Dorothy sprang to her feet, clasping her hands and laughing. "Let's tell mother, come." "What?" I asked. "Why, isn't there something to tell?" "You haven't promised to marry me." "Oh!" exclaimed Dorothy, "does it have to be by so many words? Very well, yes." She took my arm and we ran to the house. We burst upon Mrs. Clayton and told her. "Oh, you children!" exclaimed Mrs. Clayton, half crying and half laughing. "After all this delay. I am so happy."

She took me by the shoulders, looked at me, drew me to her, and kissed me. "Come," she said, "it's time to go to the 'Hermitage.'" And we got into the phaeton hitched to a gentle old horse which Dorothy drove. We entered the "Hermitage" and saw Douglas and the company and the hero of New Orleans.

I presented Douglas to Mrs. Clayton and Dorothy. Then we went forward to greet Jackson. I was introduced to him and I saw Douglas taken into the arms of the great warrior and masterful President.

He was now in his 78th year, thin of face, spare of frame, his body all sinew and nerve, his eyes brilliant with unextinguished fire. I loitered near to hear what he would say to Douglas. He seemed to have a paternal pride in the young Congressman. He entwined his arm with Douglas', patted Douglas on the knee, looked into his brilliant and youthful face. And after assuring Douglas that his whole life had been a devotion to the law, he expressed deep gratitude for Douglas' defense. "I have always had enemies," he said. "Now I am an old man and can do nothing for myself, and so I am thankful to you."

The old hero's voice shook, his hand trembled. And Douglas looked down, glowing with pride and saying: "I am proud to be your defender. You are and always have been the object of my greatest admiration."

Mrs. Clayton, with a woman's tact, sought to relieve the tension of the moment. She brought Dorothy and me to the General and said: "General, my daughter has betrothed herself to this young man, Mr. Miles."

Jackson was seated upon a sofa. He arose, though with some difficulty, and taking Dorothy's head between his hands, he pressed a reverential kiss upon her brow. "I knew your father; he was a good man, a good friend. Take my blessing." And to me he said: "Mind that you are always a man with her and for her, and against all the world for her. She is worth all your devotion."

The circumstances seemed to affect him profoundly. He turned away from us, as if to hide his tears, leaving us standing in a group. Douglas joined us and extended his congratulations, and we departed together, Douglas to confer with Mr. Polk and the rest of us to return to the Clayton mansion. For there was the wedding now to consider. I wanted to take Dorothy back to Chicago with me.

Mrs. Clayton invited Douglas to take the evening meal at her house. Dorothy joined in the request and I ventured to put in a word. Douglas had to arrange then for a later call upon Mr. Polk.



CHAPTER XXXII

This dinner was the most delightful of occasions. Dorothy was in brilliant spirits. And Mrs. Clayton shared in her daughter's happiness. The colored servants, all slaves, affectionate and interested, manifested their joy in all sorts of lively and profuse attentions. I could hear them laughing in the kitchen. Mammy, the old cook, was singing; Jenny, the maid, came in and out of the dining room with dancing eyes, which she cast upon me, and scarcely less upon Douglas, who was talking in his usual brilliant way. It was pleasing to me to hear Mrs. Clayton agree with him about so many things. She was disturbed by the slavery agitation. She feared for the peace of the Southern States. She dreaded a negro rebellion. She commented upon the fact that even the domestic slaves sometimes sulked or slacked; and that this was due to the talk of the Abolitionists. It was hard enough to keep paid laborers in good discipline; how much easier to encourage the negroes to inattention to duty by attacks upon the system of slavery. But after all, what was to be done?

Douglas referred to Calhoun's attempt to exclude abolition writings from the mails. He referred to this without approving of it. For Calhoun had conceded the lack of power in the Federal government to interfere with the freedom of the press; but he contended that the states as sovereign powers could prevent the distribution of such literature within their borders. Everywhere it seemed to me the slavery question divided reason and thinking against themselves and brought great minds into absurdity.

Douglas wanted the slavery agitation to cease, but on the other hand he did not wish to interfere with the freedom of speech and of the press. Mrs. Clayton now recalled Harriet Martineau's visit to America of some eight years before. She had read Society in America and Retrospect of Western Travel. Did I know that Miss Martineau had stopped in Chicago and had described Chicago as it was then?

Douglas returned to the subject of the Abolitionists apropos of this, because Miss Martineau had made herself much disliked by siding with them. He began to talk of Horace Greeley who had helped the humbug Whigs into power in 1840 by his publication, The Log Cabin. It was now merged in the weekly Tribune, in which all sorts of vagaries were exploited: Fourierism, spiritualism, opposition to divorce and the theater, total abstinence, abolitionism, opposition to the annexation of Texas. Douglas referred to a certain Robert Owen who had thought out a panacea for poverty, who had founded an ideal community at New Harmony, Indiana, which had proven to be not ideal and had failed. Then there was a certain James Russell Lowell who was writing abolition poems and articles for the Pennsylvania Freeman and for the Anti-Slavery Standard. Douglas classed all these agitators and dreamers together in his usual satirical way. The ponderable move of national interests would crush their squeaks. Here he made one of the most humorous classifications, separating Democrats and nation builders from the ragged and motley hordes of Fourierists, Spiritualists, Abolitionists, loco-focoes, barn-burners, anti-Masonics, Know-nothings, and Whigs. He was inclined to think that the infidel belonged with these hybrid breeds. Though he did not speak of God and had never joined any church, something of a matter-of-fact Deism was subsumed in his practical attitude. The Democratic party stood alone against these disorderly elements. Nationalism and the rule of the people were his lodestars. He was the son of Jackson in the principle of no disunion, and he was the son of Jefferson in the principle of popular sovereignty.

The talk turned to Mr. Polk. As he was a resident of Nashville, Mrs. Clayton, on that ground as well as for political agreement, was heartily devoted to him. These two talked of Mr. Polk's record as a Congressman from Tennessee and later as Governor of the state. "Well," said Douglas, "he is sound on the bank, he is against the tariff, he is in favor of annexing Texas and settling the matter of Oregon. As usual the Whigs are vacillating, because their leader, Mr. Clay, is himself vacillating."

What had all this to do with Dorothy and me? We had happier things of which to think. We could commune with each other undisturbed while Douglas and Mrs. Clayton settled Texas and Oregon.

The meal was over and Douglas arose to depart. As I intended to marry Dorothy before leaving Nashville, if she would consent to do so, I was wondering what I should do about not returning to Chicago with Douglas. Accordingly I asked him if I could see him the next morning. He fixed the hour at ten o'clock, saying that a boat left for St. Louis at noon. With plans thus vaguely left, so far as they affected both of us, he departed. Mrs. Clayton said: "Reverdy has told me so much of Douglas. Now I have seen him, and he is all and more than I was led to believe."

When she left the room I asked Dorothy if we could not be married the next day. Well, but she had much to do to get ready; put the wedding off until December, or later. "You can get everything you want in Chicago," I persisted, "and I want to take you back with me." Dorothy had not talked this matter over with her mother. She was not sure that her mother could be won to a plan so hasty. "Let's see her," I said.

For the whole evening we discussed the subject. Since Mrs. Clayton's household would be broken up by Dorothy's departure, she had to readjust her life. She was thinking something of making a visit of some months in North Carolina. She could not make ready for that immediately. Why not come to Chicago with us, make her home with us? She could bring the colored servants. We talked until one o'clock. Then Mrs. Clayton advised a night's rest on the matter.



CHAPTER XXXIII

The next morning I awoke with such a feeling of repose, of being at home at last. I was lying in a poster bed, which Mrs. Clayton had told me was an heirloom from North Carolina. In my view was a lovely bureau of mahogany; on a stand a vase of roses; at the windows snowy curtains; on the walls pictures of Mr. Clayton in his soldier's uniform, and of Reverdy as a young boy and of Dorothy.

I stretched myself between the comfort of the linen sheets, and turned over on my side to smile to myself, as I looked out of the window into the trees. I was at home at last! I thought back over my voyage across the Atlantic, of the long journey from New York to Jacksonville, of Reverdy at Chicago with his Indian pony, of my illness and Zoe. All my troubles had faded away.

There was soon a knock at the door and Jenny's voice called to me that she had brought me water. I arose, dressed, and went down to the living room. Mrs. Clayton bade me such a kind good morning, kissed me on the cheek. In a moment Dorothy entered, radiant from her night's rest, and with a lover's kiss for me bestowed so happily, yet with something of mischievous reserve—all so charming!

Our thoughts were fresh for the discussion of the marriage. Mrs. Clayton thought that the wedding might take place at once, within a day or two, at least, if I would not insist upon returning to Chicago for a few weeks, or until she had opportunity to close the house preparatory to her visit to North Carolina. This arrangement quite suited me. I wanted to have Douglas present at the wedding. So I hastened away to tell Douglas what my plans were.

I found him making ready to depart, but in consultation with politicians. He was running for Congress again in Illinois, and the presidential campaign was on. But when I told him of my desire he thought for a moment, and consented. He was being importuned to make an address at Nashville. Now he would stay to do so and attend the wedding. I was very happy over these fortunate circumstances and returned quickly to Dorothy. If only General Jackson could be persuaded to come, and Mr. Polk. We had many things to do. I set about running errands for Mrs. Clayton. Dorothy was notifying her friends, getting her veil, her dress into readiness. Mammy and Jenny were cooking all sorts of delicacies; they had requisitioned old Mose who was the slave of a neighbor, Mr. Parsons, and the wedding preparations progressed with speed. I had traveled hither without the slightest expectation of this sudden consummation and therefore had no clothes suitable for the occasion. I had to attend to that as best I could.

The hour came. Douglas arrived with Mr. Polk, who had also been a friend of Mr. Clayton's. But General Jackson was unable to come. He was not strong. He sent a bottle of rare wine and a bouquet and his hearty congratulations; all by a colored messenger who was excited and voluble. General Jackson! It was less than a year when he passed from earth.

