No way to mark time quicker than by Presidentials. Four years pass in
the space 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 passed. 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 associations. 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 constitutional power of Congress
to do so. It had, with the Declaration of Independence, with the
invocation of God, 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 noble? 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."