Children of the Market Place Part 11

When I wrote to Abigail I had news to tell her with reference to the farm. I believed I had found a purchaser in Springfield; and my trading talks with Washburton, for that was his name, had taken me over there a number of times. On one of these occasions I saw Douglas. He had been presiding over a proceeding that had something to do with the Mormons, in which he favored them. He was charged with placating their interests to win them to his political fortunes. "It was nothing of the sort,"

said Douglas. "I only did my duty. What have I to gain by favoring them?

There are a great many more people who hate them than those who have any use for them. Even my enemies know that. Do you know they say, Jim, that I grabbed this judgeship by some high-handed method. It's all a lie. I can do nothing to please some people. They don't like my conduct on the bench. You know how crude things are here. My throne is a platform with a table; and the audience sits so close to me that I can almost touch them. The other day I walked off the platform and sat for a moment with one of the spectators, an old friend. Somebody wrote this up for the newspaper and made a terrible fuss about it. I cannot please some people, no matter what I do."

It was the winter and spring of 1841 that I was visiting Springfield about the sale of my farm. President Harrison had died after a month in office, and John Tyler had become President. Douglas was elated over this. "Tyler is a Democrat," said Douglas. "And we have taken victory out of defeat after all. He has vetoed the new bank bill true to the principles of Jackson; and he has been read out of the Whig party for doing so. Every member of his Cabinet but Webster has resigned, you know. The Whigs are getting nothing out of the triumphs of log cabins and hard cider. They are all a humbug. Their sins are finding them out.

We will put in a thorough-going Democratic party in 1844."

Douglas was talking the annexation of Texas. "Think of it," he said. "A territory 750 miles broad added to the domain of this country! The whole continent by right belongs to us. Do you think, if we once get it that there will be any whining that we should give it up? You have seen Illinois filling up; you have seen ca.n.a.ls and railroads make their beginning here. Let's do the same for Oregon. I want you to rid yourself of any feeling for Great Britain, and use your English will to the making of America. Do for America what you would do for England, if you were living there. She would take the whole earth if she could get it.

Let us take all of North America.

"I am planning to run for Congress again. I am stifled in this little life. There is not enough for me to do here. I am restless to get out and help build up the West."

I asked Douglas if I should move to Chicago. His eyes brightened. "Yes,"

he said in his quick way. "That is a place of great opportunity. Go there, Jim. I will be there myself, eventually. You can become very rich there with the capital that you have for a start."

Then I told him that I was trying to sell the farm; that I had about matured my plans to move. He was delighted. "I'll miss you here, but a friend is a friend to me, even up there. Go and build. You can help make a city. I want to see this state come into its own. I want to see schools everywhere, giving the advantages to the young which were denied to me. This is the most wonderful of states. Be glad that your destiny brought you here. At the present rate of immigration the population of Illinois will soon be a million. When you came here the population of the United States was about twelve million; now it is about seventeen million; it will soon be twenty million. Do you appreciate these figures? Look at the New Englanders, the Irish, the Germans that have poured into Illinois. Some of them come here with ideas that I find hostile to my ambitions. I have to win them to the liberty of the Democratic party, and keep them from stopping halfway, contented with the fraudulent liberty of the Whigs. I take them in hand at political gatherings; I love to persuade and shape them. I will fill this population of Illinois with love of Democratic ideas. What have the Whigs to offer? Look at the mixed blood of the Whigs, at their tainted ancestors. I take the greatest pleasure in exposing them. It is my fun and my work."

With all this intellectual activity, Douglas was not a reader. I had found Emerson through Abigail; I read the _North American Review_, and Cooper's novels as they appeared. But Douglas had contempt for the moral idealism of New England. He thought it impractical. "You can't have a brain without a body," said Douglas. "Let the country develop its bones, its muscles, attain its stature. These men think the world is run by righteousness, especially if you let them prescribe the righteousness.

