Two years after our marriage, my husband was seriously ill from an
affection of the throat, and consulted Dr. Green, an eminent specialist
of Philadelphia. He was ordered to a warmer climate, and forbidden to
speak in or out of court. The tiny law office at a corner of the court
green in Charlottesville was abandoned, and we hastened to Petersburg,
near his birthplace. As it was absolutely impossible for him to exist
without occupation, he purchased a newspaper, sallied forth one morning
to solicit subscribers for "_The South Side Democrat_," and before a
week's end was justified in beginning its issue.
This step determined his career in life. He did not practise law until
he came to New York in 1865.
At the age of twenty-two he became an enthusiastic editor. The little
_South Side Democrat_ soon evinced pluck and spirit. Its youthful editor
sailed his small craft right into the troubled sea of politics, local
and national, to sink or swim according to its merits and the wisdom
of its pilot. It was loved of the gods, with the inevitable result,—but
not until he left it.
[Illustration: STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS.]
I remember our first meeting with Stephen A. Douglas, so soon to become
a conspicuous figure in our political history. He had just returned from
Europe, and was passing through Petersburg with his first wife (Miss
Martin of North Carolina), and of course glad to talk with the editor
of a Democratic paper, aspiring as he did to the highest office in the
country. He was thirty-nine years old, and below the average height. But
the word _insignificant_ could never have been applied to him. There was
something in his air, his carriage, that forbade it. His massive head,
his resolute face, more than compensated for his short stature.
He has always been accused of rude, unconventional manners. He was
enough of a courtier to inform me that I resembled the Empress Eugénie.
To us he took the trouble to be charming, talked of his European
experience—of everything, in fact, except the perilous stuff burning
in his own bosom, his hunger for the presidency. Like my editor,
he had been admitted to the bar before he had reached his majority.
The parallel was to appear again later. Mr. Douglas also had been a
representative in Congress at thirty.
My husband was a delegate to the Democratic Convention that nominated
Franklin Pierce in 1852, and Mr. Douglas suffered himself to be a
candidate.
The "Little Giant" received at first only 20 votes, but he steadily
increased until Virginia cast her 15 votes for Mr. Pierce, after which
there was "a stampede" which decided the matter. Some writer reminded
Douglas that vaulting ambition overleaps itself, but added dryly,
"Perhaps the little Judge never read Shakespeare and does not think of
this."
An interesting event in Petersburg was a brief visit from Louis Kossuth
_en route_ to the Southern and Western cities, his avowed purpose being
"to invoke the aid of the great American republic to protect his people;
peaceably, if they may, by the moral influence of their declarations;
but forcibly, if they must, by the physical power of their arm—to
prevent any foreign interference in the struggle to be renewed for the
liberties of Hungary."
Our Congress, it will be remembered,[1] had, after Kossuth's defeat
and his detention in Turkey—whither he had fled for refuge—directed
the President to offer one of the ships of our Mediterranean squadron
to bring him and his suite to our country. The Turkish government had
no especial use for Governor Kossuth as a guest or as a captive, and
accordingly he landed from the steamer _Vanderbilt_ which had been sent
with a committee to meet him, at New York quarantine, December 5, 1851,
at one o'clock in the morning. Early as was the hour, a great crowd
collected on shore to greet him. A salute of twenty-one guns and an
address of welcome from the health-officer at once assured him that he
came to us, not to be pitied as a defeated refugee, but to receive all
honor due a conquering hero. As his boat steamed by, Governor's Island
gave him a salute of thirty-one guns, New Jersey one hundred and twenty,
and New York,—but we know how New York can behave! Steamers, great and
small, whistled, pistols and guns were fired, Hungarian cheers were
shouted, and our Stars and Stripes took into close embrace the Hungarian
flag. We know New York hospitality, and her enthusiasm, nay, crazy
excitement when something, anything, novel and interesting happens.
When Kossuth reached Castle Garden, the unhappy mayor essayed in vain to
read his speech. Speech, indeed! A hundred thousand throats were aching
with a speech, and they delivered it with a roar!
