Children of the Market Place Part 17

"There is a power in this nation greater either than the North or the South--a growing, increasing, swelling power that will be able to speak the law to this nation and to execute the law as spoken. That power is the country known as the Great West--the valley of the Mississippi, one and indivisible from the Gulf to the Great Lakes, and stretching on the one side and the other to the extreme sources of the Ohio and the Mississippi--from the Alleghenies to the Rocky Mountains. There, sir, is the hope of this nation, the resting place of the power that is not only to control but to save the Union. We furnish the water that makes the Mississippi; and we intend to follow, navigate, and use it until it loses itself in the briny ocean. So with the St. Lawrence. We intend to keep open and enjoy both of these great outlets to the ocean, and all between them we intend to take under our special protection, and preserve and keep as one happy, free, and united people. This is the mission of the great Mississippi valley, the heart and soul of the nation and the continent."

Did these words have any definite meaning to Webster? He knew nothing of the West. He sat with his leonine eyes fixed upon young America in the person of Douglas. No, as for that, Douglas did not know how truly he was speaking. He could not see in what manner time would fulfill his words. No, not even though there was thrilling conviction in his great voice, which filled the Senate chamber.

On the subject of the territories Douglas had offered several bills of his own. I can't remember their order, their substance, beyond the fact that they looked to the territorial control of slavery. But I remember a very cutting reply that he made to one Senator who interrupted him to ask by what authority a territory could legislate upon slavery. "Your bill conceded that a representative government is necessary--a government founded upon the principles of popular sovereignty, and the right of the people to enact their own laws; and for this reason you give them a legislature const.i.tuted of two branches; you confer upon them the right to legislate upon all rightful subjects of legislation, except negroes. Why except negroes? I am not therefore prepared to say that under the Const.i.tution we have not the power to pa.s.s laws excluding negro slaves from the territories. But I do say that if left to myself to carry out my own opinions I would leave the whole subject to the people of the territories themselves."

In a sense Clay was the center of attraction, both because he had returned after a long absence and because he was expected to use his conciliatory power toward a settlement which would satisfy both the North and the South. He had come to Was.h.i.+ngton expecting to be received with open arms by President Taylor. He had been disappointed. He was not overstrong, being in his seventy-third year. But his old charm had not faded, his power over men had not abated. He had loved a drink, a game of cards; he was a slave owner, from a slave state; he had not been consistent in his thinking and his preachment. True to his peculiar gift of leaders.h.i.+p and negotiation, he had framed a compromise which provided for the admission of California as a free state. This contradicted the doctrine of the right of the state to come into the Union free or slave, as it chose. The bill provided further for the admission of Utah and New Mexico with or without slavery as they might choose. This impugned the admissional doctrine of California. It provided for the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and for the pa.s.sage of a fugitive slave law, such as would satisfy the South. A motley bill!

Calhoun was against it. He demanded the extension of slavery into the territory acquired from Mexico, and proposed an amendment to the Const.i.tution providing for two presidents, one from the South and one from the North, with a veto over each other's acts. Any absurdity for the sake of slavery! Perhaps disease had something to do with this unreason. He died in April before any law was pa.s.sed.

Webster supported Clay's bill, thus standing for the admission of Utah and New Mexico with or without slavery as they might decide. Douglas in the discussion, with his eye for the concrete, pointed out that the ordinance of 1787, and the Missouri Compromise as well, were practically dead letters. As to the free law respecting Oregon, Oregon had previously fixed the freedom status for herself. As to the fantastic proposition of striking a balance between the North and the South, giving them equal new states of freedom and slavery, he pointed out that that was a moral and physical impossibility. The cause of freedom had steadily advanced, the cause of slavery steadily failed. "We all look forward with confidence to the time when Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, and probably North Carolina and Tennessee, will adopt a gradual system of emanc.i.p.ation. In the meantime we have a vast territory, stretching from the Mississippi to the Pacific, which is rapidly filling up with a hardy, enterprising, and industrious population, large enough to form at least seventeen new free states.

Now, let me inquire, where are you to find the slave territory with which to balance these seventeen free territories, or even any one of them?"

This was not exactly placating the South. Douglas missed his opportunity as a demagogue.