Mr. Polk was a full-faced, rather a square-faced man, with broad forehead, packed abundantly at the temples, rather intense eyes, and lines running by the corners of his nose, which slightly looped his mouth upward in an expression of decision and self-reliance. He was already called a small man. But I did not see him so. He was of pleasing presence of distinguished decorum, and chivalrous manner. But after all Douglas was the center of attraction. Mr. Polk escorted Mrs. Clayton to the wedding breakfast, and Douglas took in Mrs. Rutledge, an aunt of Dorothy's.

So we were married, and I was happy. I had found a wife and I had found a mother. Douglas departed, promising to see me in Chicago soon. The guests went their way. I was here with Dorothy, with Mrs. Clayton, Mammy, and Jenny.

There is something good for the soul in being for an hour, even if for an hour only, the central thought of every one; in having one's wishes and happiness the chief consideration of interested friends. And here were Mammy and Jenny, who had no thought but to serve me and Dorothy; here was Mrs. Clayton, who strove so gently to attend to my wants, whatever they were, to put herself at the disposal of these first hours of Dorothy's new life and mine. Mose was at the door with the horses and the carriage, loaned by his master, to drive us into the country and over the Cumberland hills. Mrs. Rutledge lingered a while in evident admiration of me, and with happy tears for the radiant delight which shone in Dorothy's face.

We set forth with old Mose, who was talking and pointing out to me the places of interest, the hills, the huts, the houses which were associated with stories or personalities of the neighborhood. And here was Dorothy by my side, scarcely speaking, her beautiful head at times, as we drove in secluded places, resting delicately upon my shoulder, her eyes closed in the beatitude of the hour.

Mrs. Clayton's position came into my mind. What was this visit to a sister? Was it not a pure makeshift, an expedient in the breaking up of her life, the first step in an accommodation to Dorothy's loss? I had such ample means. Why should she not come with me? Why separate Dorothy from her? Why leave Mammy and Jenny behind, who had served nearly the whole of their lives in this household? I had learned to like the colored people. What heart could withhold itself from Mammy and Jenny? These humble devoted souls whose lives and thoughts had no concern but to make Mrs. Clayton and Dorothy happy, and who had taken me into the circle of their interest! What were the colored people but the shadows of the white people, following them and imitating them in a childlike, humorous, innocent way? How difficult for selfishness, seeking its own happiness, to understand Mammy and Jenny, whose whole happiness and undivided heart were in giving happiness to Mrs. Clayton and Dorothy!

I spoke my plan to Dorothy, "Come, let's take mother, Mammy, and Jenny with us. Close the house for good. I want all of you. We can transfer all this happiness to Chicago. I will get a big house. I have some one now with whom to share my riches. This sharing is the beginning of my real satisfaction in life."

Dorothy took my hand, pressed her cheek against mine. "Oh, my dear, my dear!" was all she said. I felt her cheek moistening with tears. Then drawing her to me I said: "Yes, my dear, that is my wish. Let us drive back now and tell mother."

Mrs. Clayton was silent for some seconds. Then she said: "Aren't you best alone? Take Mammy and Jenny if you wish. But perhaps I can't be a mother to you, James; perhaps you won't want to be a son to me as time goes on. These things must come to mothers and fathers. The daughters find new homes and go away. I did that. And now Dorothy has the same right."

"No," I said, with emphasis, "I want you. I want to transfer this whole atmosphere to Chicago. I want all of you with me. I do not wish you to wander off on this visit. After that what, anyway? You should not be separated from Dorothy. Come, and if you want to go on a visit from Chicago, well and good."

If this was to be, there was much to do. Could we wait until the house was rented, or at least placed with an agent, the furnishings stored if necessary? Yes, I could wait and Dorothy could wait. And day by day both of us importuned Mrs. Clayton to come with us. She saw at last that it was our dearest wish. And she yielded.

In the meanwhile Dorothy and I were driving about the country or sitting under the trees in the yard, living through great rapture, mothered by Mrs. Clayton, and so constantly served by Mammy and Jenny and Mose.

Then the day came. The house was rented. Mrs. Clayton stored some of her furnishings. The choicest things she gave to Dorothy—lovely mahogany and silver.

On a morning, with Mammy and Jenny in our traveling party, with Mose helping us to the boat, hiding his saddened spirit under a forced humor, with Mrs. Rutledge and many friends to see us off, we took our departure. Again the musical whistle of the boat; again the stir and vociferous calls of the pier; again on the waters of the Ohio bound for St. Louis. Again the great Mississippi.

But Mrs. Clayton left us at St. Louis to visit Reverdy and Sarah. She would come to Chicago later.



CHAPTER XXXIV

I took a house in Madison Street, some two blocks from the lake. There was first the business of having Mammy and Jenny registered, something similar to a dog license. But Mr. Williams helped me about that.

I had not seen Abigail yet, but of course she knew that I was married. A vague faithlessness accused me. And yet I had never spoken a word of love to her. It was my admiration for her and hers for me, rising up to ask me why I had married Dorothy. Did I really know myself?

Dorothy was entranced with Chicago. She thrived under its more bracing air. She loved the bustle, the stir. We were now in the midst of the presidential campaign, and Mammy and Jenny saw political enthusiasm in a new phase. Marching men passed through the street. There were shouts, torches, many speeches on America's greatness.

Mrs. Clayton came to Chicago before the election and was all delight over the new life which had come to her. The pulsations of great vitality in the rapidly growing nation were well exemplified in Chicago's development. The country was bursting with commercial expansion; it was lusty with the infusion of strong blood from Europe. Nearly a million Irishmen and Germans had been added to the population since 1840. Illinois, as a garden spot, had received her share of these virile stocks.

The iron production, which was in a primitive stage when I arrived in America, had now grown to be a great industry. There was anthracite coal, which was first mined in Pennsylvania in 1814 on a very inconsiderable scale; and now the output was more than five million tons a year. It was supplanting wood in the making of steam. The Chippewas had ceded their copper lands on the south shore of Lake Superior, and the mining and manufacture of copper had become an extensive industry. Gold was taken in large quantities from the Appalachians. There were about five thousand miles of railroad in the country as compared with the something more than one thousand miles which it had in 1833. The telegraph was following the railroads. For in this very year, under the administration of President Tyler, $30,000 had been appropriated by Congress for the building of a telegraph line from Baltimore to Washington. But above all, the country thrilled with the prospect of acquiring Texas and settling the territory of Oregon. Douglas was at once one of the creators and one of the most conspicuous products of this great drama.

He had been reelected to Congress by a plurality of over 1700 votes over his Whig opponent. The Whigs opposed the annexation of Texas. Clay was against it. New England preached and sang against it. But Tyler had tried to negotiate a treaty for it. It had failed. He devoted much of his last annual message to Congress to the Texas subject, soliciting "prompt and immediate action on the subject of annexation." Douglas, during the campaign in Illinois and in Tennessee, had denounced those weaklings who feared that the extension of the national domain would corrupt the institutions of the country. As to war with Mexico because of Texas, let it come. The Federal system was adapted to expansion, to the absorption of the whole continent. Great Britain should be driven, with all the vestiges of royal authority, from North America. "I would make," he said, "an ocean-bound republic, and have no more disputes about boundaries or red lines upon the maps."

These words sent a thrill through the country. What had Clay to offer as a counteractant, as an equal inspiration to the pride of this lusty nation? Surely not the tariff. This imaginative impulse had carried Mr. Polk to the Presidency; but before Mr. Tyler laid down his office he was able to send a message to Texas with an offer of annexation. It was accepted, and in December of that year, 1845, Texas became a state of the Union.

Mother Clayton had come on to Chicago at last, and we were fully settled with Mammy and Jenny to run the house. My life was ideal, divided as it was between money making and participation in Chicago's development. We had Mr. and Mrs. Williams and Abigail and Aldington as a nucleus for new friendships. I could see more clearly than ever that Dorothy and Abigail were as dissimilar as two women could be. Nevertheless, they became friends. Mrs. Williams and Mother Clayton found much in common. My business relations with Mr. Williams were altogether agreeable.

I resumed my readings with Abigail and Aldington, although Dorothy was not greatly interested. Poe's Raven went the rounds this winter and created an excitement. We read Hawthorne's novels. Emerson's Essays, the second series, appeared. Then the first discordant note came between Dorothy and Abigail. For Emerson said: "We must get rid of slavery, or get rid of freedom." Abigail exclaimed over this epigrammatic truth. Dorothy looked at Abigail disapprovingly, apparently seeing in her face evidence of a different spirit than she had hitherto suspected. Aldington joined Abigail in praise of Emerson. And for the sake of a balance, I sided with Dorothy and Mother Clayton against them. Though none of us had anything to do directly with the matter of slavery, it thus cast its shadow upon our otherwise happy relationship.

In these readings too I was following with great care the career of Douglas in Congress, in which Abigail and Aldington were not so warmly interested. Douglas' early life, his adventure into the West, had put him through an experience and into the possession of an understanding which were alien to the eastern statesmen. The West was for the enterprise of the young. It was a domain of opportunity for youth, divorced from family influence and the tangles of decaying environment. Hence Texas must be assimilated, and California taken eventually, and the Oregon country acquired. An ocean-bound republic!

As for slavery, it did not enter into Douglas' calculations. I knew, however, that in spite of what any one said, he was not a protagonist of slavery. He simply subordinated it to the interests of expansion. He was willing to leave it to the new states to determine for themselves whether they should have slavery or not. With the impetuosity of his thirty-two years he slipped into a recognition of the Missouri Compromise, and was willing that slavery should be prohibited north of this line. He was generating a plague for himself which would come back upon him later.

