I asked Douglas if I should move to Chicago. His eyes brightened. "Yes," he said in his quick way. "That is a place of great opportunity. Go there, Jim. I will be there myself, eventually. You can become very rich there with the capital that you have for a start."
Then I told him that I was trying to sell the farm; that I had about matured my plans to move. He was delighted. "I'll miss you here, but a friend is a friend to me, even up there. Go and build. You can help make a city. I want to see this state come into its own. I want to see schools everywhere, giving the advantages to the young which were denied to me. This is the most wonderful of states. Be glad that your destiny brought you here. At the present rate of immigration the population of Illinois will soon be a million. When you came here the population of the United States was about twelve million; now it is about seventeen million; it will soon be twenty million. Do you appreciate these figures? Look at the New Englanders, the Irish, the Germans that have poured into Illinois. Some of them come here with ideas that I find hostile to my ambitions. I have to win them to the liberty of the Democratic party, and keep them from stopping halfway, contented with the fraudulent liberty of the Whigs. I take them in hand at political gatherings; I love to persuade and shape them. I will fill this population of Illinois with love of Democratic ideas. What have the Whigs to offer? Look at the mixed blood of the Whigs, at their tainted ancestors. I take the greatest pleasure in exposing them. It is my fun and my work."
With all this intellectual activity, Douglas was not a reader. I had found Emerson through Abigail; I read the North American Review, and Cooper's novels as they appeared. But Douglas had contempt for the moral idealism of New England. He thought it impractical. "You can't have a brain without a body," said Douglas. "Let the country develop its bones, its muscles, attain its stature. These men think the world is run by righteousness, especially if you let them prescribe the righteousness. But it isn't. It is run by interests. Roofs, clothing, and food must be taken care of; then cities. These men get preconceived ideas of God, and then want to force them on the great impulses of life. But they can't do it."
I ventured to say that the two ran together. His reply was that nothing of idealism counted that did not harmonize with material interests. There would always be war so long as interests conflicted. The lesser had to give way to the larger. War was a factor in the game of supremacy, of life. If Great Britain stood in our way, fight her. If Mexico made trouble about Texas, conquer her. War is the execution of the law of progress. Reason can go only so far, and then the sharpness of the sword is necessary.
CHAPTER XXIX
I sold the farm at last and moved to Chicago. It was with sorrow that I broke up my association with Reverdy and Sarah, and their little family. But I was much relieved to be out of the situation that had been so full of annoyance to me. I had friends to be sure, but I was English; I was a little reserved even yet; I was a driver, a money maker. Then there had been Zoe and Lamborn. Besides, the life on the farm was monotonous. The end of the day marked lonely hours for me. And I was looking forward to much association with Abigail.
I saw her frequently now that I was in Chicago. She was teaching school. Mr. Williams, his wife, their children, were my first friends, the beginning of my new associations.
I began at once to speculate in real estate. Mr. Williams proved an invaluable counsel in these ventures. I made money faster than I could ever have believed it possible to me. I was now very well off at twenty-seven. But was life nothing but money making?
As I had sold the farm on partial payments I was compelled to make frequent trips to Springfield to collect the purchase money notes; and I always saw Douglas unless he was away campaigning. By the new census of 1840 Illinois was entitled to seven Congressmen instead of the four which it had hitherto been allowed. A legislature had reapportioned the state in such a way as to give Douglas a chance to be elected. Douglas' friends had called a convention. The re-apportionment of the state was charged to be arbitrary; the convention was styled "machine-made" with a view to Douglas' nomination. Had he had a hand in this—the young judge of the Supreme Court? If so, many others had had a hand in it.