But it isn't. It is run by interests. Roofs, clothing, and food must be taken care of; then cities. These men get preconceived ideas of G.o.d, and then want to force them on the great impulses of life. But they can't do it."

I ventured to say that the two ran together. His reply was that nothing of idealism counted that did not harmonize with material interests.

There would always be war so long as interests conflicted. The lesser had to give way to the larger. War was a factor in the game of supremacy, of life. If Great Britain stood in our way, fight her. If Mexico made trouble about Texas, conquer her. War is the execution of the law of progress. Reason can go only so far, and then the sharpness of the sword is necessary.

CHAPTER XXIX

I sold the farm at last and moved to Chicago. It was with sorrow that I broke up my a.s.sociation with Reverdy and Sarah, and their little family.

But I was much relieved to be out of the situation that had been so full of annoyance to me. I had friends to be sure, but I was English; I was a little reserved even yet; I was a driver, a money maker. Then there had been Zoe and Lamborn. Besides, the life on the farm was monotonous. The end of the day marked lonely hours for me. And I was looking forward to much a.s.sociation with Abigail.

I saw her frequently now that I was in Chicago. She was teaching school.

Mr. Williams, his wife, their children, were my first friends, the beginning of my new a.s.sociations.

I began at once to speculate in real estate. Mr. Williams proved an invaluable counsel in these ventures. I made money faster than I could ever have believed it possible to me. I was now very well off at twenty-seven. But was life nothing but money making?

As I had sold the farm on partial payments I was compelled to make frequent trips to Springfield to collect the purchase money notes; and I always saw Douglas unless he was away campaigning. By the new census of 1840 Illinois was ent.i.tled to seven Congressmen instead of the four which it had hitherto been allowed. A legislature had reapportioned the state in such a way as to give Douglas a chance to be elected. Douglas'

friends had called a convention. The re-apportionment of the state was charged to be arbitrary; the convention was styled "machine-made" with a view to Douglas' nomination. Had he had a hand in this--the young judge of the Supreme Court? If so, many others had had a hand in it.

In the convention Douglas' friends rode roughly over the other aspirants; and when he received the prize they withdrew and accorded him their support. All of this was the perfection of party organization, to which Douglas, with a leader's genius, had directed his party from the moment he had set foot in Jacksonville. Douglas found an opponent in a Whig of Kentucky birth. A Democrat from Illinois, a Whig from Kentucky--such was the anomalous situation. And both agreed about taking over the Oregon territory. But Douglas was the better campaigner, the more winning personality, the more indefatigable worker. Like Napoleon, his sleep was intermittent, his meals eaten on the run. He made speeches for more than a month of successive days. And he was elected. A member of Congress at thirty!

I could see that the hard life was wearing upon him. Perhaps he was too convivial. There was hard drinking everywhere about him; and he did not abstain. He had supreme confidence in the lasting character of his own vitality. He might be ill for a few days occasionally, but he was soon up and actively at work again. His "integrity is as unspotted as the vestal's flame--as untarnished and pure as the driven snow," said a local newspaper when his methods were a.s.sailed, and no one could face him without believing that he had courage that would have its way without stooping to meanness, and vision that saw its objective through the hesitant dreams and sickly qualms of lesser strength.

When I went to Springfield in the fall about my farm I found that Douglas had been seriously ill for some weeks. The campaign had exhausted him. There was more gentleness in his manner now than was his wont. He held my hand warmly and was visibly grateful that I had come.

He was heartened by this fresh evidence of my affectionate interest. He talked of his plans. He wished to visit his mother in New York State as soon as he could be about. He said that he was entering upon a new stage of his life--upon the beginning of his real career. He wished to have his mother's blessing before taking his seat in Congress.

