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Children of the Market Place, a novel by Edgar Lee Masters |
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Chapter 36 |
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_ CHAPTER XXXVI But what of Douglas? During the war I had been entirely out of touch with him. What was he doing? What had he accomplished? What was now stirring in his restless imagination? They all had news for me about him and of varied import, according to their attitude. For one thing he had married while I was in the war. Mother Clayton approved the marriage. Abigail mocked it. For his wife was a southern woman, the owner of many slaves in Mississippi. Douglas had announced that he would have nothing to do with her property, especially with the slaves. But how was he to escape a derivative gain? So Abigail asked. I knew that he disliked the institution; but here it was touching him again in a peculiarly intimate way. Texas soiled him with its influence and now his marriage identified him with it. He might regard it, if he would, as a domestic matter like the liquor business, which Maine had just now laid low by a prohibition law. As he would not be a liquor dealer, so he would not be a slave owner. But he was the next thing to it in the circumstance of his marriage. But in my absence he had moved to Chicago, and this gave me great happiness. I should now see much of him. He was speculating in land and growing rich. He was advocating the immediate construction of the Illinois Central railroad. He had been triumphantly reelected to Congress. The Mexican War had helped to do that for him. He was only thirty-four, but a great and growing figure. Chicago had changed in my absence. The second water system, consisting of a reservoir at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Water Street, and a pump, operated by a 25-horsepower engine, was soon to be supplanted by a crib sunk in the lake 600 feet from shore, from which the water was to be drawn by a 200-horsepower engine. The lake traffic had increased enormously. The Illinois and Michigan canal was soon to be opened. Mother Clayton had saved for me the copies of Niles' _Register_ and had marked passages in Douglas' speeches in Congress, particularly his effective retorts to the aged J. Q. Adams, who pursued Douglas with inveterate hostility. It was all about the slavery question. I looked Douglas up as soon as possible. We invited him and his young wife to dinner. Surely he had found a charming and interesting mate. We now had so much of life in common and of mutual memory to draw upon. He was eager to hear of the war, the battles I had been in. He was very proud of me and happy beyond measure that I had come out of the war without a scar. How strange about Colonel Hardin! "An able man, that," said Douglas, "but I don't believe he ever forgave me for taking the state's attorneyship from him." Abigail and Aldington were also at our dinner. Mrs. Douglas found herself quite at home with Mother Clayton and Dorothy. I could see, however, that she did not like Abigail. After that Douglas and I had many meetings. He was full of ideas and absorbed in various activities. He was pugnacious and energetic. But what friends he made! He passed in and out of my view frequently, now that we lived in the same city. And before I knew it, scarcely before there was any talk of it, he was selected as United States Senator from Illinois. It was in December of 1847. He was within some four months of his thirty-fifth birthday. He had now had an uninterrupted career of political triumph. His one defeat for Congress, when he ran the first time, could scarcely be counted against him. But to my English eyes, in spite of all my admiration for the man, I saw much imperfection in his intellectual make-up, due in part I think to the haste with which he had lived. He had an adroitness and a fertility of mind which were altogether amazing. Yet he was like Chicago: of quick and phenomenal growth. His protective coloration was like Chicago's, which covered its ugliness and its irregularity with bunting and flags on a holiday. He was growing up rapidly, as Chicago was growing up. Chicago was facing greater problems as its population increased; and as Douglas rose into higher power, thicker complications entangled him. He dragged after him the imperfect education of his youth, the opinions of his immaturity. He was now enmeshed in the problems of the new territories, and always, slavery. Prepared or not, he would fight for his principles. If defeated he would rise quickly; if triumphant he advanced. As leisure was possible to me, and because of Dorothy's somewhat frail health, we decided to give up the Chicago house this winter and spend the season in Washington. We would take Mother Clayton, of course, and Mammy and Jenny. I would thus have the chance to watch the contests in Congress in which I was so profoundly interested. I wished to witness Douglas' part in these great affairs. Some of the old giants were still there: Calhoun, Webster. How would Douglas face these great men? Above all, the shreds of a decaying past were stretching themselves forward to enter the texture of the new weaving. How would the two pieces be connected? Would it be a patchwork? Douglas had come to me offering an appointment in Illinois. When I declined this, he suggested a consulship on the continent, or in London. But I could not see my way clear to leave America. I had too many interests now, and I wished to see the unfolding of events here. _ |
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