enthusiastic desire, not only to give
to every American a home of his own, but also to throw open the gates of
the nation and to share the wealth of America with the poor of all the
world. In very truth, it was their dominating passion to give "land to
the landless." Here was the clue to much of their attitude toward the
South. Most of these Northern dreamers gave little or no thought to
slavery itself; but they felt that the section which maintained such a
system so committed to aristocracy that any real friendship with it was
impossible.

We are thus forced to conceive the American Republic in the years
immediately following the Compromise of 1850 as, in effect, a dual
nation, without a common loyalty between the two parts. Before long the
most significant of the great Northerners of the time was to describe
this impossible condition by the appropriate metaphor of a house
divided against itself. It was not, however, until eight years after the
division of the country had been acknowledged in 1850 that these
words were uttered. In those eight years both sections awoke to the
seriousness of the differences that they had admitted. Both perceived
that, instead of solving their problem in 1850, they had merely drawn
sharply the lines of future conflict. In every thoughtful mind there
arose the same alternative questions: Is there no solution but fighting
it out until one side destroys the other, or we end as two nations
confessedly independent? Or is there some conceivable new outlet for
this opposition of energy on the part of the sections, some new mode of
permanent adjustment?

It was at the moment when thinking men were asking these questions that
one of the nimblest of politicians took the center of the stage. Stephen
A. Douglas was far-sighted enough to understand the land-hunger of
the time. One is tempted to add that his ear was to the ground. The
statement will not, however, go unchallenged, for able apologists have
their good word to say for Douglas. Though in the main, the traditional
view of him as the prince of political jugglers still holds its own, let
us admit that his bold, rough spirit, filled as it was with political
daring, was not without its strange vein of idealism. And then let us
repeat that his ear was to th