If I were recording the life of an artist I should be dealing with
different causes acting upon his development, or with different effects
produced by the same times in which Douglas lived. Instead I am trying
to set forth the soul of a great man who extracted from his environment
other things than beauty; or rather the beauty of national progress. The
question was, after all, whether Douglas was helping to give America a
soul. What was he accomplishing for the real greatness of his country by
giving it territory and railroads? What kind of a soul was he giving it?
Who in this time was giving America a soul? Abigail had often hinted at
these questions. And I had to confess that they occupied my thoughts.
I run over now with as much brevity as possible the events which led to
the crisis of Douglas' life. With the Compromises of 1850 the Whig party
began its rapid decline. The South did not like the Whig tariff. The
Whig attitude on the slavery question was too ambiguous to appeal to the
North. With its dissolution other organizations began to feed on its
remains. The Know-nothings arose and disappeared, without accomplishing
anything. Greeley said of them that they were "as devoid of the elements
of persistence as an anti-cholera or anti-potatobug party would be."
In early 1854 the Whigs, Free Soilers and Anti-Slavery Democrats met at
Ripon, Wisconsin, and proposed to form a new party, to be called the
Republican party. They took part of the name which Jefferson had coined,
dropping the word "national" out. Douglas, enraged by this blasphemy
against Jefferson, suggested that the word "black" be put in where
"national" had been left out, making the name Black Republican party.
A year later Douglas put through his bill for the organization of Kansas
and Nebraska, which provided that they could come into the Union with or
without slavery as they chose. He had long before voted against slavery
prohibition in Texas; for the extension of the Missouri Compromise to
the Pacific; for the Compromises of 1850, which made California free and
left Utah and New Mexico to come in free or slave, according to their
own wish. I had to confess that he had no clear constitutional theory
himself. He was only growing more emphatic in favor of popular
sovereignty as a name for territorial independence on the subject. He
compared this popular sovereignty to the rights which the Colonies
asserted against England to manage their own affairs, and for the
violation of which the Revolution ensued. The principle had appeared in
most of the bills that he had sponsored or supported. Now it was the
real doctrine. He was like an inventor who, after making many
experiments, hits upon a working device. He was like a philosopher, who
conceives the theory, then clears it, shears away its accidents or even
abandons it. He had long been distrusted in the South. The
Kansas-Nebraska bill still further alienated the South. The South wanted
slavery carried into the territories by the Constitution, even against
the will of the people of the territories. What had Douglas to gain with
popular sovereignty? He really overestimated its appeal. He knew that
the South did not like it, but he believed that it was sound, and that
it would win the majority of the people. He advanced it not only as a
solution of a vexed condition, but in the name of Liberty.
He misconceived the case, and here his tragedy began to flourish. I was
sorry to witness his discomfiture and his first forensic defeat.
Clergymen denounced him; and thinking no doubt that they were the
spokesmen of the back-hall radicalism and ignorant morality which he
despised, he fought them back bitterly: "You who desecrate the pulpit to
the miserable influence of party politics! Is slavery the only wrong in
the country? If so, why not recognize the great principles of
self-government and state equality as curatives?"
He was burned in effigy and branded a traitor, a Judas, a Benedict
Arnold. The whole mob power was used against him. But he was Hercules
furious. He was against the wall, but unrepentant. He came to Chicago
and announced that he would speak in front of the North Market Hall. It
was September, and still lovely summer weather. I could not induce
Dorothy to go, so Mr. Williams, Abigail, Aldington, and I went to hear
Douglas defend himself. All the afternoon before this evening bells were
tolled, flags were hung at half-mast. I got to Douglas, telling him that
I feared violence to his person. He waved me off. His brow was heavy
with scowls, his eyes deep with emotion. He was like a man ready to
fight and die. Finally the hour arrived, and he mounted the platform
intrepidly, amid hisses and howls. He paused to let the tumult die. He
began again. He was hooted. He stepped forward undaunted, and let forth
the full power of his voice:
"I come to tell you that an alliance has been made of abolitionism,
Maine liquor-lawism, and what there was left of northern Whiggism, and
then the Protestant feeling against the Catholic, and the native feeling
against the foreigner. All these elements were melted down in one
crucible, and the result is Black Republicanism."
A voice called out: "You're drunk!" Bedlam broke loose. In a silence
Douglas retorted: "Let a sober man say that." There were cheers. He went
on:
"How do you dare to yell for negro freedom and then deny me the freedom
of speech? I claim to be a man of practical judgment. I do not seek the
unattainable. I am not for Utopias."
"Topers!" said a voice, and there were yells.
"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 apprenticeship, 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 God 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
hell."
He stepped from the platform, walked boldly through the angry mob, ready
to assault 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.