Turning to Webster Douglas said: "California came in free according to those laws of nature and G.o.d to which the Senator of Ma.s.sachusetts alluded. It would be free under any bill you may pa.s.s or without any bill at all." And Seward spoke for a law higher than the Const.i.tution.

Well, there were many laws of justice, mercy, and ethics which the Const.i.tution did not comprehend. Still, if it came to a question of law, what law was to be observed? The laws that were written, the laws relating to the progress of the country, the laws that worked for peace among the American people? If Webster could vote for this compromise, surely Douglas could. Both might have to return to their homes, there to face hostility arising from a different vision of the questions than that these men had, acting upon their responsibility and attempting to reconcile many interests.

In point of fact, Douglas returned to Chicago to find a storm of disfavor rising about him. His enemies were multiplying. His own state was disappointed in him. The South distrusted him. But he had infinite confidence in his own strength. Webster was declining, both he and Clay were soon to die. But Douglas was only thirty-seven. More than thirty years yet before he would reach their age. Clay's Compromises had become a law. The slavery question was settled. Now for the Illinois Central railroad.

CHAPTER XLIII

We returned from Was.h.i.+ngton to New York, for much was going on in the metropolis. The newspapers day by day were full of Douglas and his difficulties in Chicago. The common council had adopted a resolution censuring Douglas, calling the Clay Compromises a violation of the laws of G.o.d. The aldermen of Chicago must have been affected by the religious psychology which was now sweeping the country.

We read that Douglas had heard that a ma.s.s-meeting was about to indorse the resolution of the city council; he had gone to the hall to defend himself and had been greeted by hisses and catcalls. He had faced his hecklers, forced them to adjourn until he could address them; then he had addressed them, carried them by storm and procured the resolutions to be expunged.

Evidently the city council did not understand the Clay Compromises. Or had Douglas' oratory swept them off their feet? It may not be a pleasing sight to see a slave returned to its master, but what are you going to do with the law? Are you willing to violate the Const.i.tution for the negro? A heckler asked him: "Are not the provisions of the Const.i.tution respecting the return of a fugitive slave a violation of the law of G.o.d?" Douglas was quick to reply: "The divine law does not prescribe the form of government under which we shall live, and the character of our political and civil inst.i.tutions. Revelation has not furnished us with a const.i.tution, a code of international law, and a system of civil and munic.i.p.al jurisprudence. If this Const.i.tution is to be repudiated for the law of G.o.d, who is to be the prophet to reveal the will of G.o.d and establish a theocracy for us?"

I began to think of this law of G.o.d. Men are always reaching for it.

Sometimes it is only a club for interest or revenge. You have offended me. G.o.d will punish you. If G.o.d was opposed to slavery he could have prevented it in the beginning and He could terminate it now. Perhaps Douglas thought of this when saying that G.o.d had not provided a code of munic.i.p.al law. If He had, He could have written freedom into the Const.i.tution. Douglas was at least sure that he knew as much about the law of G.o.d as Garrison or Seward, or abolitionist lecturers in back halls.

De Tocqueville had written that "America is the country of the whole world where the question of religion has a.s.serted the most real power over the souls of men." The ringing of church bells, church going, revivals, the calling upon G.o.d to note and punish sin, pervaded the country and the cities. The Bible was a textbook of G.o.d's thinking. It justified slavery in the South; it encouraged abolitionism in the North; it suggested interference and regimentation; it counseled forgiveness and vengeance.

At this time in New York one could not turn or pick up the most casual publication without finding something in the nature of a moral propagandum. At breakfast I read from the _New York Independent_ that "Rum, profaneness and Sabbath breaking always go together." The editor was "sorry to find that the stockholders of the Saratoga railroad still run their cars upon the Sabbath. It is an odious and monstrous violation, not only of the laws of G.o.d, but of all the decencies of Christian society. And yet I had noticed ladies traveling in them, thundering into Saratoga on the Lord's Day. Women traveling in a public conveyance on the Sabbath. There is something in this peculiarly degrading and shameful. It ought to be only the lowest of the s.e.x that would stoop to such debas.e.m.e.nt." And another paper said: "We are sorry to learn that the directors have established an accommodation train for Sunday morning between this city and Poughkeepsie, in addition to the mail train to Albany. Mr. James Boorman, through whose efficient service as President the road was mainly built, has resigned his office as director and has addressed a firm remonstrance to the Board against this impiety."