When I next went to Springfield I found him gone. The place was lonely to me. I collected my note and wandered about idly; pa.s.sed the Ridgeway mansion where I had met Abigail; went through the new state house. The years between seemed so brief but so full of events. I was twenty-eight, Douglas was thirty; Reverdy had pa.s.sed forty; Zoe was dead. My farming days were over. It all seemed a dream. My grandmother in England was now in the middle sixties. There were steamships crossing the Atlantic, the first one four years before. Great forces here and in Europe, movements of peoples, and interests were flowing to carry Douglas along for some years, and to carry me and all others in their sweep. I was lonely in Springfield on this trip. Douglas was gone! His career here seemed finished, as if he were dead. Like a camper he had foraged upon the country, made his tent and taken it down. And now he was gone!

Everywhere there was talk of war with Mexico. Had Douglas gone forth to bring this about in realization of his dream of America's greatness? A man must be made president who would annex Texas. If there should be war let it come. The land is ours. Our people have gone there. We must seize the whole continent north of the Gulf.

Now that I was separated from him how should I follow him day by day? I got Niles' _Register_ in order to keep in touch with him.

CHAPTER x.x.x

Large mercantile establishments were building in Chicago. Elevators and pork-packing plants fronted the Chicago River. The harbor was being improved by the Federal government. The population had risen to more than ten thousand people. Great labor was necessary to keep the facilities of life equal to the growing demands upon it. The first water works had been installed at a cost of $95.50, and consisted of a well alone. Now the city purveyed water through wooden pipes, laid under the ground. The Illinois and Michigan ca.n.a.l, which Douglas had done so much to originate, was nearing completion. The thousands of Irish laborers engaged upon the work added to the liveliness and colorfulness of the city life. We had excellent mail service. Long since the drygoods box had disappeared which had served as the only depository of mail. The hogs had been barred from the main streets, so that in my boarding place at Michigan Avenue and Madison Street I was no longer disturbed by grunts and squeals as they fed and wandered through the city.

Mr. Williams and I had formed a real estate and brokerage partnership, and we were making money at a phenomenal rate. The air was vibrating with the ring of the trowel and the hammer. Gardens and roadhouses had appeared in the pleasanter places out of town. Everywhere in the central part of the city were livery stables, restaurants, saloons. The harbor was full of sailing craft. Every day saw the tides of emigration pour upon this hospitable sh.o.r.e. I felt the stir of the new life, the growing city. I was fascinated with the money making. I had found new friends.

My change of life had brought me happiness.

Abigail and I saw much of each other and we talked of many things, and much of Douglas. I saw him as the symbol of this intense life, this miraculous development. He seemed to me the man of the hour, the man even of the age.

No sooner was he sworn in as a Congressman than he proceeded to make his presence felt. He did precisely what he had done in Illinois when he came to Winchester, penniless and unknown: he seized an opportunity. He admired Andrew Jackson with an almost unqualified heart, and he rose to Jackson's defense in Congress.

I have said that I was reading Niles' _Register_. Through it I was able to follow Douglas' career in Congress from the beginning.

Abigail had made friends with a certain Robert Aldington, who had also come west to teach school. And when we met at the Williams' residence of evenings there were sharp exchanges of opinion between us about life, books, the new city of Chicago, the destiny of America, and Douglas.

Aldington was keeping abreast with all the new books in America and England as well. He too had read De Tocqueville; but he was also familiar with Rousseau, Voltaire, the French Encyclopaedists; with Locke. And he a.s.sured me that Calhoun, the Senator from South Carolina, had written a treatise on the philosophy of government which for depth and dialectic power, was a match for Locke. He also knew the poets Sh.e.l.ley and Byron. He had studied the French Revolution. He was watching the feverish developments of Italy and Germany. The tide of emigration into Chicago and Illinois furnished him material for infinite speculation. What would this hot blood, seeking opportunity and freedom from old world restraints, do for the new country? He admired Douglas to a degree, but he disliked what he sensed in him as materialism.

We were reading together the proceedings in Congress concerning the fine which had been imposed by court upon Jackson at New Orleans when he was in military charge of the city in 1812. Douglas had taken this as his occasion to make himself known to the House and to the country at large.