But if Douglas' advocacy of the Texas expansion exposed him to charges of a slave adherency, nothing could be said against his cry for the taking of Oregon. The Mormons whom he had befriended without any dishonor to himself had set forth into the untraveled land of Utah. Already a band of young men from Peoria had gone into the Far West. Therefore, when he now spoke for Oregon he had a responsive ear among his own people in Illinois. If the eastern people, the dwellers in the old communities, did not kindle to Oregon, it was because they had neither the flare nor did they see the urge of this emigration and occupancy. With the rapid extension of railroads, how soon would the whole vast land be bound together in quick communication!

So it was, Douglas was offering bills in Congress for creating the territory of Nebraska, for establishing military posts in Oregon, and for extending settlements across the West under military protection. He advocated means of communication across the Rocky Mountains. He thought of his own unprotected youth. He would have the young men from Peoria and from every place feel confident in the knowledge that as builders of the nation's greatness they had the friendship and the strong arm of the government around them.

What was Great Britain doing? Reaching for California, hungering for Texas, eyeing Cuba. She hated republican institutions. She would gird them with her own monarchist principles, bodied forth in fortifications and military posts. It should not be. Douglas had said: "I would blot out the lines of the map which now mark our national boundaries on this continent and make the area of liberty as broad as the continent itself. I would not suffer petty rival republics to grow up here, engendering jealousy of each other, and interfering with each other's domestic affairs, and continually endangering their peace. I do not wish to go beyond the great ocean—beyond those boundaries which the God of nature has marked out. I would limit myself only by that boundary which is so clearly defined by nature."

Meanwhile President Polk was saying: "Our title to Oregon is clear and unquestionable." He was urging the termination of the treaty for joint occupation with Great Britain of Oregon. War! Yes, but Douglas did not fear it. At the beginning of the thirties of his years, he was leading Congress in the formation of an ocean-bound republic.

These were his words: "The great point at issue between us and Great Britain is for the freedom of the Pacific Ocean, for the trade of China and Japan, of the East Indies, and for our maritime ascendency on all these waters."

I watched these proceedings to the end, and until the Oregon territory was settled by the fixing of the 49th parallel as the boundary between Great Britain and the United States. Douglas had striven with all his might to extend the boundary to the 54th parallel. He had failed in this, and was bitterly disappointed. He had been accused of boyish dash and temerity in affronting English feeling with a larger demand. It had come to the point where I could not discuss, particularly in Dorothy's presence, these questions with Abigail. She saw nothing in these labors of Douglas but vulgar materialism. That, of course, was the farthest thing from the minds of Mother Clayton and Dorothy.

But before the Oregon compact was signed, two grave matters disturbed our peace and brought their influence into our happy household. Congress had failed to pass the bills to protect the settlers in the Oregon territory. And we were at war with Mexico.

I felt irresistibly drawn to the war.



CHAPTER XXXV

Dorothy was in terror. We had been married so short a time. Our happiness had been undisturbed. We had found such perfect enjoyment in our home. We had taken such delight in the life of Chicago.

But Mother Clayton encouraged me with bright and admiring eyes. I felt that I owed this service to Douglas. He had mapped out the boundaries of Texas. Should I not carry the sword to defend and establish them? The dream which was Douglas' had also taken possession of me.

Abigail saw nothing in the Mexican War beyond an ambition of the Southern States to extend slavery. It was a fight for cotton. The Eastern States did not like the war, the Whigs opposed the war. Illinois had many enemies of the war.

But these were the facts: Mexico had announced that the annexation of Texas would be considered an act of war. She had broken off diplomatic relations with us when we offered to annex it. She had prepared to resist the loss of Texas with force of arms. Our people were in Texas. They could not be abandoned. "How did they get there?" asked Abigail. "By pushing and adventuring where they did not belong."

President Polk had sent troops under General Taylor to defend Texas; he had sent commissioners to Mexico to make a peaceable solution of the dispute. Besides, he was anxious to get the Mexican province of California, as Douglas was, including the wonderful bay and harbor of San Francisco. Would Mexico sell them without a fight? Mexico had declined. General Taylor was therefore ordered to advance to the Rio Grande. There was war! Its shadow entered my household. Dorothy was in tears. Mammy and Jenny were shaking with fear. For I had resolved to enter the fight.

And Chicago was afire with the war spirit. The streets echoed to the music of martial bands; orators addressed multitudes in various parts of the city. Trade was stimulated. The hotels were thronged with people. The restaurants were noisy with agitated talkers. Douglas' name was on every one's tongue.

Volunteers had been called for. But Illinois could send but three regiments; she offered six to the cause. Many companies were refused. I organized a company, financing it myself. But it could not be taken, and I joined the army under the colonelcy of John J. Hardin. He it was whom Douglas had supplanted as state's attorney. Now he was to lead troops, to the vindication of Douglas' dream.

Dorothy was inconsolable for my departure. She could not have sustained the ordeal except for Mother Clayton. There were fear, anxiety, and mystical foreboding in Dorothy's heart for a different reason. She was soon to bear a child. She was loath to have me away from her in this ordeal. Yet I had to go. A whole continent moved me; great forces urged me forward. I was now an American. Martial blood stirred in me. All concerns of home, of Dorothy, sank below the great vision of war. The aggregate feelings and thoughts of a people make a superintelligence which may be mistaken for God. Of this superintelligence Douglas' voice was the great expression. I broke from Dorothy's arms, after vainly attempting to console her.

The six Illinois regiments assembled at Alton, where I had been so many times before. I was to see this town again in the most dramatic moment of my life, how unimagined in this terrible time of war. We hurried on to join General Taylor, who had already, as we learned later, won the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. Characters later to figure momentously in the history of the country were here to settle the title of Texas with the sword. Robert E. Lee, a lieutenant, was brevetted for bravery in the battles of Cerro Gordo, Contreras, Churubusco, and Chapultepec. Captain Grant had come with a regiment and joined the forces of General Taylor. He took part in the battles of Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, and Monterey; and then being transferred to General Scott's army, he served at Vera Cruz, Cerro Gordo, Churubusco, Molino del Rey, and at the capture of Chapultepec. Here too was Colonel Jefferson Davis, who led his valorous Mississippians, who put to flight Ampudia at the battle of Buena Vista. Lee, Grant, Davis, Taylor, the next President, all in arms for the ocean-bound republic of the young Congressman from Illinois!

Our Illinois troops with those from other states, numbering in all 5000 men, proceeded to Monterey, thence to Buena Vista where we were confronted by 20,000 Mexicans under the command of General Santa Anna, who had no doubt of a speedy victory over us. On Washington's birthday, Santa Anna sent a message to General Taylor to surrender, saying that he did not wish to inflict useless slaughter. General Taylor declined, and we fought.

I shall never forget my feelings, but how shall I describe them? My nerves were tense; they rang taut with unexpended energy. I felt death near me. I thought of Dorothy constantly, but I was living with fate.

The line of battle was formed where the valley was narrow. The lofty mountains were on either side of us. Torrents had gullied the plain. The Kentucky volunteers were posted at the left; the Indiana volunteers were stationed near. Our regiment, together with a Texas company, formed the remainder of the line which ran from the plain to the plateau. Extending from these towards the mountains were placed other troops from Illinois, from Indiana, and from Arkansas. Up the valley came Santa Anna, with his 20,000 Mexicans.

He had sent General Ampudia to climb the mountain and fall upon our troops at the left. The battle began in the afternoon and lasted till night.

At dawn Santa Anna advanced his troops in three columns in front of us. And the battle began to rage. The Indiana troops retreated in disorder. But the Illinoisians stood their ground, pouring forth sheets of flame upon the Mexicans. We had to retreat. We were pressed back to the narrows. Then General Taylor, hastening up, took command. Batteries were opened. Grapeshot and canister were poured into the advancing Mexicans. The cannon belched deadly fire. Colonel Davis had routed Ampudia at the left. The Mexicans began to waver in front. We from Illinois and Kentucky started in pursuit. We drove them into a deep ravine.

Here suddenly they were reenforced by 12,000 men. They shot us down like sheep. It was a slaughterhouse. But we fought like madmen. Our riflemen, the squirrel hunters of Kentucky and Illinois, picked off the Mexicans unerringly. Our batteries began to thunder again. Again the Mexicans broke order. They started to run. We pursued them through the valley, under the shadows of the great mountain. Night came.... The silence of night and of our victory.

We had won the battle! The Mexicans fled southward. Then we started to bury our dead. Our losses were terrible. So many boys from Illinois were hearsed in this bloody soil. Colonel Hardin was killed; but we were commissioned to bring his body back to Jacksonville.

This ended the war in northern Mexico. But meanwhile, as President Polk could not buy California, he seized it. He ordered an American squadron to take San Francisco and other harbors on the California coast. He sent General Kearney with a cooperating force to this end. Kearney occupied the city of Santa Fe and organized a temporary government for New Mexico. The President also sent General Scott against the city of Mexico and Vera Cruz and Cerro Gordo. These were taken; but they were used only as levers in the settlement.

What had been accomplished? We had fixed the Rio Grande as the Texas boundary; we had added California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Utah to the American domain. With Oregon acquired Douglas' ocean-bound republic was realized. Was it to prove his lasting triumph, or his undoing?

I had been gone less than a year. I was eager to reach Chicago, but I had to stop off at Jacksonville to help bury the body of Colonel Hardin. We made his grave near the grave of my father and not far from Lamborn's.

What had happened in my absence? How should I find the home that I had left? If Dorothy should be dead, or Mother Clayton, or Mammy or Jenny?

I rang the bell. Jenny came to the door. She gave a cry. Mammy came hurrying through the hall; then Mother Clayton, flinging her arms upward in dumb delight. Then Dorothy, lovely in her young motherhood, carrying our boy, the tears running down her cheeks. She could not speak. She could only rub her cheek against mine, press her lips to mine, hold our little boy's laughing and uncomprehending lips to mine. We cried. We uttered broken words.