This was the time in which Douglas was now working. Every one knew what the law of G.o.d was. Every one appealed to the Bible as G.o.d's word. For much of this Douglas had perfect contempt; and he was quick to sense a taint of it in Seward, or any one whom it had infected. Such men as Stephens of the South were insisting now that the real intellect-of the North cared nothing about slavery, and only used it to masquerade their centralizing plots. If local self-government could be extinguished for the purposes of abolition why not for anything, in behalf of which a moral enthusiasm could be evoked? Why not a const.i.tutional amendment establis.h.i.+ng a state religion? Why not a state religion under the present const.i.tutional clause which makes provision for the general welfare?

One day when Dorothy and I were seated at Niblo's at luncheon I felt some one touch my shoulder. I looked up and saw Aldington, back of him Abigail, who was laughing at my expression of surprise. We all broke into exclamations. They had just returned from Europe. They joined us in the meal; and there was scarcely enough time to tell back and forth all that was of mutual interest. He saw me with the _Independent_ and began to rally me. "Did you know," he said, "that the early Puritans in New England were the progenitors of one third of the whole population of the United States by 1834? They const.i.tute one half of the population of the states of Ohio and New York now, and they have gone into the northwest.

They will make trouble for your Douglas. I admit that they have blighted art and hobbled literature. They have expurgated Shakespeare, they have fought the theater, they are always ready for the moral battle. They know what G.o.d wants better than anybody. In a sense they are hounds in pursuit of a lot of things in the great hunt of life. They are a stubborn lot. It will be hard to take away from them anything that is their own, and also to keep them from destroying anything that they don't want."

"Well, now don't you see," I asked, "that Douglas is against all these people and that he has all these influences to fight? For example, these Puritans cannot rule if popular sovereignty is adopted everywhere. They are numerically too inferior. How, for example, can you stop the railroads on Sunday if you let communities, states, control the matter?

But if these fanatics get into control of the Federal government, they can do it. Don't you see the point? This is what Douglas is thinking about. He knows that you can have freedom about life only where every man has a say."

Then we began to talk of the religious revival. Periodicals were noting the great turn of the public mind to religion. "Fruits of the spirit"

were extolled. Great and glorious works of divine grace were wrought in Maine. A village in Ma.s.sachusetts had enjoyed "a heavenly refres.h.i.+ng from the presence of the Lord." In Cincinnati there was "an outpouring of the spirit." In the woods of Michigan men rode into a village to obtain mercy, having heard that the Lord was there. In New York City noon prayer meetings were held. A conductor found salvation suddenly while operating his horse car in Sixth Avenue. A sailor saw Christ at the wheel. Christ was met in parlors, in places of worldly gayety. An actor had been rescued from his wicked calling. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote: "We trust since prayer has once entered the counting rooms it will never leave it; and that the ledger, sandbox, the blotting book and the pen and ink will all be consecrated by heavenly presence." Her brother, the pastor of Plymouth church, had converted one hundred and ninety souls. A theater was used for a place of wors.h.i.+p. Actors were called upon to repent: You who have portrayed human nature before the footlights, fall on your knees and acknowledge G.o.d! Rum had been driven from a saloon near this theater. "Thank G.o.d," said Beecher, "let us pray silently for the s.p.a.ce of two minutes. What a history has been here. A place of fict.i.tious joys but of real sorrows has been reformed. It is open for G.o.d's people to sing and pray in. G.o.d be thanked that Heaven's gates have been opened in this place of h.e.l.l."

Garrison saw the point. Of the revival he wrote that it had "spread like an epidemic in all directions, over a wide extent of country. Prayer meetings, morning, noon and night; prayer meetings in town, village, and hamlet, North and South. The whole thing is an emotional contagion without principle. This revival, judging from the past, will promote meanness, not manliness; delusion, not intelligence; the growth of bigotry, not of humanity; a spurious religion, not genuine piety."

Theodore Parker denounced the mania too, and was attacked for it by Methodists and others. He sew that the North had its rain G.o.ds, its prosperity G.o.ds, its bread and b.u.t.ter G.o.ds, its rituals and devotions for these G.o.ds; and that the South had the same number of G.o.ds.

