Children of the Market Place Part 20

"Nor for topers," resumed Douglas.

"I want results. What have you done with prohibition of slavery in the North by Federal law? You who want negro equality, why don't you repeal the laws of Illinois that forbid the intermarriage of white and blacks, that forbid a negro from testifying against a white man, that allow indentures of apprentices.h.i.+p, and that require registration of negroes brought into the state, the same as you license a dog? The Federal government does not prevent you. The Ordinance of 1787 gave you the start that you want for Kansas and Nebraska. Yet you have these things; and you don't have slavery. Why? Not because the Federal government says you can't have it, but because you yourself do not want it. I say that this northern country is dedicated by G.o.d to freedom, law or no law; if it hadn't been, General Harrison, who introduced slavery into Indiana against the Ordinance of 1787 would have introduced something that would be there now. So much for you Whigs who voted for Harrison in 1840."

A voice:

"How about Kansas and Nebraska?" There were more yells. "I am telling you, if you will hear me. You old Whigs who followed Henry Clay to the end, why do you denounce me when the Kansas-Nebraska bill is the same in principle as Clay's Compromises of 1850 ..."

"How about California?"

"It was a compromise. And as I have said before if the people of California had wanted a slave state they would have had it, any law to the ..."

Voices crying: "Benedict Arnold! Judas!" Douglas' voice rose to its fullest power. He was fulminating Black Republicans, Know-nothings, Anti-Catholics, humbug Whigs. I felt sure that he would be attacked. For two hours he fought with this wild and wicked audience. He appealed to their sense of fairness. If he was wrong, what harm to hear him through, the better to see the wrong? If he was right, why condemn him unheard? I could only make out a few sentences from time to time. He grew weary at last. He drew out his watch. The audience quieted to hear what he would say. "It is now Sunday morning. I will go to church and you may go to h.e.l.l."

He stepped from the platform, walked boldly through the angry mob, ready to a.s.sault him. Without a tremor, fearlessly he edged his way along to his carriage, got into it, and was driven away, the mob hooting, bolder rowdies running after him, and covering him with vile epithets.

We walked away slowly without speaking to each other. We were too shamed, too sympathetic with Douglas to tolerate this exhibition of lawlessness. We were disgraced by an American audience which had tried to disgrace an American Senator, who asked for nothing except for the privilege of being heard.

When we arrived at Clark and Randolph streets Aldington and Abigail paused for a moment before turning in a direction different from mine.

They said good night and went on. I walked with Mr. Williams until I arrived at my house. Then I went in, to lie awake and to think of the spectacle of the evening.

CHAPTER XLIX

The next day I went out to look at the ten acres which Douglas had given for the founding of the University of Chicago. I walked over the ground, came to the lake. I was thinking that if Douglas' life were ending in failure how futile was my own life! I was rich to be sure, but what had I done? I had inherited money. Douglas had started in poverty and acc.u.mulated a fortune. I had done nothing but increase my wealth.

Douglas' activities had covered many fields, and now if he was to fall!

What was American liberty? How could their devotion to a liberty, bring liberty to him? Douglas' wife was dead; Dorothy was an invalid.

In a few days I went around to see Abigail. That terrible evening remained a subject that must sometime be discussed between us.

Abigail was never more gracious than on this occasion, and seemed to understand that I needed to be lifted out of my reflections. She knew what Dorothy's invalidism meant to me, and she was sympathetic with my devotion to Douglas, in so far as it was an expression of human friends.h.i.+p. She had a point of view about everything, which had been developed and clarified by reading and travel. It came over me that I had been nowhere in Europe, that I had been wandering up and down America. My life in England was by now almost obliterated from my consciousness. We were not long in the talk before she said that a man should have more than one interest, that music or some form of art, or a hobby in literature should be taken up as a relaxation from business.

What were politics but the interpretation of business? She showed me some pictures she had been painting. A teacher had opened a studio in Lake Street. Why did I not try my hand? I would find it a diversion from other things. I had always loved etchings. I wished I could do that.

Well, this artist taught etching too. She inspired me at once to see him. His name was Stoddard, and she gave me the number. I conceived an enthusiasm for this new activity, thinking that it would take me out of myself and away from the America that was closing around me with such depressing effect.

