I wanted to stop on the way to see Reverdy and Sarah. I had a call to
the renewal of the old days, to an overlooking of the farm, the places I
had first known in Illinois. But as Dorothy wished to be home, to settle
into a regular life of comfort at once, I had to take her to Chicago and
then return later to Jacksonville. Before leaving I had several
conferences with Mr. Williams about our joint interests; and we talked
of Douglas too.
Mr. Williams thought that Douglas was getting deeper and deeper into
trouble. The Compromises of 1850 were only partially satisfactory. They
had not appeased the Abolitionists. A new party was growing up around
the discontent which those Compromises had created. Mr. Pierce's
administration had met some disturbances, though it had sufficed in the
main. He had gone into office with the support of many of the best men
of the country, as, for example, Bryant, the poet, and of course
Hawthorne, his boyhood friend. Since his election the Whig party had
gone to pieces. There was no party but the Democratic party. Beside it
nothing but factions and groups trying to find a way to unite. Chief of
these was the Know-nothings who stood for what they called Americanism,
and raised an opposition to Catholicism. Next were the Abolitionists.
There were smaller bodies, all inharmonious. I felt that Douglas was
destined to drive these lawless resolutes into defeat and become
President. He was not in Chicago now; but I was soon to see him. In the
meanwhile I thought I would go to see Reverdy and Sarah.
Reverdy was now in the middle fifties, and aging. Sarah looked thin and
worn. She was really an old woman. Amos was a man. He had taken up with
farming near Jacksonville. Jonas was nearing his twentieth year. The
story was for the most part told for them all as one family.
Reverdy and I drove about the country; and it had changed so much.
Boundaries had disappeared; forests had vanished. Familiar houses had
given way to pretentious residences, many built in the southern style of
Tennessee or Kentucky. Great barns dotted the landscape. Yet the pioneer
was still here. My old fiddler in the woods had aged, but he was much
himself. He played for us. And we went to the log hut, in which I had
lived during my first winter on the farm. Here it was with its chimney
of sticks, its single room of all uses, the very symbol of humble life,
of solitariness in the woods. I had lived here when the country was
wild, but Reverdy said that before my coming to Illinois it was wilder
still and more lonely. "What do you think," said Reverdy, "of a man and
a woman living here in the most primitive days; no church, no schools.
No doctors to relieve suffering, or scarcely to attend a birth. No
books, or but few. The long winters of snow; silence except when
terrible storms broke over a roof like this. Imagine yourself born and
reared in such a place; all the family sleeping in this one room in the
bitter cold of winter. Sickness without medicine. Imagine Douglas living
here. His early youth had its hardships; but after all he has had a
comfortable life. He soon became prosperous. Now he is rich. What public
man has become so rich? Yes, here is the American cotter's home; and so
many boys have come out of a place like this and gone to the wars or
into public life. It is America's symbol."
"You do not like Douglas, do you, Reverdy?" I asked, as we turned away.
"Yes, I like him, I have always supported him--but somehow I feel that
he is not good enough. I don't know what else to call it. You know, I
don't like slavery; at the same time I don't know what to do with it.
Sometimes I think Douglas' plan is all right, again I am not sure. All
the time I feel that there is not enough sympathy in his nature for
these poor negroes. I confess that at times I am for letting the
territories manage it for themselves; and at other times I am for
keeping it out of the territories by law. All the while I like Douglas'
plan for the West. He has done wonderful work for the country. I wish I
could make myself clearer, but I can't. I saw slavery in the South and
know what it is. I am a good deal like Clay. He had slaves but disliked
the institution. I have never had any slaves and I dislike it as much.
Yet the question is what to do. If you keep it where it is you simply
lay a siege about it. Great suffering will come in that way to the
negroes of course. It is a kind of strangulation, selfish and small. On
the other hand, if you give it breathing space what will become of the
country? I know Douglas' argument that it cannot exist in the North. But
suppose you have it all over the South, that's pretty big. Besides,
what's to hinder new work being found for the slaves? Why can't they dig
coal and gold like peons? Why can't they farm? Perhaps not; and yet I am
not so sure of Douglas on that. He is the most convincing man in the
world when you are with him. But when he goes away from you his spell
slips off and you see the holes in his argument."
"You have been reading and thinking, haven't you, Reverdy?"
"Oh, yes, all the time. What I am afraid of is a war. I had a little dab
of it in the Black Hawk trouble. But a war between these states would
shake the earth. I have two boys, you know. Sarah worries about it.
Everybody's beginning to live in a kind of terror."
"I have read about it too, ever since I have been in America. I have
applied my philosophically exercised faculties to it. I have talked with
Mr. Williams about it many times and with Douglas. I have had dozens of
conversations on all these things. It seems to me that I could advance
some new arguments myself."