I entered. The door closed behind me. I was home. All was well. I sat down. All looked at me. Jenny and Mammy loitered in the room. I wanted to speak. But what had I to say? Nothing! Such happiness at being home! So we sat until I broke the silence by asking: "When was the baby born?" Mother Clayton replied: "He is five weeks old to-morrow." Then we all laughed. We had broken this heavy silence with such simple words. And after that, many words, much laughter; and later a wonderful meal prepared by the delighted hands of Mammy and Jenny.



CHAPTER XXXVI

But what of Douglas? During the war I had been entirely out of touch with him. What was he doing? What had he accomplished? What was now stirring in his restless imagination? They all had news for me about him and of varied import, according to their attitude.

For one thing he had married while I was in the war. Mother Clayton approved the marriage. Abigail mocked it. For his wife was a southern woman, the owner of many slaves in Mississippi. Douglas had announced that he would have nothing to do with her property, especially with the slaves. But how was he to escape a derivative gain? So Abigail asked. I knew that he disliked the institution; but here it was touching him again in a peculiarly intimate way. Texas soiled him with its influence and now his marriage identified him with it. He might regard it, if he would, as a domestic matter like the liquor business, which Maine had just now laid low by a prohibition law. As he would not be a liquor dealer, so he would not be a slave owner. But he was the next thing to it in the circumstance of his marriage.

But in my absence he had moved to Chicago, and this gave me great happiness. I should now see much of him. He was speculating in land and growing rich. He was advocating the immediate construction of the Illinois Central railroad. He had been triumphantly reelected to Congress. The Mexican War had helped to do that for him. He was only thirty-four, but a great and growing figure.

Chicago had changed in my absence. The second water system, consisting of a reservoir at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Water Street, and a pump, operated by a 25-horsepower engine, was soon to be supplanted by a crib sunk in the lake 600 feet from shore, from which the water was to be drawn by a 200-horsepower engine. The lake traffic had increased enormously. The Illinois and Michigan canal was soon to be opened.

Mother Clayton had saved for me the copies of Niles' Register and had marked passages in Douglas' speeches in Congress, particularly his effective retorts to the aged J. Q. Adams, who pursued Douglas with inveterate hostility. It was all about the slavery question.

I looked Douglas up as soon as possible. We invited him and his young wife to dinner. Surely he had found a charming and interesting mate. We now had so much of life in common and of mutual memory to draw upon. He was eager to hear of the war, the battles I had been in. He was very proud of me and happy beyond measure that I had come out of the war without a scar.

How strange about Colonel Hardin! "An able man, that," said Douglas, "but I don't believe he ever forgave me for taking the state's attorneyship from him."

Abigail and Aldington were also at our dinner. Mrs. Douglas found herself quite at home with Mother Clayton and Dorothy. I could see, however, that she did not like Abigail.

After that Douglas and I had many meetings. He was full of ideas and absorbed in various activities. He was pugnacious and energetic. But what friends he made! He passed in and out of my view frequently, now that we lived in the same city. And before I knew it, scarcely before there was any talk of it, he was selected as United States Senator from Illinois.

It was in December of 1847. He was within some four months of his thirty-fifth birthday. He had now had an uninterrupted career of political triumph. His one defeat for Congress, when he ran the first time, could scarcely be counted against him.

But to my English eyes, in spite of all my admiration for the man, I saw much imperfection in his intellectual make-up, due in part I think to the haste with which he had lived. He had an adroitness and a fertility of mind which were altogether amazing. Yet he was like Chicago: of quick and phenomenal growth. His protective coloration was like Chicago's, which covered its ugliness and its irregularity with bunting and flags on a holiday. He was growing up rapidly, as Chicago was growing up. Chicago was facing greater problems as its population increased; and as Douglas rose into higher power, thicker complications entangled him. He dragged after him the imperfect education of his youth, the opinions of his immaturity. He was now enmeshed in the problems of the new territories, and always, slavery. Prepared or not, he would fight for his principles. If defeated he would rise quickly; if triumphant he advanced.

As leisure was possible to me, and because of Dorothy's somewhat frail health, we decided to give up the Chicago house this winter and spend the season in Washington. We would take Mother Clayton, of course, and Mammy and Jenny. I would thus have the chance to watch the contests in Congress in which I was so profoundly interested. I wished to witness Douglas' part in these great affairs. Some of the old giants were still there: Calhoun, Webster. How would Douglas face these great men? Above all, the shreds of a decaying past were stretching themselves forward to enter the texture of the new weaving. How would the two pieces be connected? Would it be a patchwork?

Douglas had come to me offering an appointment in Illinois. When I declined this, he suggested a consulship on the continent, or in London. But I could not see my way clear to leave America. I had too many interests now, and I wished to see the unfolding of events here.



CHAPTER XXXVII

We found Washington much as Dickens had described it seven years before. The avenues were broad. They began in great open spaces and faded into commons equally unbounded. They seemed to lead nowhere. There were numerous streets without houses. There were public buildings without a public. There were thoroughfares that had no markings but ornaments. The residences had green blinds and red and white curtains at the windows almost without an exception. Grass grew in the avenues. The distances were great, separating the new public buildings from easy access. Brickyards were in the center of the city, from which all the bricks had been taken, leaving only dust, which was stirred by gusts of wind filling the air at times to suffocation. Pennsylvania Avenue was grotesque with its big and little buildings, its small and impoverished shops set between the more splendid windows of jewelry and fabrics. It was in such sharp contrast with Chicago. No noise here. No smell. Instead of lumbering drays, many carriages; instead of bustle, leisure; instead of commercial haste, languid strolling along Pennsylvania Avenue. And there at its head stood the unfinished Capitol; and at its other end the executive mansion now occupied by President Polk, and soon to be the residence of the hero of the Mexican War, Zachary Taylor; and soon of Millard Fillmore.

Dorothy and I and Mother Clayton visited the places of interest at once. We went to the Patent Office and saw the model of the Morse telegraph. We looked at the Declaration of Independence displayed in a glass case at the Department of State. We stood before Trumbull's pictures of the celebrated men of an earlier day. We went to the room of the Spring Court, saw the judges in their black robes, the thin intellectual Chief Justice Taney at the center. We went to the slave market, where the capital of the republic trafficked in human flesh for itself and the surrounding country. Lottery tickets were openly sold. Negroes thronged the streets. They were the domestic servants, the laborers, the hackmen. A raggedness, a poverty, a shiftlessness, characterized external Washington. Washington was not Chicago.

We found that Douglas had settled himself handsomely with his young and charming wife. He entertained a great deal, and was entertained in turn. We dined back and forth with each other. And because of Mrs. Douglas' friendship Dorothy found her social pleasures assured and advanced.

Washington like other cities in America was struggling out of the earth. The whole country was in a similar throe. Everywhere were great dreams partly realized. One could not help but imagine what the nation would become, just as one could not look at the unfinished Capitol at the end of Pennsylvania Avenue without completing its lines in imagination.

We had come to New York City by boat, as I had gone to Chicago by boat in 1833; but in New York we had taken a train to Philadelphia, claimed our baggage at the station, transferred to another station, and taken another train through Baltimore to Washington. The cities of the East were now in telegraphic communication with each other: Washington with Baltimore and New York; Philadelphia and Newark were joined. Polk's election had been flashed by the telegraph. And news now came to Washington on every subject: markets, fires, catastrophes, elections. The public press was very active. The country was in a ferment. The great West agitated the more sensitive, the listening East. From beyond the Atlantic news of thrilling import poured upon us. In truth the whole world was trembling at the threshold of a new era. Douglas was keenly conscious of these world changes. They occupied my own thoughts.

In France Louis Philippe had been dethroned, a republic had been established with Louis Napoleon as President. The ideas of the revolution had worked a democratic triumph as to the suffrage and the form of the government. This was February, 1848, the same month that Douglas made his first speech in the Senate.

This February revolution in France had lighted the fires of liberty throughout Europe. In England there was agitation and violence. The people there were demanding the right to vote. In Italy there was a cry for reform and free constitutions. Mazzini was proclaiming the fact that the people in Spain, Hungary, Germany, Poland, Russia, were oppressed. He called the cause of all peoples a common cause. The French Revolution had announced the liberty, equality and fraternity of individual men; the new revolution should proclaim the liberty, equality and fraternity of nations. Cavour and Garibaldi were getting ready to bring about the unification of Italy. The Germans had gained some liberties in 1830. But when Paris broke into shouts for freedom in 1848, the news went across the Rhine and the German liberals arose and demanded a constitutional government. Metternich was obliged to flee the country. The Emperor Ferdinand abdicated in favor of his nephew, and the people's constitution was granted. There were rioting and bloodshed in the streets of Berlin.

As a result of all this, thousands of Europeans were fleeing to America, the land of the free. Yet there were the slave markets in Washington, New Orleans, all through the South. And Congress was about to consider the new territory which had come as a result of the Mexican War and the Oregon settlement. How would Douglas react to these world movements? How would he interpret them? Who could stand against this world-wide avalanche? With the North now greatly the superior of the South in wealth, in railroads, mines, in agricultural productiveness, what could the South do for her slaves and her cotton? What would the Titans—iron, coal, gold, copper, wheat, corn—do to the Giant of cotton?

I heard Douglas' first speech in the Senate and interpreted it against this background. He had already been made chairman of the committee on territories, and thus placed in the very midst of the fight touching the annexations. The great Webster was here. He had opposed the annexation of Texas and the Mexican War, and was the spokesman of the Whig party. He had split metaphysical hairs with Calhoun, also here. Calhoun declared that the Constitution was over the territory and by that fact carried slavery into it; no imperialism in America. To this Webster rejoined that the territory was the property of the United States and not a part of it. Hence the Constitution was not over it and slavery could be kept out of it. This was implied powers in favor of liberty. Calhoun's doctrine was: Constitutional government in the interests of slavery. To such dialectics had the matter come. Mazzini might contend for liberty, equality, and fraternity for individuals and nations. Here in America the questions were more subtle. Clay was not here but soon to be here. Hale of New Hampshire was here, an astringent personality, eager to challenge young Douglas from Illinois.

