Children of the Market Place

by Edgar Lee Masters

The city was thronged with people. Bands were playing everywhere. The Wide-awakes, a Republican organization, were out in force marching as soldiers, dressed in glazed caps and capes, carrying torches. Mottoes and transparencies were borne aloft by hundreds. "Free soil for free men." "No more slave territories." "We do care whether slavery is voted up or down." "Abraham Lincoln cares"—these were the banners. And everywhere the banner "Protection to American Industries." Men carried rails. The crowds cheered and roared. And Baron Renfrew looked on, surrounded by his entourage and a few of the élite of Chicago. We stared up into his face. Did he smile, approve? Was he greatly interested? If America should divide it would be better for England. We saw him turn and smile as he evidently spoke to one of his party.

Then a parade of Douglas men passed. They too carried banners. "Little Giant." "Ever Readies." "Cuba Must Be Ours." "We want none but white men at the helm." "We want a statesman, not a railsplitter for President." "Free Trade"—these were the Douglas mottoes. We turned at last and made our way through the crowd. Hawkers were selling railsplitter pins, Honest Abe pins. The streets were a medley of noise, confusion; the sidewalks were blocked. Drunken men, eager men pushed their way through. Bands played. Far off a stump speaker's voice could be heard. All this waste of sand and scrub oak which I had seen in 1833 was now covered with buildings big and little. It was the battleground between two sons of Illinois.

October came. I grew more and more apprehensive for Douglas' fate. I had had a letter from Isabel gently foreshadowing her marriage. My boy was not advancing in his work at school. Inexorable loneliness was descending upon me.

Douglas came to Chicago on a speaking trip. He had been in Indianapolis where his voice was so hoarse that he could scarcely be heard. Chicago gave him a magnificent ovation. They saw the man now in all his clearness of mind and strength of heart. He repudiated the schemes of fusion.

"Every disunionist," he said, "is a Breckenridge man. As Democrats, we can never fuse either with northern Abolitionists or southern bolters and secessionists. Yes, my friends, I say to you what I said in North Carolina and in the same words: I would hang every man higher than Haman who would attempt to resist by force the execution of any provision of the Constitution which our fathers made and bequeathed to us. You cannot sever this Union unless you cut the heartstrings that bind father to son, daughter to mother, and brother to sister in all our new states and territories. I love my children, but I do not desire to see them survive this Union."

With these words his tired and broken voice fell back into weakness from the great melody and power of its habitual quality. His weary body had risen into fresh strength for this utterance. His face assumed a great majesty. Men and women alike wept to hear him speak so—wept for the dark days ahead, wept for a great man failing in a struggle in which he was yet holding to cherished ideals, now being blown and scattered by the storm of the new era. They saw him surrounded on all sides by enemies. The South hated him. The northern Democrats with southern ideas hated him. The fanatics hated him. The Republican party which he had stepped upon with giant contempt hated him. In eight years of existence it had gathered to itself the contemptible factions that he had satirized. They had united now in the supreme purpose of defeating him. He was appealing for the same principles to which he had always been devoted. He was defending the Union as he had defended it since the days when I saw Jackson put his arm around him, and look with paternal pride in his eyes. He knew the heart and the will of the South. He was trying to tell it to the North. He felt that his own election would prevent disunion. He asked people to believe that he wished to be elected, not to gratify his personal ambition, but for the sake of the Union.

It was all in vain. The avalanche, loosened years before by stray adventurers building fires for their little kettles, and running thoughtlessly over weakened attachments, was now moving down on Douglas and the Union. The October election showed that he was defeated. Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana were carried by the Republicans in the state elections. Douglas was speaking in the South. His life had been threatened. An attempt was made to wreck his train. In Alabama he was showered with missiles. Not a northern paper published these shameful insults, which if published would have won him many friends in the North. Amid dangers and discouragements he went on to the end.

He was in Mobile when the news of Lincoln's election reached him. Before leaving Alabama he did what he could to prevent that state from seceding.

Undismayed, he went on to New Orleans. There he addressed the business men, pointing out to them that Lincoln would have a hostile Senate on his hands if the South would only remain in the Union; that Lincoln could carry out no abolition or unfriendly policy toward the South without a Senate; that all of Lincoln's appointments would have to be confirmed by the Senate. All of these things he said to dissuade the South from secession. When they would not be persuaded, he tore the mask from their faces and told them directly that Lincoln's election was only a pretext for those who wished to set up a Southern Confederacy.

Lincoln was elected. But Douglas was not dishonored. He had achieved a great personal triumph. He had polled 1,357,157 votes in the country against Lincoln's 1,866,452. In Illinois he had polled 160,215 votes to Lincoln's 172,161—in spite of New England and the Germans. He had received 163,525 votes from the South against Lincoln's 26,430. But he had lost to Breckenridge or Bell fourteen southern states. Protective tariff Pennsylvania had given Lincoln 268,030 and Douglas 16,765. Protective tariff Massachusetts had given Lincoln 106,533 and Douglas 34,372. Douglas had fought the South, he had fought against the disadvantage of a divided party, he had fought the protective tariff, yet Lincoln had polled but a little more than 500,000 votes more than he had. No use to say that the populace does not understand questions of government or that they cannot rise to high justices and rewards. Douglas' personal triumph had been great, but his remarkable popular support shrunk to an insignificant twelve votes in the electoral college. He was vanquished and I was more deeply depressed than I had ever been in my life. Lincoln was elected!