Douglas –“It’s all over, The darned boot has bursted and I won’t be able to reach the White House.”
This July 1, 1860 Chicago Rail Splitter cartoon identifies the split in the Democratic Party as preventing Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois, nominee of the Northern Democratic faction, from reaching the White House. “Squatter Sovereignty” was a derisive term for “popular sovereignty,” an idea advocated by Douglas that called for the voters in the territories to determine whether to legalize slavery or not.