The question was the Mexican treaty. Senator Hale injected abolitionism into Douglas' speech. Calhoun characterized Douglas' retort to Hale as equal in offensiveness to Hale's remark, which elicited the retort. The battle was on. We now had occasion to be proud of our friend. He stood forth with such self-possession, such dignity. With great emphasis he announced that he had no sympathy with abolitionism; but neither did he look with favor upon the extreme view of the South. "We protest," said Douglas, in his great musical voice, facing the southern Senators, "against being made puppets in this slavery excitement, which can operate only against your interests and the building up of those who wish to put you down. In the North it is not expected that we should take the position that slavery is a positive good, a positive blessing. If we did assume such a position it would be a very pertinent inquiry, why do you not adopt this institution? We have moulded our institutions in the North as we have thought proper; and now we say to you of the South, if slavery be a blessing, it is your blessing; if it be a curse, it is your curse; enjoy it—on you rests all the responsibility. We are prepared to aid you in the maintenance of all your constitutional rights; and I apprehend that no man, South or North, has shown more constantly than I a disposition to do so. But I claim the privilege of pointing out to you how you give strength and encouragement to the Abolitionists of the North."

Mother Clayton had been long schooled in the questions which vexed the matter of slavery. She thought Douglas showed great courage in these words, but she was not satisfied with them. She felt that the South had not been protected in its rights and that Douglas owed it to the South to stand with the southern Senators. His position was not definite enough to suit her. He should say that slavery went into the territories by law, or was kept out by law. Douglas' thesis might be judicial but it laid him open to doubts.

This was our talk as we walked away from the Capitol. Dorothy was fatigued by the experience. She was interested, but the debate exhausted her. What she wished more than anything was peace for the whole country.



CHAPTER XXXVIII

I had had a delirium in the serious illness through which Zoe had nursed me, in which a blue fly crawling up the windowpane, sliding down the windowpane, buzzing in the corner of the frame where it could neither climb nor get through nor think of returning into the room—in which this fly took on the semblance of Napoleon. My imagination was then full of Napoleon; and my father had suffered because of him at the battle of Waterloo. And as I sat in the gallery of the Senate, Webster, Calhoun, Hale, Cass, and Douglas reminded me of this hallucination. They seemed to me like flies at the windowpane of Texas and California and Oregon, beating their wings against the dark glass of the future. They were like insects, caught in the rich gluten of circumstances and buzzing as they sought to make their way.

This winter sad news came to me of the death of my dear grandmother, whom I had planned all along to see again. Now it could not be. My life had been hurried forward with such varied events, and with all the rapidity of America's development. I had worked with great industry in putting the farm on a paying basis. I had run at high speed in Chicago. I was still living fast in plans and activities. Douglas was full of the subject of railroad extension, and I was drawn into that. He was trying to formulate a plan for the Illinois Central railroad; and my interests in Chicago drew me to that plan. He was also talking of founding a university in Chicago. These were the subjects of our many talks. Our visits took place at his house or at mine, as he rarely went with me to the places of amusement which I frequented.

A theatrical company had come to Washington from New York which was playing in repertoire, Jack Sheppard, Don Cesar de Bazan, His Last Legs, London Assurance, Old Heads and Young Hearts, and some other dramas. Dorothy and Mrs. Douglas were devotees of the theater. I enjoyed Richelieu and Macbeth, and I had seen Forrest as Sir Charles Overreach and Claude Melnotte; but for many of the plays I did not care. Douglas was indifferent to the theater. He was himself too much of a player on the stage of American affairs to be illusioned by any mimic representation.

On a night when Dorothy and I were dining with Douglas and Mrs. Douglas, Dorothy and Mrs. Douglas conceived the idea of going off to see the play of Charlotte Temple; for we had overflowed the lesser talk at the dinner table by our discussion of railroads. Accordingly they left us, and Douglas and I settled down to an intimate evening, of which we were beginning to have many. We set a quart bottle of whisky between us, drinking from it from time to time as the evening progressed. Both of us had a fair capacity. And without either of us becoming more than well stimulated, we nearly consumed the bottle by the time Mrs. Douglas and Dorothy returned.

This evening I studied Douglas with more than usual care. I had been struck at dinner by his great devotion to Mrs. Douglas. He treated her with a high-bred chivalry, a constant kindness. I was really trying to get at the emotional side of his nature as to things that did not relate, for example, to an ocean-bound republic. After all, his attitude toward men was one of guarded friendship. He attached men to himself with ardor and loyalty. In turn he gave loyalty and a certain ardor too. But he was really analytical of men. He was suspicious of disinterested friendship. He saw selfish considerations as the social bond. Hence he had less and less patience with New England. The radicals who talked God and benevolence and fraternalism were anathema to him. They had nothing to lose; therefore, they could chant a goodness as to the loss of others; they could praise self-sacrifice, having nothing themselves to sacrifice. As for human love, what was it but the feeling evoked by consideration? Pay a man well and he will love you. Give him good working conditions and he will tolerate the service. Put him to the test by short pay or bad conditions and he will hate you. All of this pointed to the love of men and women. I tried to draw him out on this. I do not know what the lack of his mind was, whether of subtlety or imagination. At any rate it was a realm of thought to which his face was a blank, and to which his mind seemed to have no reaction.

He turned now to the Oregon settlement. He was still furious over it, still indignant at Polk. He had stood for 54:40 as the northern boundary; he was chagrined at the 49th parallel. Why had Polk fulminated first for 54:40 and faded off to the 49th parallel? England! He hated my mother country with a deep and rancorous hatred. Coming from Vermont he had taken into his bones a poison for the British atrocities of the Revolution; he loathed England for her conduct of the War of 1812, the ruthless burning of Washington, with all its priceless records of the early days of the republic. He was eager, restive to fight England. England's invulnerableness tantalized him; her habitual luck infuriated him. Her ownership of the right thing at the right place and time mystified him. Concretely now there were the Mosquito Islands off the coast of Honduras which England claimed to own, but Douglas thought without any right. He was advocating the cutting of a canal across Nicaragua. What would England do? She would try to use the Mosquito Islands as a basis of agreement for joint control with the United States of the canal—in spite of the Monroe Doctrine. Why would not all statesmen rise with him in the assertion of a title to the whole of North America? Was America in the business of pirating around the shores of Europe to pick up islands, or promontories like Gibraltar? Not at all. Then why should England be tolerated in this Western Hemisphere? What divided the American imagination? The old loyalists and royalists who had become the Federalists under Hamilton, who were now the Whigs with the same banking scheme, the same old tariff, the same old hatred of democratic government, the same hypocrisy, the same disingenuous and devious policies. There was but one American party, one pure-blooded party, good for the East and the West, friendly to every just thing that the East desired, understanding the West; that was the Democratic party! It stood for America. It envisioned the needs of the greatness of America. It had fought the war against England and Mexico. It had created the American domain. And now these old defeated and crooked monarchists who had stood in the way of America's progress were seizing upon a moral issue, upon slavery, with which to befool a democratic electorate naturally responsive to the arguments of liberty. They had opposed the Mexican War; they had brought up the slavery question at every important juncture to confound counsels and perplex otherwise easy solutions. But what one of them would give back Texas, New Mexico, California, to Mexico? Would Webster? Would Hale? No, not one of them would do this.

The campaign of 1848! What would the Whigs do? They would use this Democratic Mexican War to get into power. They would appeal to the war spirit which they had dishonored; they would use a national gratitude for service in the despised war to get the offices and control the administration. Would Clay win the Whig nomination? Not at all. It would be Zachary Taylor, the hero of the Mexican War, the slave owner of Louisiana. This party was over virtuous on the slavery matter, lending an unofficial ear to Garrison and other agitators, but it had been careful not to take a party stand on the question. It would continue to play with the subject. It would put forward a southern slave owner to catch the southern Whigs, and at the same time use his war record to move the pure-blooded and American vote.

Would the Abolitionists put up a ticket? Perhaps. What would come of arraying section against section? Suppose slavery could be put to a vote. In 1840 the Abolitionists had polled 7,000 votes in the country. In 1844, 60,000. This proved that it was not difficult to throw a firebrand into America's affairs. Suppose this vote grew and an Abolitionist President should ultimately be elected? What of American progress in such a contingency? What of a wrecked republic before the greedy eyes of England, the envious hands of kings? Why should such folly be? Let the slavery question alone. Keep it out of the way of American development. Let the territories decide for themselves whether they would have slavery or not; let the states coming in do so, with slavery or without, as they chose.

We took a drink every now and then, and Douglas turned to the subject of railroad extension. He told me of a certain Asa Whitney. Whitney had lived in China. He had returned to America in 1844, urging that a railroad across the continent would bring the trade of China to the United States and enable American merchants to control it. If a canal were built, supplemented by a railroad across that part of the Isthmus of Panama not traversed by the canal, about 115 miles, the distance between New York and San Francisco would be shortened by 1100 miles, and from New Orleans to San Francisco by 1700 miles. This related to the proposed Tehuantepec canal. Ah! but England had already got an interest in this route. So Whitney proposed a railroad from Lake Michigan through the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. He had laid this plan before the Senate in 1845, showing that if a railroad were built the journey from New York to the mouth of the Columbia River could be made in eight days, and to China in thirty days. A naval station on the Columbia River, but eight days from Washington city, and the Pacific could be commanded; next, the Indian Ocean and the South Seas. Oregon would become a great state at once. The commerce of China, Japan, Manila, Australia, Java, Calcutta, and Bombay would be ours. What would England say to this? Oh, yes, the Abolitionists might object! Freedom for the negro at any sacrifice. "Let us have a drink," said Douglas, with a laugh.

