It didn't take long for freshman Congressman Stephen A. Douglas to see
the truth of Senator Thomas Hart Benton's warning: slavery attached
itself to every measure that came before the U.S. Congress. Douglas
wanted to expand the nation into an ocean-bound republic. Yet slavery
and the violent conflicts it stirred always interfered, as it did in
1844 with his first bill to organize Nebraska. In 1848, when America
acquired 550,000 square miles after the Mexican War, the fight began
over whether the territory would be free or slave. Henry Clay, a slave
owner who favored gradual emancipation, packaged territorial bills from
Douglas's committee with four others. But Clay's "Omnibus Bill" failed.
Exhausted, he left the Senate, leaving Douglas in control. Within two
weeks, Douglas won passage of all eight bills, and President Millard
Fillmore signed the Compromise of 1850. It was Douglas's greatest
legislative achievement. This book, a sequel to the author's Stephen A.
Douglas: The Political Apprenticeship, 1833-1843, fully details
Douglas's early congressional career. The text chronicles how Douglas
moved the issue of slavery from Congress to the ballot box.