"There was," says a reporter, "a continuous roar of cheers like waves on
the shore." Every house was decorated; and as the hero passed, mounted
on Black Warrior, a horse which had borne conquerors in many Florida
and Mexican wars, the street was jammed with enthusiastic people, and
the windows alive with women and children. Never, since the landing of
Lafayette, had New York so abandoned herself to enthusiasm. The story is
too long—of the speeches, processions, dinners, receptions, fire-works,
etc.—to be repeated fully in these pages.
Of course, the little _South Side Democrat_ threw up its cap with the
rest. Kossuth, when he reached the town, had already received honors
of which his wildest fancy never dreamed, and we did our best to echo
them according to our ability. There were several ladies in his suite
to whom I paid my respects (I am not sure his wife was among them), and
the only impression they made upon me was one of extreme weariness. They
spoke English fairly well, but were too utterly worn out to exhibit the
least animation. Kossuth spoke English perfectly. He had a long talk
with my young editor, to whom he gave a huge cigar, which was never
reduced to ashes! But after he left, the _South Side Democrat_ came to
its senses (having never utterly lost them), and expressed a decided
opinion in favor of the non-intervention of this country in the affairs
of Hungary, giving good reasons therefor. Kossuth, when the paper was
handed him, read the editorial carefully, and exclaimed, "_So young_,
and yet so depraved!" adding, with his usual tact, "I mean, of course,
politically!"
But even at this highest pinnacle of glory in New York, when an
editorial banquet was given him at The Astor by George Bancroft, William
Cullen Bryant, Henry J. Raymond, Parke Godwin, Henry Ward Beecher,
Charles A. Dana, and others, Mr. Webster had coldly declined attendance.
His letter was received with hisses and groans. "Kossuth," said Mr.
Webster, in a private letter from Washington, "is a gentleman in
appearance and demeanor, is handsome enough in person, evidently
intellectual and dignified, amiable and graceful in his manners. I shall
treat him with all personal and individual respect; but if he should
speak to me of the policy of 'intervention,' I shall have ears more deaf
than adders'."
The Senate, the President, Congress, all received him cordially. He
dined at the White House; was treated with the utmost distinction, and
a seat of honor assigned him on the floor of the Senate; but before
he left Washington, every one except himself knew that his mission had
failed. He soon discovered it, and appealed no longer for intervention
but for money. He complained bitterly at Pittsburg that he had received
little but costly banquets and foolish parades. The net amount of the
contributions to his cause was less than $100,000, and according to
his statement at Pittsburg, only $30,000 remained for the purchase
of muskets. We had expressed with enthusiasm our appreciation of his
patriotism, courage, and devotion. We had entertained him _en prince_.
We had added a substantial gift. It was not enough.
The citizens of New York very soon calmed down, and by the middle
of January the name of Kossuth was rarely mentioned. When Congress
came to audit his hotel bill, it fairly gasped! The retainers of the
poor refugee had not been poor livers. They had occupied luxurious
apartments, and proved beyond a shadow of doubt the Hungarian
appreciation of old Madeira and champagne. No one, however, could accuse
the hero himself of excess. Still, all at once, he seemed less of a
hero.
One unprejudiced looker-on in Vienna, Ampère, wrote of Kossuth at the
editorial dinner, "He has the bad taste to love fanciful dress, wore a
_lévite_ of black velvet, and seemed to me much less imposing than when
he harangued, leaning upon his sword, in the hall at Castle Garden."
Ampère also philosophizes upon our American enthusiasm,—"the only lively
amusement of the multitude in a country where one has little to amuse
one. It is without consequence and without danger, simply to let out
the steam (_à lâcher la vapeur_), not to cause explosions but to prevent
them."
"The American likes excitement," says Bryce in 'The American
Commonwealth,' "but he is shrewd and keen; his passion seldom obscures
his reason; he keeps his head when a Frenchman, or an Italian, or
even a German, would lose it. Yet he is also of an excitable temper,
with emotions capable of being quickly and strongly stirred. He likes
excitement for its own sake, and goes wherever he can find it."
The Kossuth episode vividly illustrated this! _Sic transit gloria_—be
it prince or patriot!
My young editor had soon to leave the _South Side Democrat_ under the
care of a foster-father. He was summoned to Washington—lured less by
a fine salary than the larger field—to edit with John W. Forney the
_Washington Union_, then the national Democratic organ. It was desired
that one of the two editors should be from the South. Mr. Forney
represented the North.