"I am for this plan," said Douglas. "True, he wants $65,000,000—that is, he wants to raise that much and has asked Congress for a grant of land sixty miles wide across the continent with which to get the money. He is on a lecture tour now, I hear, and has got the Boards of Trade of New York, Cincinnati, Louisville, and some others to favor his plan. As usual, like all other things, the rivalry between the North and the South will affect the route. The Mexican annexations make it necessary to run the road farther south. There is to be a convention in St. Louis soon about the matter, and I intend to go to it."

"What do you think about gold being discovered in California? Now I wonder if Webster does not want to give California back to Mexico. A good joke on us if the Whigs win the next election. How can they play with things in this way?"

We heard some one at the door. Douglas stood up, poured himself another drink, and said: "To the University of Chicago."

Then Dorothy and Mrs. Douglas entered. Mrs. Douglas pointed to the nearly empty bottle and said: "You have had a good time I see." She sat on the arm of Douglas' chair and began to smooth out his unruly locks. "You missed a good play," she said. "We had a very good drama here," said Douglas. Dorothy was pulling at me to go home.

When we arrived we found Mother Clayton laughing and scolding over Dickens' American Notes.



CHAPTER XXXIX

Our stay in Washington had come to an end and the campaign was on.

I was building a business block in Chicago, which had come to a tangle owing to labor conditions. Throughout the country there was a movement for the ten-hour day, and there were many strikes, particularly in the East.

We decided to return to Chicago by way of New York. Dorothy was in great anxiety about Mammy and Jenny lest they be kidnapped along the way. Desperate characters were about who picked up negroes in the North and sold them in the South. It was as common a matter as robbing a bank or picking a pocket. We kept a close watch on Mammy and Jenny. In New York we rode together in a carriage. But this was also made necessary by the fact that negroes were not permitted to use the street cars.

The city now had half a million people; but I found the old places, like Niblo's Garden, and again walked to Washington Square whither I had taken my lonely way so many years before. Leaving our boy, Reverdy, with Mammy and Jenny at the Astor House, Dorothy and I spent much time in sightseeing.

Broadway was our particular delight. Though it was poorly paved, and dimly lighted at night, it was a scene of great fascination. It was the great promenade. Omnibuses, cabs, hacks, trucks rolled through it all day long. There were footmen in livery; luxury was displayed in the equipages. There were crowds of foreigners; and ragged boys and girls who sold matches or newspapers. New York had the penny newspaper. We looked out upon the street in the early morning, when the workers streamed to their tasks. We saw it at breakfast time, when the bankers hurried toward Wall Street, and the lawyers were going to court, or to their offices in Nassau and Pine streets. In the afternoon ladies, richly dressed, dandies, and loafers crowded the sidewalks. There was fashion in abundance; wonderful silks, ermine cloaks, furs, feathers, gorgeous costumes of all sorts. Gold had been discovered in California! The Mexican cessions and Oregon could be felt on Broadway. In the shops articles from every part of the world were for sale. There were ladies' oyster shops, ladies' reading rooms, and ladies' bowling alleys.

We drove to the new residence districts, like La Fayette Place, Waverly Place, Washington Square, and lower Fifth Avenue. We went down to the Battery from which I had looked with lonely eyes on the ships and the bay fifteen years before. The sailing vessels were giving way to the steamship. The Cunarder Canada was in port, 250 feet long, of 2000 horsepower, and with a speed of eleven knots an hour. Everywhere we encountered the New York policemen who had taken the place of the night-watch of 1833. They were all in uniform too. They had made a fight against the uniforms, upon the principle that all men are free and equal, and that they would not be liveried lackeys. But they had come to it. We also attended the theater frequently, like the Chatham and the Olympic. But most wonderful of all was Barnum's Museum, in which that great showman had collected dwarfs and giants, fat women and human skeletons.

I felt impelled to hurry to Chicago, but Dorothy wanted to shop and so we stayed on. One day I had an agreeable surprise in meeting with Yarnell as we were entering the Astor House. I had not seen him since I parted with him in 1833, on my way west. He was now about forty-five years of age, but looked as youthful as when I first saw him, and was more of a dandy. He touched my arm as I passed him. I recognized him at once and presented him to Dorothy. As Dorothy was anxious to return to our son, she left me with Yarnell who wished to join me at luncheon.

He took me to the Hone Club, which was the resort of good livers and men about town. After ordering the meal we set to the comparison of notes. He was eager to hear about the West and of Chicago. He could scarcely believe that Detroit and Milwaukee had a population of about 20,000 each, and that Chicago had distanced them with 30,000. I told him of our canal, which was done, and of our great shipping. Illinois had more than 300 miles of railroad, and we were building more at a rapid rate. This led, of course, to Douglas. Yarnell wanted to hear more of him. I told Yarnell of the beginning of my friendship with Douglas; how he had helped me from the stage to Mrs. Spurgeon's house in Jacksonville; of our friendship since that time, and of our winter in Washington. Then we fell to talking of Webster and Seward. Seward was a power in New York, now about forty-seven years of age; but Yarnell did not like him. Webster had wavered, particularly before the logic of Calhoun. But, after all, was not Webster cribbed by his New England environment? Seward had since been an anti-Masonic, had attended its national convention in 1830. Then he had joined the Whigs, in order to oppose Jackson. Nearly all lunacies had gone into the composition of the Whigs. What about this observance of the law, the higher law included? Why did not Seward honor the requisition of the Governor of Virginia for the return of a fugitive slave? Then we took up Greeley. His daily Tribune was now having an enormous circulation. Greeley and Seward were not friends, but there was much of spiritual kinship between them. We grew humorous over recounting the new movements: Spiritualism, women's rights, and temperance. "Do you know what happened right here in New York?" said Yarnell. "The Millerites got ready for the Second Advent of Christ, and there was a shop in the Bowery which displayed a large placard with the words 'muslin for ascension robes.'"

"Don't you see how clearly Douglas' compact mind stands out against all this folly?" "Yes," said Yarnell, "but how is Douglas going to stand out against it? These various reformers never get tired, and they are so numerous that they will overwhelm any man. Besides that, you find able minds like Seward and Greeley taking up with them. Is it the same way out in Chicago?" "Not so much so," I said. "We have many foreigners out our way, and they give a different quality to the civilization. Come out and see."

Yarnell walked with me back to the Astor House, and we parted.

I found Dorothy in tears, almost hysterical. Jenny, in her absence, had stepped from the room for a moment. She had not returned. She could not be found. I went on the streets, I searched everywhere. I drove to the open squares, to the Battery. I enlisted the aid of policemen, but they were none too friendly. I went to the Tribune and inserted an advertisement. The hotel employees took a hand. But no Jenny. She was deeply attached to our boy. She could not have willingly wandered away. She must have been kidnapped.

Dorothy cried herself to sleep. I sat through half the night at the window, looking out upon Broadway, listening, at last, to the stir and sounds of dawn. Jenny had been in the Clayton family almost from her birth; an associate of Mammy's for many years. The affection that existed between Dorothy and Jenny was intimate and tender. Dorothy depended upon her for everything. I went to Dorothy and took her in my arms, trying to console her. She was as deeply affected as if she had lost a sister. All that day we searched for Jenny. The days went by, and we did nothing but try to find her. Our loss became the talk of the hotel. The newspapers took up the story. Where was Jenny; in whose hands; what fate had she met? Our boy cried for her, and Mrs. Clayton was inconsolable. But at last we had to move on to Chicago. Was Jenny kidnapped? We never knew. We only knew that we never saw her again. This was the sordidness of slavery, its temptation to the meanest passions, the lowest lusts. The loss of Jenny made me hate it.



CHAPTER XL

I had many business vexations on returning to Chicago. But also the campaign of 1848 was on, and I was deeply interested in it. I had passed through the panic of 1837, but I was not then conscious that a labor movement was on. That panic had stayed it, for a mason or a carpenter was glad of work in those hard days. Then prosperity had revived and now it was in full tide due to a world condition; but in America also due to expansion and railroad building. Mr. Van Buren, in 1840, then being President, and seeking, as his enemies said, to influence the labor vote, had issued an executive order to the effect that laborers and mechanics need work but ten hours a day. Soon after this the bricklayers of Pittsburgh formed a union, the journeyman tailors of Washington opened a shop of their own; the workingmen of Philadelphia got into politics with an Equal Rights party. The laborers everywhere were advocating organization and cooperation and strikes as a means to good wages. In New York the laborers' union association had demanded a dollar a day, made out a political program, which involved opposition to any candidate who did not support the interests of workingmen. Sometimes the militia had to be called out, as in 1846 when some Irish workers on a strike were supplanted by Germans. Horace Greeley had naturally taken a hand in this movement. It attracted the humanitarian mind. The revolutionary processes in Europe of this year, the success of the socialists in France, had a marked influence upon the conditions in America. Meetings were held to congratulate the Chartists in England, the followers of Louis Blanc in France. Strikes were on in Boston and Philadelphia. I was caught in this world drift. I had a strike on my building in Chicago.

I had left my affairs in the hands of an agent manager, who did not assume authority to meet the terms of the strikers. Upon my return I was obliged to settle it myself. I did this by promptly acceding to the demands made upon me. What was a quarter of a dollar more a day to me? I wanted my building to be finished.

One could not escape observing all this rebellion abroad and in America, this awakening of the worker, this fight for human rights upon slavery in the South, even if he did not have it brought to his mind in the concrete way that I did. Slavery might be wrong, that was one thing; it might cut into the rights, first or last, of the free worker; but if the negro was owned in body and in energy, and his labor taken for nothing, except the food, shelter, and clothing required to keep him efficient, was that anything but just a matter of degree from the case of the white man who was paid so much a day, enough to give him food, shelter, and clothing, and thus keep him a fit machine? Thus there was a moral sympathy between the white workers and the black workers; all were making money for an upper man. If it was wrong to appropriate all the black man's labor, it was wrong to appropriate too much of the white man's labor. The Declaration of Independence was a hard nut to crack. While only a few hare-brained agitators wanted negro equality, even Douglas did not like slavery.