What then of the law of G.o.d? Douglas was at one with Garrison and Parker in this criticism of the religious mania.

Thus we talked along together. The princ.i.p.al thing about Abigail was that she despised the South, but for the reason that there was nothing there but the political mind and that it was concerned almost entirely with the negro. It had no literature. Longfellow, Emerson, Whittier, Lowell were producing works of merit; and the South was doing nothing.

Poe was born in Boston, had lived South, but had written out of nowhere.

He had died about a year before, discouraged and broken.

The most silent voice at the table was Dorothy's. She did not really enter into these discussions. Her softer, altogether feminine nature was disturbed by these things. Abigail began to laugh. "Why," she asked, "does every one say here 'how's your health' instead of 'good morning'

as they say in England? People look careworn to me in America; they are spare and pallid. Not many ruddy complexions. Why all these sharp-faced, lantern-jawed, lean, sallow, hard-handed people? Why this depression of spirits? Perhaps they really get a thrill out of religion after all. Why all these advertis.e.m.e.nts of quack remedies, why all this calling on G.o.d?

This is a place of bright suns.h.i.+ne and exhilarating air. After all, I do not understand it."

"All due to the habits of life," said Aldington. "Look at the fast eating--look at them here. Too much hot bread and sweets--too much pie for breakfast. Too much pork. Too much living at hotels and boarding houses. Too much drinking before meals; not enough wine and beer with meals. Too much tobacco chewing. No exercise. Only the farmer, the laborer works. They go too far. But where do you see outdoor sports? No cricket, no rowing. Nothing but trotting around in buggies. Recreation consists of lounging around on sofas at Saratoga. All the public men ill. I hear that Toombs is indisposed. Sumner is in poor health.

Douglas, the little giant, is losing strength. What a curious people, aged and young, corrupt and idealistic, candid and hypocritical, religious and materialistic, h.o.a.rders and spenders, self-righteous, licentious, Puritanical." "Like all others," I interjected.

"Like no other," Aldington rejoined. "Go back to your native England and see. You have forgotten some things. There is such a thing as a definite stock. And if you call the English bulldogs, for example, your America is a mixture of the wolf, spaniel, lapdog, shepherd, and about all breeds; and according to the occasion any one of them, with quick changes. Abigail and I have been here for a number of days and we have been entertained by some of her splendacious friends, to use Thackeray's adjective for American fas.h.i.+on; and the impression it all makes on me is beyond description. I want to see a better thing made of Chicago. I really hate it here, all this striving for money--but of course no place can beat Chicago for that--but also the idlers here, the wors.h.i.+p of Mammon, the dullness and the gloom of elegant people, the extravagant dressing, the liveried servants, all this imitation. And all this talk here of America being the only religious, free, and enlightened people in the world. Why, they are not free at all. The mind must be free before the man is free, and the mind cannot be free in a despotism. The slavery of the North is just as bad as the slavery of the South. For look at these people; slaves to fear, slaves to stupid customs, slaves to superst.i.tion, slaves to foreign ideas of dress, fas.h.i.+on, wealth; slaves to all the vices by which money is made, and all the tricks and hypocrisies by which it is piled up and invested with rulers.h.i.+p; slaves to absurd ideas; slaves to every foolish reform. Why, sometimes as I think of it, I see the negro in the South as the freest man in America.

He is only a slave as to his labor. Every one must work. Instead of receiving money he gets clothes and a hut. He can't go away from the plantation, but why go away? One must be somewhere. And as to these other things, he is not a slave at all."

"Yes, and that's not all," I said. "A money power is fast growing up in this country which will rule the country so thoroughly that the small dictation of the cotton industry of the South will not be a comparison.

Slavocracy is only one of the scales on the tail of the dragon of plutocracy. Gold and silver, tariffs, subsidies, colonies, banks of issue--these are the claws and teeth of the big slavery."

"So says Adam Smith," Aldington interjected.

"Exactly so, and it's all true. Every one of the old timers knew these things, Was.h.i.+ngton, Jefferson, Hamilton. I am beginning to think that Franklin, Payne, and Jefferson were the truest thinkers and greatest planners for a republic that America has had. And what do you think of Douglas now? He is a Nationalist with Jackson, and a Republican with Jefferson; a let-alone philosopher all the time."

