Gustave Koerner — Sophie Engelmann Koerner — Douglas, after his return to Illinois, and subsequently to the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill in , made tremendous efforts to sustain his position. At a mass-meeting in Chicago, called by his friends, he was unable to get a hearing. Only a few years before, when I had accompanied him in the presidential and gubernatorial canvass, he was the idol of the Democracy and highly esteemed even by his opponents; while now, such was the disaffection of a large majority of his own party in the north of our State, and such the hatred of the Free Soilers of the other parties, that his voice was drowned by the crowd.
Hisses, groans and curses filled the air. But he could not be forced to leave the stand, though hardly anybody could hear what he said. In another part of the city, it was said, he had been burnt in effigy.
I mention this as an illustration showing what a prodigious effect this single measure, the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, had produced. It was really the commencement of the end of the slave power. But Douglas, the very embodiment of pluck, was not discouraged. He traversed the State in every direction, supported by the administration, which used its executive power to remove Anti-Douglas men from office and to replace them by friends of the Senator. The measure was made a party test.
In the middle and the south of the State Douglas fared better; in fact, in the south the defection from the regular Democratic party was slight, except in St. Clair and one or two other counties. There were no elections of any importance in the State that fall; but, as Douglas was stirring up the people by vindicating himself, we Anti-Nebraska. The situation of the parties about this time was very peculiar. The Whig party in the South had never been strong.
It could count only on temporary victories in the State elections. On the dissolution of the party, the Whigs living in the most southerly States, generally called the Cotton States, had, owing to the slavery question, joined the Democrats.