"What new arguments could you advance?" asked Reverdy.
"Well," I said, "suppose I wanted to take a definite stand that slavery
is wrong, which these Whigs won't. They only play with the question.
They want to limit it perhaps. But why? Is it wrong? Or is it against
northern interests? What? But suppose I took such a stand and needed a
legal foundation. Couldn't I say that Congress could prohibit slavery in
the territories under the power it has to regulate commerce between
them? I put this question to Mr. Williams and he hadn't thought of it;
but he told me that Judge Marshall held that commerce was traffic. Very
well? Isn't slavery traffic? It's buying and selling. It impresses
things that are bought and sold--cotton. And slaves are the subject of
traffic. Therefore to regulate it--keep the slaves out of the
territories where they might be bought and sold after getting into the
territories, as well as where they might be sold into the
territories--is the regulation of commerce, isn't it? Well now, isn't
that better than calling the territories property and subject to the
arbitrary rule of Congress as merely inert matter? If you can rule the
territories arbitrarily as to slavery, why not as to anything else?
Suppose we annex Cuba; under this doctrine we could rule Cuba
arbitrarily, just as England ruled the Colonies here arbitrarily. Then
take the assumption that Congress has the power to keep slavery out of
the territories; just the power, not the express duty; well, it follows
that Congress has the power to let it in the territories. If it can put
it in or out of the territories it can leave the territories to put it
in or out. And why isn't that best? Right here is the point of my
adherence to Douglas. For I see a growing central power in this country
not acting on its lawful authority, but upon its own will, dictated by
theories of morality or trade or monopoly. If this matter is left to the
territories it is left to the source of sovereign power and to local
interests; if it is controlled by Congress it means an increasing
centralization. What I really mean is that this mere assumption that
Congress can deal with the matter in virtue of some vague sovereignty,
without pointing out some express power in Congress to do so, leads
straight to imperialism. And thus on the whole, having a regard for the
future of America and its liberty, I stand with Douglas. I have read
Webster in his theories that the territories are property, and can
therefore be dealt with under the clause which empowers Congress to make
all needful laws and regulations for the territory and other property of
the United States. Well, why doesn't he go farther and let Congress at
one stroke emancipate the slaves? For a slave is certainly property, and
if needful rules and regulations as to the negro require his
emancipation, why can't he be emancipated under this clause? But if
territory is property, so is a slave. And if territory is property, who
owns the property? Why, all the states of course. And if they own the
land and own the slaves too, why can't they take into their own land,
unless they are forbidden to do so by a majority of the states,
representatives legislating under some clause of the Constitution which
gives them the right to do so?"
"Oh, yes," said Reverdy, "I have heard most of this before. But I'll
tell you: the first man of account who rises up to say that slavery is
wrong will be remembered, even if he is not honored. I am not talking
about all these agitators and fellows; nor even of Seward or of
Hale--they're too sharp and smart. I mean some man who puts the right
feeling into the thing like Mrs. Stowe did in her book. You see, I was
raised in Tennessee, and I don't care how you apologize for it, or make
it look like labor of other kinds, or prove that all labor is slavery,
just the same this negro slavery is vile. You can find good reasons for
anything you want to do. I don't know where we get our right and
wrong--it comes up from something deep in us. But when we get it, all
this argument that Douglas is so skillful in simply melts away. I really
wonder that so many women in the South favor slavery and that my mother
was so wedded to it, and Dorothy now."
We were passing now the house I had built. "Who lives there now?" I
asked. Reverdy gave me the name. It was not the man to whom I had sold
the farm. I thought of Fortescue. "Where is Fortescue?" "Oh, he lit out
from here," said Reverdy. "Do you know," I said, "I have thought it
possible that Zoe might not be dead." "How could that be?" "I don't
know. I feel that I went through that transaction dazed and without
verifying things, as I should have done." "Oh, no, if Zoe were living
you would know of it long before now."
After our drive we came back to Sarah and the meal that she had prepared
for us. Women reflect the politics of the hour in nerves and anxiety, in
anticipated sorrows. Sarah wished all agitations to stop. She longed for
peace. She was in dread of war. Perhaps Dorothy's health had been
affected by the growing turbulence of the country.
Young Amos and Jonas came in and ate with us. We turned to the talk of
railroads and the growth of Chicago. Sarah took a hand now and said:
"These things are all right. You won't get any war out of railroads and
telegraphs. You men can reason and argue as much as you please about
this slavery matter; but I have two sons, and I didn't bring them into
the world to be killed in a war; and I won't have it if I can help
it--not for all the niggers in the world."