The new lands of the West brought fresh troubles to Douglas and desperate struggles to the South. The emigration of revolutionaries from Europe added to the enemies of the slave system. It was hard for them to understand that the Declaration of Independence did not include the negro.

This was the state of affairs in the campaign of 1848. The Democrats had nominated Mr. Cass, of Michigan, for President, and presented him to the people on a platform which placed the responsibility for the Mexican War upon the aggressions of Mexico; it congratulated the American soldiers of that war for having crowned themselves with imperishable glory; it tendered to the Republic of France fraternal salutations upon the success of republican principles, upon the recognition by the French of the inherent right of the people in their sovereign capacity to make and amend their forms of government. It spoke for American Democracy, a sense of the sacred duty, by reason of these popular triumphs abroad, to advance constitutional liberty, to resist monopolies. It advocated a constant adherence to the principles and compromises of the Constitution. It praised the administration of Mr. Polk for repealing the tariff of 1842, and making a start toward free trade.

And not a word about slavery. The convention voted down a resolution which favored "non-interference with the rights of property of any portion of the people of this confederation, be it in the states or the territories, by any other than the parties interested in them."

What of the Whigs? They made no declaration of principles whatever. Complete silence. They nominated General Taylor, as Douglas had predicted, upon his record in the Mexican War, the war successfully prosecuted by President Polk, and through which California, with her gold, had come to the United States. Taylor, the slave owner of Louisiana! But this was not the end of Whig cunning. Millard Fillmore was nominated for Vice President. He was from New York, had been in Congress, had opposed the annexation of Texas, was a tariff man, had fought side by side with J. Q. Adams for the abolition of slavery. But also he had been the Congressman who had carried the appropriation of $30,000 for Morse's telegraph. A mixed man! His good was Taylor's evil. Taylor's evil was his good.

Well, the native Americans had a ticket in the field; the Barn-burners had a ticket in the field; and the Abolitionists. Mr. Van Buren was running for President as a Barn-burner on a platform which declared that there should be no more slave states, and no more slave territory. Where was I to stand amid all this confusion and contradiction? Naturally with Douglas. But I wanted to see what he had to say.

It was not long before he came to Chicago and our interesting association was renewed. He had had something of a quarrel with Mr. Polk, but it had been patched up. Before now he had proposed that the line of the Missouri Compromise be extended to the Pacific Ocean. Was he, too, becoming uncertain of mind? Sometimes I thought he was overworked, that his energies were concerned with too many subjects. He was making speeches; he was talking railroads; he had his own political fortunes to watch. The Whigs were gaining ground. He scoffed at them. He derided their hypocrisy. He laughed at their piebald character. Yet he saw a cunning plot in this presentation to the electorate of men who appealed so diversely: Taylor of the South, and of slavery; Fillmore of the North, and of free soil, backed by the powerful mercantilism of the North, like the bank and the tariff. Both were using Jefferson to win the mob, and Hamilton to satisfy the strong.

It was in the fall just before the election that Reverdy and Sarah came to visit us, bringing Amos, now about fourteen, and Reverdy Junior, about twelve, and Nancy, who was ten.

The Douglases came to dine with us, and after the dinner Reverdy, Douglas, and I retired to the library. Again we had the bottle between us, but Reverdy was an abstainer. He was satisfied with Douglas' personal attitude toward slavery; Douglas' evident wish that the institution was not among us; his refusal to have anything to do with Mrs. Douglas' slaves. Reverdy was a man of peace and believed that Douglas' non-interference policy would ensure peace. He approved of leaving the matter of slavery to the people of the territories. He feared a war, and he opposed the agitation that might bring it. At the same time, he preferred a free soil and a free people. Reverdy was typical of many men in America. And indeed, my heart went with Reverdy in these things, even while my thinking went with Douglas.

Douglas was now the master of his party in Illinois, and it seemed to me that no one could dispute his leadership in the nation. He had perfected the party organization in the state from the small beginnings of which I have told. He was proud of his work and the strength and discipline of his party. He looked forward to victory this fall over the hermaphroditic ticket of Taylor and Fillmore. He was never more brilliant than he was this evening. He was compelling to look at, not when standing, for then his short legs caricatured and belittled his great body. But when he was seated his wonderful face and majestic head truly represented his nature.

Outside the house, in the streets, we could hear the cries, "free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men!" Douglas looked annoyed, ironic lights passed across his face. He said in a satiric way: "Just listen to that." These cries could not be met by direct denial, by an epigrammatic retort. One could not so aptly say "slave banks, slave tariffs, slave labor conditions." These required arguments to expound. If labor conditions presaged slavery for white men were they freed by negro slavery? Was not this roar outside of the house a part of the tumult in Germany and France? Was not this America hailing Europe? Had not this crowd caught up the Democratic platform which congratulated the republicans of France? What would the German vote do, the Irish vote, all the foreign vote? Had not the Whigs, marching through these streets of Chicago, captured all the effective thunder of the Democratic party?

As Douglas sat before us I saw him as a giant around whom great forces were gathering. The light played a curious trick with his forehead, throwing part of it into fantastic shadows. There was a moment's silence in which the deep brilliancy of his eyes flashed upon me. Then his great voice spoke again: "It is easy to have a war—among ourselves." Reverdy looked at Douglas in a sort of terror. Just then Amos came to the door to call us to see a political parade which was passing the house.

We three arose, joining Mother Clayton, Dorothy, and Mrs. Douglas who were already watching it. It was a demonstration of Free Soilers. Douglas had voted against the prohibition of slavery in Texas. This was the answer. These banners, bearing the words "Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men," were the challenge. The men who bore them did not know how to apply their principles to anything but the negro. Douglas knew this. At the same time he knew that he had helped to create this demonstration, that he had been influential in initiating this new momentum.

I looked at Douglas to see what effect the shouts, the pushing, running, limp-stepped throng would have upon him. A smile flitted across his face. His eyes were intense and concentrated. He made no comment. The last men of the parade passed with shouts. A drunken marcher fell. The lights faded. We turned into the room. Douglas was laughing.



CHAPTER XLI

What was the result? General Taylor had 1,360,099 votes and 163 electoral votes; Cass had 1,220,544 votes and 127 electoral votes. The Abolitionists polled 300,000 votes in the country. The Free Soilers had polled 291,263 votes in the country. Illinois was lost to General Taylor. The Free Soilers had swept the northeastern counties. There had been great Democratic desertions. Voltaire and Rousseau were still at work. These fermentations of Europe had bubbled and exploded around Chicago. The concrete thing known as negro slavery heard the rumble of the ground. The tariff, the bank, imperial power in Congress unwittingly renewed their strength—unwittingly on the part of the Free Soilers.

A slave owner had become President; a man of the fresh blood of the northwest of Michigan had been defeated. A New Yorker, wedded to the tariff, had been put in place to be President by the death of General Taylor. And Douglas found the forces that were to embattle him drawing up in line.

The state was saved to the local offices. The legislature was Democratic, but it proceeded soon to instruct Douglas as Senator to procure the enactment of laws for the territories for the exclusion of slavery from them. The members from Egypt, however, sustained Douglas in his position against the Wilmot Proviso, which sought to keep slavery from Texas. The state was thus disrupted. The opposition to the extension of slavery dated from 1787, from the work of Jefferson in 1800. However, let the people of the territories decide the matter. Local self-government was a popular cry. Between saying that Congress could keep slavery out of the territories, thereby treating the territories as property, not as subordinate sovereignties, and Congress sending slavery into the territories, because the Constitution was over them, what juster pragmatism were possible than to let the people of the territories decide the matter for themselves? If the general government was one of granted powers, where did it get the right to prohibit slavery in the territories? No such power could be indicated.

Oh, well, there was opportunity for infinite speculation. At the same time, here were the territories and here was slavery. The powerful North was assuming a definite opposition to a weaker South. Iron and coal were stronger than cotton. What was to be done by a man who had the burdens of leadership? How should the whole people be at peace? Since slavery could not be removed from the states, why not let its tendrils creep into the territories and there flourish or wither according to the soil? Since it was practical, not radical policy to confine it to the states, and not to abolish it in the states, it was practical and not radical policy to let the territories decide the matter for themselves. If the first course aroused the fury of the Abolitionists, the second course found no favor with the Free Soilers, and ambitious Whigs, drawing upon abolitionism and free soilism for food, for northern mercantilism and for a larger slavery of both blacks and whites.

I had now lived so long in America, seen so much of the country, read so extensively of politics and history, that I was able to follow the questions involved in this crisis. All the while I had the benefit of Douglas' association, who talked to me intimately of his own plans and of persons and issues, as they arose. There were calls upon him now to resign the Senatorship; but he had no intention of doing so. His fighting blood was aroused. He was hardened to contests and to misunderstanding and abuse. He had been berated for coarseness and charged with the half-culture of the West. His sagacity had been caricatured as cunning; his presence of mind taken for vulgar audacity; he was held up as a half-educated debater, filled with a miserable self-sufficiency. He was attacked as a demagogue. The East held itself aloof from him in unctuous self-righteousness, because of his stand in the Mexican War. His fight for Oregon had aligned against him the friends of England in America. Yet men were in power because of him. A Whig had been elected President upon a war record of a fight for Texas. Who wished to part with Texas, New Mexico, California, or Oregon?

If Douglas had the slavocracy back of him and catered to it, he did not have plutocracy back of him. If he had been a demagogue he would have done the bidding of some faction. He did the bidding of no faction. His mind was budding with railroads now, for the Far West. What he was now doing made for a money control of the country in the future; but that was not apparent to him. What one of us saw that we could not make an ocean-bound republic without a supremacy of wealth, even if it was brought about by a plebiscite? This did not make it democratic.