He was nothing in Congress because of his achievements in Illinois. He had to win his spurs. He had contended with great force and brilliancy that Jackson, in declaring martial law, had not committed a contempt of court; that if Jackson had violated the Const.i.tution in declaring martial law the matter was not one of contempt or for a local court to judge. "Do you see," said Aldington, "his mind runs in a channel of pure legalism, and then it escapes between freer sh.o.r.es." Aldington continued: "The trouble with Douglas is that he does not see that idealism is as real as realism. Douglas is something of a sophist. I do not mean to disparage his value to the country. But he is a genius in making the course of Jackson consistent. He has applied the same art to justify his own conduct. He will always prove an elusive debater; and you see, after all, this makes against his candor. This is not the sort of stuff of which a thinker is made. There are men who will not trifle with facts. They are your Sh.e.l.leys, your Emersons. These men make the brain of a nation. Douglas may make its body, if you can make a body without making a brain."

"That's exactly it," said Abigail. "But it is not possible to have a statesman as clear in his logic as Emerson, though dealing with coa.r.s.er material than philosophy's. Surely there is a chance now for some mind of deep integrity, of real spirituality, to do something for this chaotic, vulgar ma.s.s of humanity that is grabbing, feeding, trying to foment war with Mexico. I am sure of it. Why this contempt of his for the idealist, the reformer? He cla.s.ses all sorts of grotesque, half-insane people with the high-minded thinkers of the East. And now that he is in Congress, and will have to face some of them, Adams for example, I expect him to find a match."

I tried to have my friends understand Douglas, as I understood him. What was he doing in Congress now? Trying to get appropriations for the rivers and harbors of Illinois. "Won't that ensure his reelection?"

asked Abigail. "Yes, but do we not need the harbors?" I replied. "Why pursue Douglas with arguments like these?"

Abigail's argumentativeness made me turn to Dorothy. Did I want a wife who had such definite opinions about masculine questions such as these?

But now how to find Dorothy again? She had been back and forth between Nashville and Reverdy's. We had exchanged only a few letters, with long silences between. I began to depreciate myself for allowing Zoe or anything connected with her to thwart my will with reference to Dorothy.

These meetings with Abigail and these conversations and arguments had clarified my mind both as to Dorothy and as to Abigail. I wanted Dorothy and I did not want Abigail. This being the case why should I not go to Dorothy and tell her so? If I went to her with the same will that I took up the matter of the farm, could I not win her?

It was not many days before I had the rarest opportunity in the world to go to Nashville upon an interesting mission. Douglas suddenly appeared in Chicago. The session of Congress was over. He was going to Nashville to see Andrew Jackson. He asked me to go with him; and I took this opportunity to see Dorothy.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

I had heard much of Jackson and all his works of wonder: as the victor at New Orleans, the greatest hater of England, as the firm friend of the Union against the rebellion of South Carolina, as the foe of the bank, as the most picturesque figure in America. He was living in retirement at Nashville. And to see this man! To see Douglas with him! Abigail laughed at me for my enthusiasm. But also I was to see Dorothy, and to make up my mind once for all--rather, to get Dorothy to do so.

When we arrived in Nashville, making arrangements so that I should not miss the visit to Jackson's house and the meeting between Douglas and Jackson, I went to see Dorothy. Mrs. Clayton met me at the door. She was greatly surprised. But there was wonderful cordiality in her manner.

Dorothy was out for the time but would soon return. In the meanwhile Mrs. Clayton was eager to hear about my life and about Chicago. I told her more or less in detail the circ.u.mstances which had forced me to sell the farm. As to Douglas, she was devoted to him for his defense of Jackson. Jackson was a demiG.o.d to her and to the people of Tennessee.

She wished she could be present to see Douglas and Jackson meet. Why could it not be arranged and for Dorothy too? They all knew the General very well. He had been a friend of Mr. Clayton's. Where was I stopping?

Would I like to come to their house? My visit to Nashville was to be brief; besides I wished to be with Douglas. She would like to entertain him too. And thus we talked until Dorothy came in.