Then Abigail and Aldington in supplement of each other began to recall the names of men then living whom they characterized as light-bearers.

"Really," said Abigail, "there are only a few men of real importance in America to-day. These politicians and orators--Seward, Sumner, even the late Webster--amount to very little after all. They are even less than Lowell, whom Margaret Fuller recently characterized as shallow and doomed to oblivion. Longfellow is an adapter, a translator, a simple-hearted man. Whittier--well, all of them have fallen more or less under the moralistic influence of the country."

"That is what I like about Douglas," I said. "He is not a humbug. I like his ironical voice against all these silly movements, like liquor laws; these ideas like G.o.d in the little affairs of men; all this barbarism which breaks into religious manias; all these half-baked reformations.

They carry me with him into an opposition to negro equality--all this stuff of Horace Greeley, Emerson, and in which men like Seward and Sumner, and American writers and poets, big and little, share."

"Oh, yes," said Abigail, "but after all you can say Douglas is just a politician. You do not need to grieve about him. He is tough enough to stand anything. He was put down by that mob. But I dare say he was not as much disturbed about it as you were. If he should die to-day what would the world lose? He has no great unfinished books, no half-painted pictures, no musical scores without the final touches. Look over the world, my friend. Do you realize who is living in it to-day? In Russia, Tolstoi and Turgenieff; in Germany, Schopenhauer, Freytag, Liszt, Wagner--Wagner is just Douglas' age too. In France, Hugo, George Sand, Renan, Berlioz, Bizet. In England, Tennyson, Macaulay. These are only a few. What has Douglas written or said that will live? What has he done that will carry an influence to a future day? I want to see you lift yourself out of this. Frankly, you seem to me like a man who has never come to himself. You have lived here in Illinois since you were a boy.

You found work to do, and you did it. You wanted to be rich, you have had your wish. But the material you have handled has become you. It has entered the pores of your being, and become a.s.similated with its flesh.

You have gone on oblivious of this greater world. There is another thing, and I have never known this to fail: you were a soldier in the Mexican War, and the causes for which it was fought have burned themselves into your nature. You are like a piece of clay molded and lettered and shoved into the hot oven of war. You came forth with Young America, Expansion burned into you. Douglas, being your close friend, and being for these things, gave interpretations to these words. Your glaze took the reflection of his face; and these words became other words of like import, or imaginatively enlarged by the lights which his winning art cast upon them. Give Douglas wit, humor, and he would carry the whole country. For it runs after greatness of territory, railroads, the equality of man, the superiority of the white race. As dull as the mob is it knows that Douglas does not stand for its morality and its G.o.d. If he had wit he could make them laugh and forget the distance that divides him from them. We all understand why he has enemies; why the revolutionaries from Germany, Hungary, Austria, divide in doubt over him. But what has he to carry against them that will be a loss to the world, if he fails?" I felt a little apologetic for my devotion to Douglas as Abigail talked. Had I made a G.o.d of a poor piece of clay?

No, it was not true. I knew him, I believed in him. He was the clearest voice in all this rising absurdity of American life. But Abigail had given me one idea that I wished to act upon.

I went the next day to see Stoddard and started to learn etching. If I could only transfer to the copper plate what I had seen of sand hills, pines, pools of water, the gulls over the lake, the picturesque shacks of early Chicago of 1833 and 1840; the old wooden drawbridge, which was over the river in 1834, with the s.h.i.+ps beyond it toward the lake and the lighthouse, and in the forefront canoes on the sh.o.r.e, covered with rushes and sand gra.s.s. After a few days I saw Douglas. He came on an evening when I was just about to go to him. I had been thinking of him day by day, but waiting for the effect of his rough experience in front of the North Market to wear away from his thoughts and mine. He was now himself again, his eye keen, his voice melodious, his figure pervaded by animation. I noticed perhaps for the first time how small and graceful were his hands. The greatness and shapeliness of his head could not be overlooked. From beneath s.h.a.ggy and questioning brows his penetrating eyes looked straight through me. Had his pride been wounded, his spirits dampened? Not at all. He was willing to face any audience anywhere. He had told the South unpleasant truths. He had satirized the groups that went to the making of the Republican party. "I have a creed," he said, "as broad as the continent. I can preach it boldly, and without apology North or South, East or West. I can face Toombs or Davis, if they preach sectional strife, or advocate disunion. I can continue to point out the narrow faith of Sumner and Seward. I shall not abate my contempt for the ragged insurrectionists who are going about the country for lack of better business, scattering dissension. Am I to be President? There is trouble now in Kansas and Nebraska. Can I help that? I have stood for the right of the people there to have slavery or not as they chose. But if any trick is played on either of them, whether in favor of slavery or against it, they will find me on the spot ready to fight for an honest deal."