It was at this time that Mother Clayton's health began to be frail, and Dorothy was by no means strong. The winters in Chicago had been very trying upon both of them. Just now I had so many interests that I could not leave the city. But Mother Clayton wished to return to Nashville for a few months, and Dorothy decided to go with her. Our boy was not as robust as we should have wished. Mammy, by no means to be left out of our consideration, was aging and longed for the old scenes of Nashville. We closed our house, and I went to the hotel. Then Abigail and Aldington were married. They went abroad to study European conditions. Thus the most of my associations were interrupted. All but those I had with Douglas.

To go to Nashville was an inconvenient trip, but I made it on several occasions. Once on a mission of deep sorrow. Mother Clayton died in June just as she and Dorothy were preparing to join me in Chicago. I was thinking of going to California on account of the gold discoveries. So I brought Dorothy and Mammy back, although Mammy was very old and could not be of much service.

Thousands were turning their faces to the West. How to get there, how to equip oneself, were the questions. Some went by Cape Horn, some by the Isthmus of Panama, some by the overland route. Thousands joined companies. Others bought ships or chartered them. The wildest of rumors spread of the richness of the discoveries. Fabulous reports of fabulous prices and wages in California were scattered broadcast. I wanted to go. But why, after all? I could get richer, but why get richer? Besides, there were my interests and Dorothy. I felt the adventurer stir within me, and talked with Douglas about going. He did not wish me to leave Chicago. What soil could be richer than that south of Madison Street? Besides, he was working on the Illinois Central railroad project, and that would mean all the money that I would care for, if I would take advantage of the opportunities which the railroad would create. Then there were the transcontinental lines to be built. A convention was soon to be held in St. Louis, and Douglas wished me to go along with him.

It was held in October and I went with Douglas to attend it. The proposition was the construction of a railroad from the Mississippi to the Pacific. The delegates were mostly from the Mississippi valley, more than 800 in number, and Douglas made me a delegate from Illinois. He was promptly elected to preside over the convention. The first thing proposed was the construction of an emigrant route on the line of the proposed railroad. This was in the interest of the gold seekers. A delegate who said he had constructed more than 7000 miles of telegraph offered to string a wire to California if Congress would lend its aid. There should be stations along the way, with troopers to defend the emigrants against Indians. The troopers could carry the mails, thus insuring the delivery of a letter from St. Louis to San Francisco in twelve days. Another delegate advised the convention that Charleston and New Orleans would soon be joined by telegraph. As a means of communication, he proposed that for the sending of messages from Washington to Oregon, it could be done in fifteen days by transmitting a telegram by boat from New Orleans to Laredo, and thence by telegraph to some point on the Gulf of California; thence to San Francisco and to Washington or Oregon again by boat.

It was a vital, noisy assemblage of men; and Douglas was a perfect talent as a presiding officer. His great voice could easily be heard over the entire hall and it seemed altogether fitting, since he had so long been interested in binding the country together with railroads and telegraphs, that he should be the spokesman of this body of men, who were inaugurating this magical transformation of America.

The lobby of the hotel was full of faces of all descriptions. The millionaire was there, the countryman, the slave dealer, the man with the goatee. The barrooms and corridors were noisy with excitement, loud talk of politics, of railroads, of trade, of slavery; denunciation of the Whigs, curses for the defeat of Cass. I saw bloodshot eyes, reeling steps, coarseness, cruelty, wastefulness in drink. Yankees and Dutch were denounced as trash and as cowards and traitors. They had defeated the Democratic party the previous fall. Plans were made on the moment among various excited groups to go to California. A transcontinental line must be put through at once.

Amid this motley throng stood Douglas. He glowed in the admiration he received. He was acclaimed, cheered; his hand was taken in a rough and hearty manner by scores, wherever he stood or walked. One moment he was talking with a group of men from Tennessee; again he was exchanging salutations with Captain Grant, who was here now without prospects, drinking too much, quite a sorry figure, lounging about waiting for something to turn up. Not so with the dignified Major Sherman. He had been to California, on field duty in the Mexican War. Now well groomed and of fine bearing, he stood about the lobby interested in the projected railroad. Douglas, Grant, Sherman,—all had a definite relation to the Mexican War, and the new territory. Douglas seemed to be taking renewed life from this interesting experience. I was his companion all the time, loitering near as he talked to various notables. I looked over this mass of humanity and thought of America as a whole, and wondered what it would do with its rich possessions, and its problems. Its fate seemed hopelessly entangled, in spite of the material prosperity—perhaps because of it.



CHAPTER XLII

I felt now the truth of Webster's picturesque words that "the imprisoned winds were let loose." We might have a transcontinental railroad, and Douglas' Illinois Central might connect Chicago with the Gulf of Mexico. All of this building might go forward successfully. But at the same time the slavery question would not down. Even railroad building was a bone of contention, for as to a line to California it had been debated whether it should start from Chicago or from St. Louis. Hence it was that every activity of Douglas had to reckon with the negro. There were now great things to be done at Washington. And as Dorothy had enjoyed herself so much during the winter that we had spent there, she was urging me to return. I had my affairs now under better management, and communication with Chicago was rather convenient; besides Dorothy was not well. The loss of Jenny and the death of her mother had visibly affected her health. I decided at last to spend the winter in Washington.

The trip from Chicago to New York by boat and by train was as wearisome as before. When we arrived in New York, Dorothy had to take to her bed and rest for two days before proceeding to Washington.

We took a house again, keeping Mammy for intimate service and supplementing her with two colored women who fitted in fairly well. Our boy Reverdy was put in school.

I began to attend the sessions of the Senate, taking Dorothy when she wished to go. Clay of Kentucky, after an absence of eight years, was back; here were also Webster and Calhoun, the lions of an earlier day. They were enacting their last parts, trying to re-imprison the winds of destiny, which the events of the Mexican War had set to roaring over the land. Young America, in the person of Douglas, faced the hierarchy of the earlier republic; and Seward of New York, older than Douglas by some twelve years, but less versatile and attractive, stood now as a spokesman for a new party.

If there were pessimists who believed that the Union was in danger at this time, Douglas was not of them. He could not see the South, if reasonably accommodated, interfering with his ocean-bound republic. He had elasticity, a fresh edge. The coldness of dying arteries was not upon him, as in the case of Webster, Clay, and Calhoun. He had great projects to forward, such as grants to secure the construction of the Illinois Central railroad. He knew what railroads meant to the country. He was of the West and he understood it. He was quick to offer a bill in the Senate for a grant of land for the construction of this railroad from Chicago to New Orleans, and it was passed. In the debate over the bill Douglas of Illinois faced Webster of Massachusetts. It was a dramatic antithesis. Douglas, young and devoted to the prairies, Webster, old and fixed in his admirations for the East. The old question of disunion arose. If we would have liberty and union forever, railroads would insure them. Douglas had said that if the North should ever be arrayed against the South, the pioneers of the northwest and the southwest would balance the contest. Webster had spoken slightingly of the West which Douglas so greatly loved. And these were Douglas' inspiring and prophetic words in reply:

"There is a power in this nation greater either than the North or the South—a growing, increasing, swelling power that will be able to speak the law to this nation and to execute the law as spoken. That power is the country known as the Great West—the valley of the Mississippi, one and indivisible from the Gulf to the Great Lakes, and stretching on the one side and the other to the extreme sources of the Ohio and the Mississippi—from the Alleghenies to the Rocky Mountains. There, sir, is the hope of this nation, the resting place of the power that is not only to control but to save the Union. We furnish the water that makes the Mississippi; and we intend to follow, navigate, and use it until it loses itself in the briny ocean. So with the St. Lawrence. We intend to keep open and enjoy both of these great outlets to the ocean, and all between them we intend to take under our special protection, and preserve and keep as one happy, free, and united people. This is the mission of the great Mississippi valley, the heart and soul of the nation and the continent."

Did these words have any definite meaning to Webster? He knew nothing of the West. He sat with his leonine eyes fixed upon young America in the person of Douglas. No, as for that, Douglas did not know how truly he was speaking. He could not see in what manner time would fulfill his words. No, not even though there was thrilling conviction in his great voice, which filled the Senate chamber.

On the subject of the territories Douglas had offered several bills of his own. I can't remember their order, their substance, beyond the fact that they looked to the territorial control of slavery. But I remember a very cutting reply that he made to one Senator who interrupted him to ask by what authority a territory could legislate upon slavery. "Your bill conceded that a representative government is necessary—a government founded upon the principles of popular sovereignty, and the right of the people to enact their own laws; and for this reason you give them a legislature constituted of two branches; you confer upon them the right to legislate upon all rightful subjects of legislation, except negroes. Why except negroes? I am not therefore prepared to say that under the Constitution we have not the power to pass laws excluding negro slaves from the territories. But I do say that if left to myself to carry out my own opinions I would leave the whole subject to the people of the territories themselves."

In a sense Clay was the center of attraction, both because he had returned after a long absence and because he was expected to use his conciliatory power toward a settlement which would satisfy both the North and the South. He had come to Washington expecting to be received with open arms by President Taylor. He had been disappointed. He was not overstrong, being in his seventy-third year. But his old charm had not faded, his power over men had not abated. He had loved a drink, a game of cards; he was a slave owner, from a slave state; he had not been consistent in his thinking and his preachment. True to his peculiar gift of leadership and negotiation, he had framed a compromise which provided for the admission of California as a free state. This contradicted the doctrine of the right of the state to come into the Union free or slave, as it chose. The bill provided further for the admission of Utah and New Mexico with or without slavery as they might choose. This impugned the admissional doctrine of California. It provided for the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and for the passage of a fugitive slave law, such as would satisfy the South. A motley bill! Calhoun was against it. He demanded the extension of slavery into the territory acquired from Mexico, and proposed an amendment to the Constitution providing for two presidents, one from the South and one from the North, with a veto over each other's acts. Any absurdity for the sake of slavery! Perhaps disease had something to do with this unreason. He died in April before any law was passed.