uthorized slavery; the other prohibited slavery; and both had appealed
to Washington for recognition. It was with this quite definite issue
that Congress was chiefly concerned in the spring of 1856. During the
summer Toombs introduced a bill securing to the settlers of Kansas
complete freedom of action and providing for an election of delegates
to a convention to draw up a state constitution which would determine
whether slavery or freedom was to prevail--in other words, whether
Kansas was to be annexed to the South or to the North. This bill was
merely the full expression of what Douglas had aimed at in 1854 and of
what was nicknamed "popular sovereignty"--the right of the locality to
choose for itself between slave and free labor.

Two years before, such a measure would have seemed radical. But in
politics time is wonderfully elastic. Those two years had been packed
with turmoil. Kansas had been the scene of a bloody conflict. Regardless
of which side had a majority on the ground, extremists on each side had
demanded recognition for the government set up by their own party. By
contrast, Toombs's offer to let the majority rule appeared temperate.

The Republicans saw instantly that they must discredit the proposal
or the ground would be cut from under them. Though the bill passed the
Senate, they were able to set it aside in the House in favor of a bill
admitting Kansas as a free state with the Topeka constitution. The
Democrats thereupon accused the Republicans of not wanting peace and of
wishing to keep up the war-cry "Bleeding Kansas" until election time.

That, throughout the country, the two parties continued on the lines
of policy they had chosen may be seen from an illustration. A House
committee which had gone to Kansas to investigate submitted two reports,
one of which, submitted by a Democratic member, told the true story of
the murders committed by John Brown at Pottawatomie. And yet, while
the Republicans spread everywhere their shocking tales of murders of
free-state settlers, the Democrats made practically no use of this
equally shocking tale of the murder of slaveholders. Apparently they
were resolved to appear temperate and conservative to the bitter end.

And they had their reward. Or, perhaps the fury of the Republicans had
its just deserts. From either point of view, the result was a choice of
evils on the part of the reluctant Whigs, and that choice was expressed
in the following words by as typic