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 César 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_.