Seeing Douglas in all his strength and self-confidence again I was happy. We talked of the old days and drank from the old bottle. I took him to the door, followed his retreating figure down the street, so short but so ma.s.sive. Then I went to Dorothy, to find her sleepless and unhappy.

CHAPTER L

No way to mark time quicker than by Presidentials. Four years pa.s.s in the s.p.a.ce of two or less; for no sooner is a President installed than committees meet for reformations and plans. Six months between the election and the installation of a President! When he has served a year the election is nearly two years pa.s.sed. Thus, as it seemed, the election of 1856 was upon the country before we had time to appreciate what Mr. Pierce had done. Had he had a fair chance in such a brief period to do anything? I was at work attending to my business, trying to etch too, but I could not keep my mind off the game of politics. Among the tens of thousands of men in Illinois who were devoted to Douglas no one was more loyal to his ambition than I, and perhaps no one was less conspicuous. I followed the _New York Tribune_, the _Springfield Republican_, the _North American Review_, the _Independent, Harper's Weekly_, and the southern press, as well as the papers of Illinois. I had made a large book of clippings, which expressed the journalistic thought of the country. All these things put together kept me fully occupied. Our son Reverdy was coming to an age when his schooling would need attention. I wished to send him to England. But that was difficult to do, because, while Dorothy was urging a trip abroad she wished to go to Italy, on account of the climate.

In truth Dorothy was growing more distressed every day over American affairs. She found harshness in Chicago. She did not find sympathy with the ideas with which she had grown up. Her failure to make close friends interfered with her social delights. Mrs. Douglas had perhaps been her greatest intimate. With her death she had seemed to lose interest in other cordial a.s.sociations. Her nervous organization was badly devitalized. I, too, hoped to see the continent, and particularly Italy.

But I did not wish to leave until the campaign was over, owing to my interest in Douglas. I wanted to watch affairs now, but also I wished to help Douglas, if I could.

For the first time the Republicans entered the field. They adopted a platform which incorporated the Declaration of Independence. It was against popular sovereignty, lest the people vote in slavery, or be tricked into doing so. It stood for Congressional control of slavery extension, and implicit in this was the const.i.tutional power of Congress to do so. It had, with the Declaration of Independence, with the invocation of G.o.d, and appeals to the Bible, gathered a working force in the country. The press, the platform, had been busy to this end. Seward with his higher law was a contributor. Chase, who was termed by Douglas a debater, where Seward and Sumner were only essayists, was one of the big figures in the new movement. Beecher and Greeley were spokesmen of the new organization. The convention nominated Fremont who had explored Oregon in 1842.

He was of the spirit of Douglas. He was an expansionist. He had gone into California in 1845, and raised the American flag on a mountain overlooking Monterey. He had helped later to conquer California. He had for various audacious and disobedient acts been tried and court-martialed, and dismissed from military service. President Polk had approved the verdict, but remitted the penalty. Then he had resigned.

Now he was the object of the highest honor of an American convention. He was made the spokesman for a platform which denounced the invasion of Kansas by an armed force in the interests of slavery. He had gone into California for the slavocracy which engineered the Mexican War, as New England contended. Now he was at the head of the party waging war upon that slavocracy. A strange people, these Americans!

Douglas had said that he did not want the office of President. Perhaps that was an exhibition of political coyness, for he was in the lists just the same! He had 33 votes on the first ballot, of which only 14 came from the South. President Pierce, who was running again, met a wavering fortune. On the sixteenth ballot he had not a vote. Douglas had 121 votes; a certain Mr. Buchanan had 168. On the seventeenth ballot this Mr. Buchanan was nominated. Who was this Mr. Buchanan?

He had been Secretary of State under Polk, had helped to secure the Texan territory. So much for the appeal to Young America. He had been minister to Great Britain. Therefore he was abroad when Douglas was gummed with the poisonous sweet of Kansas and Nebraska. He thought slavery was wrong; therefore, you Abolitionists, here's the man for you.