"Oh, yes, but Douglas is not educated. He is not really sound. He is not deep enough. He is not--I hate the word spirituality--but he hasn't the right heat, the right light. I may not be able to put my finger on the exact fault--it is not exactly demagogy--but I see him using blocks of people, who are bound together by a common emotion or idea, as a man might use a block of stone for his house. He picks them up and puts them in the place that suits his own ambition. There is one thing, however, with which I am inclined to sympathize with Douglas. His appeal is really more intellectual than emotional. You see an ocean-bound republic requires imagination to get the thrill out of it, but you can catch anybody in America with a military uniform. And while Douglas may be a war man, so to speak, he is really too honest to play that game. I'll grant him that much. I think that the Whigs are outplaying him. And it looks to me that the emotions of America--what some people might call the conscience of America--are being drawn away from Douglas by this slavery matter. Just now territory and railroads are not so strong, or will not be so strong pretty soon as the cry for emanc.i.p.ation." "I am glad to hear you say these things," I said. "Douglas is only thirty-seven; he will not fully mature his powers for ten years yet. I have talked with him many times and have known him intimately and I think I understand the man. He is distrusted in the South simply because he will not bend all law making to the slave interests. He has just been written down in Chicago on the law of G.o.d doctrine. And yet he stands his ground against both the North and the South without flinching. He defies his enemies. He has the very sanity that you have extolled here at this table. I think he has the only rational solution for this slavery question. He is a very great man in my opinion."

"What do you think of Barnum?" asked Aldington. Abigail looked up and said: "Yes, I would like to hear a little about Barnum and less about Douglas. I hear that Jenny Lind is coming to town." "It's to-day," said Dorothy. "And don't we want to see her arrive? I do, let's go."

And we all hurried forth to witness the greetings given to the Swedish nightingale.

CHAPTER XLIV

Barnum had been taken by De Quincey as an epitome of America: "A great hulk of a continent, that the very moon finds fatiguing to cross, produces a race of Barnums on a pre-Adamite scale, corresponding in activity to its own enormous proportions."

Barnum had resorted to daily advertising, a great sensationalism to keep up interest in the arrival of the singer. We went from our table to the pier to see her descend from the steamer. Triumphal arches of evergreens and flowers had been erected over the way she pa.s.sed. A great crowd had collected. Bands were playing. Her face came into view. Shouts arose.

She bowed and smiled to the wild throngs about her as she rode with Barnum to the Astor House. Here the Swedish and American flags floated in her honor. New York was in a frenzy of delight. But the tickets to hear her! All this excitement had been worked up for use at the box office. And Aldington could not afford the price. We wished Abigail and Aldington to be with us. I therefore submitted to the Barnum extortion for the whole party.

Jenny Lind sang at Castle Garden, where I had sat nearly twenty years before, when New York had about half the population. The crowds pressed around the entrances. Those who could not afford to enter hoped to get a glimpse of her anyway. It was an enormous audience, and all of distinguished New York was there. Senator Webster had been one of those to receive her at the pier, and he was in the audience too. We were all deeply moved by this wonderful voice. Poor Dorothy was frequently drying her eyes. And when she sang one of her own national airs, Webster sat entranced. At its close she courtesied to him. He arose and bowed to her with the majestic manner of a great monarch. The audience went into a fury of applause. Every one spoke of her as good of heart, sweet and natural of manner. She had given her share of the proceeds of this concert to various charities in New York City. A feeling of uplifted life spread over the metropolis. She melted the souls of thousands, and purged the craft of money getting. We came away from her as from a higher realm. "What," said Abigail, "is anything in the world, money or statesmans.h.i.+p, what, of all these things of which we have talked to-day can be compared to an art like that, a divine influence like song?"

After this we started on a round of the theaters. I prevailed upon our friends to prolong their stay, to be our guests. We saw Burton and Edwin Booth. We went to the Opera, saw the ballet which Fannie Ellsler had previously inaugurated. The _Independent_ was denouncing the theater as an unmitigated evil; the ballet was a shocking exhibition of legs.

Still they had come, and New York had them.

We dined at Niblo's, at Castle Garden. We drove about the city. We went out to see Trenton Falls where Jenny Lind had been taken as part of her entertainment, and where she had sung in the woods and been answered by the birds.