rthwest was
prolific of schemes of compromise, for the constant clash of Northern
and Southern elements developed an aptitude for settlement by agreement
on moderate lines. The people of the section as a whole long clung to
popular, or "squatter," sovereignty as the supremely desirable solution
of the slavery question--a device formulated and defended by two of
the Northwest's own statesmen, Cass and Douglas, and relinquished
only slowly and reluctantly under the leadership, not of a New England
abolitionist, but of a statesman of Southern birth who had come to the
conclusion that the nation could not permanently exist half slave and
half free.

Cass, Douglas, Lincoln--all were adopted sons of the Northwest, and the
career of every one illustrates not only the prodigality with which the
back country showered its opportunities upon men of industry and
talent, but the play and interplay of sectional and social forces in the
building of the newer nation. Cass and Douglas were New Englanders.
One was born at Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1782; the other at Brandon,
Vermont, in 1813. Lincoln sprang from Virginian and Kentuckian stocks.
His father's family moved from Virginia to Kentucky at the close of the
Revolution; in 1784 his grandfather was killed by lurking Indians, and
his father, then a boy of six, was saved from captivity only by a lucky
shot of an older brother. Lincoln himself was born in 1809. Curiously
enough, Cass and Douglas, the New Englanders, played their roles on the
national stage as Jackson Democrats, while Lincoln, the Kentuckian of
Virginian ancestry, became a Whig and later a Republican.

Cass and Douglas were well-born. Cass's father was a thrifty
soldier-farmer who made for his family a comfortable home at Zanesville,
Ohio; Douglas's father was a successful physician. Lincoln was born
in obscurity and wretchedness. His father, Thomas Lincoln, was a
ne'er-do-well Kentucky carpenter, grossly illiterate, unable or
unwilling to rise above the lowest level of existence in the pioneer
settlements. His mother, Nancy Hanks, whatever her antecedents may have
been, was a woman of character, and apparently of some education. But
she died when her son was only nine years of age.

Cass and Douglas had educational opportunities which in their day were
exceptional. Both attended famous academies and received instruction
in the classics, mathematics, and philosophy. Both grew up in an
environment of enlightenment an