He held that territorial extension of slavery need not be feared; let the people rule. As a Congressman he had voted to exclude abolition literature from the mails; come forward Calhoun-ites and vote for Buchanan. They did. Fremont did not get a vote in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee; and only 281 in Maryland, 291 in Virginia, and 364 in Kentucky. But Millard Fillmore, running on a platform of America for Americans, almost divided the vote with Buchanan in those states. He carried Maryland against Buchanan; but of the whole popular vote he was nearly a million behind Buchanan. Fremont had 1,341,264 votes and Buchanan had 1,838,169 votes. The electoral college gave Buchanan 174 votes, Fremont 114, and Fillmore 8. Why could Douglas not have been nominated?

We got the news by telegraph in Chicago. As I studied the bulletins, I was wondering whether the result was symptomatic of transient causes or whether it betokened great changes. Had the Declaration of Independence been approved at the polls? How was Douglas taking it? I did not see him. I wrote to him, but he did not reply. Did he get my letter, or was he consoling himself in convivial ways?

I now prepared to go abroad. I was leaving a country that had changed in almost every way since I had come to it. I was leaving a city that was nothing but a hamlet when I first saw it. I had seen New Orleans and Chicago connected by rail, and the state grow from a few hundred thousand to a million population. I had seen Arkansas, Florida, Michigan, Iowa, Texas, Wisconsin, California, added to the Union. Coal and iron had become barons and were doing the bidding of steam, which was king. The oil that had floated on the surface of the salt wells of Kentucky was soon to be more powerful than cotton. Everything had changed--but man. Was he rising to a purer height, had a glory begun to dawn on America? Should slavery, polygamy, rum, be driven from the land?

Then should we be free and happy, and just and n.o.ble? France had got schools and the ballot by the Revolution, but now she had a throne again. We had the ballot but did we have freedom? No law could have made a mob hiss Douglas at the North Market. Freedom in their hearts would have given him an audience.

Was I free? Was I happy? I was not free. I was not happy. My life seemed cribbed. Dorothy was an invalid. I went to her from watching the election bulletins. I sat on the side of the bed, took her in my arms.

"Let us go to Italy," she said. "I am dying here." She pressed her frail hands around my neck. "Oh let us go--let us go."

CHAPTER LI

We sailed on the _Persia_, 376 feet long, 45 feet of beam, gross tonnage 3300, horsepower 4000, speed 14 knots an hour. As Dorothy knew nothing of ocean sailing craft she was unable to share in my wonder at all the splendor and comfort of this wonderful steamer.

From the first Dorothy was ill. Our boy Reverdy too became seasick. As I was not affected in the least I had the care of both of them. A part of the time the sea was very rough.

One night when we had been on the water three days Dorothy called to me.

She had been greatly nauseated during the afternoon. A sudden return of the discomfort had seized her. I arose quickly and made a light. The boat was rocking. A stiff breeze was blowing. We were headed through a great darkness. Dorothy was deathly pale. She was unable to bring up anything more and was convulsed with retching and coughing.

She grew suddenly quiet, her eyes closing, her lips parting. "Dear," she murmured. I waited for what she would say. She had become at once limp in my arms. I shook her gently, pressed my ear to her breast. I could hear no heart beat. I called her, laid her down, wetted a towel, and applied it to her head. She did not rouse. I went from the stateroom to find the physician. He came hurriedly. But Dorothy was dead. That word of endearment was her last.

Without, the sea and the sky were as black as a sunless cave. The water rolled around us, pitching the boat forward and sideways. The timbers creaked, lamps jiggled, the hallways seemed to undulate like snakes. But the heart of the _Persia_ pumped with rhythmic regularity. The pa.s.sengers were asleep, or in various festivities, in cabins or in the dining room. Nothing was stayed for this tragedy which had come to me.

On we went through the darkness! Dorothy was lying where I had placed her, her head turned to one side, her face pale in the last sleep. I aroused little Reverdy. He looked at his mother, kneeled by the berth, and sobbed. The physician took us out of the cabin, locked the door, and put us in another. I tucked little Reverdy in bed again; then I went out to look, at the storm, the dark water, the impenetrable sky.