POLITICAL INHERENCY OF GEOLOGY 333 
As an expression of local State policy, the Iowa platform of 
1859 was not such. It dealt exclusively with national affairs. Mr. 
Kasson, upon his re-election to the chairmanship of the Iowa 
State Central Committee, entered with great enthusiasm and zest 
upon the duties of forming an efficient organization in the State. 
The State platform was entirely his effort. He gave the theme 
much thought. In losing sight of his State in this matter he 
chanced to compose a document that was to drive his political 
opponents to the wall, into revolt and bloody civil war, and to 
prostrate his country for half a century. 
Kasson was maneuvered into his unique position by a strange 
combination of circumstances. He manifestly little realized at 
the time the remarkably strategic position which he really occu¬ 
pied in national affairs. It is doubtful whether he ever realized 
the grand role of the post which the Fates had decreed for him, 
but which he so signally failed to interpret. There was not at that 
time even faintly adumbrated anything of that marvelous diplo¬ 
matic acumen and tact which in after years so characterized all of 
his actions, raised him to front rank in American diplomacy, and 
stamped him one of the great statesmen of the world. Had he, 
in Chicago, displayed even the tiniest particle of those later super¬ 
lative qualities, the American Civil War might have been per¬ 
manently averted. 
If the promulgator of Squatter Sovereignty had been nominated 
a month before at the Charleston Convention, instead of at Bal¬ 
timore a month after, the Chicago Convention, it is not at all 
probable that Lincoln would have received the nomination at the 
hands of the Republicans, and even if he had received it it is not 
likely that he could have'been elected. But with the new turn 
of fortune’s wheel the old debate burst out anew and with greater 
fierceness than ever. Previous to the Chicago Convention there 
were many Republicans who were willing to support Senator 
Douglas on account of his stand on Squatter Sovereignty. Very 
little concession at that time would have appeased the Constitution¬ 
al Union Party. 
As the campaign developed Douglas soon alienated the very 
considerable Bell faction of his own party without gaining in 
place of it any of the Lincoln strength. The South early recog- 
