As a daring piece of evasion designed to hold all the
Democrats together; (2) as an attempt to secure his locality
at all costs, taking his chances on the South; (3) as a
sincere expression of the legal interpretation mentioned
above. It is impossible in attempting to choose among these
to escape wholly one's impression of the man's character.

Well might Yancey and his followers receive with a shout of joy the
"Freeport Doctrine," as Douglas's supreme evasion was called. Should
Southerners trust any longer the man who had evolved from the principle
of let-'em-alone to the principle of double-dealing? However, the
Southerners were far from controlling the situation. Though the events
of 1858 had created discord in the Democratic party, they had not
consolidated the South. Men like Toombs and Stephens were still hopeful
of keeping the States together in the old bond of political evasion. The
Democratic machine, damaged though it was, had not yet lost its hold on
the moderate South, and while that continued to be the case, there was
still power in it.

CHAPTER IV. THE CRISIS

The Southern moderates in 1859 form one of those political groups,
numerous enough in history, who at a crisis arrest our imagination
because of the irony of their situation. Unsuspecting, these men went
their way, during the last summer of the old regime, busy with the
ordinary affairs of state, absorbed in their opposition to the Southern
radicals, never dreaming of the doom that was secretly moving toward
them through the plans of John Brown. In the soft brilliancy of the
Southern summer when the roses were in bloom, many grave gentlemen
walked slowly up and down together under the oaks of their plantation
avenues, in the grateful dusk, talking eagerly of how the scales
trembled in Southern politics between Toombs and Yancey, and questioning
whether the extremists could ride down the moderate South and reopen the
slave trade. In all their wondering whether Douglas would ever come back
to them or would prove the blind Samson pulling down their temple about
their ears, there was never a word about the approaching shadow which
was so much more real than the shades of the falling night, and yet so
entirely shut away from their observation.

In this summer, Stephens withdrew as he thought from public life.
With an intensely sensitive nature, he had at times flashes of strange
feeling which an unsophisticated society wo