rdity.

Douglas wanted the slavery agitation to cease, but on the other hand he
did not wish to interfere with the freedom of speech and of the press.
Mrs. Clayton now recalled Harriet Martineau's visit to America of some
eight years before. She had read _Society in America_ and _Retrospect of
Western Travel_. Did I know that Miss Martineau had stopped in Chicago
and had described Chicago as it was then?

Douglas returned to the subject of the Abolitionists apropos of this,
because Miss Martineau had made herself much disliked by siding with
them. He began to talk of Horace Greeley who had helped the humbug Whigs
into power in 1840 by his publication, _The Log Cabin_. It was now
merged in the weekly _Tribune_, in which all sorts of vagaries were
exploited: Fourierism, spiritualism, opposition to divorce and the
theater, total abstinence, abolitionism, opposition to the annexation of
Texas. Douglas referred to a certain Robert Owen who had thought out a
panacea for poverty, who had founded an ideal community at New Harmony,
Indiana, which had proven to be not ideal and had failed. Then there was
a certain James Russell Lowell who was writing abolition poems and
articles for the Pennsylvania _Freeman_ and for the _Anti-Slavery
Standard_. Douglas classed all these agitators and dreamers together in
his usual satirical way. The ponderable move of national interests would
crush their squeaks. Here he made one of the most humorous
classifications, separating Democrats and nation builders from the
ragged and motley hordes of Fourierists, Spiritualists, Abolitionists,
loco-focoes, barn-burners, anti-Masonics, Know-nothings, and Whigs. He
was inclined to think that the infidel belonged with these hybrid
breeds. Though he did not speak of God and had never joined any church,
something of a matter-of-fact Deism was subsumed in his practical
attitude. The Democratic party stood alone against these disorderly
elements. Nationalism and the rule of the people were his lodestars. He
was the son of Jackson in the principle of no disunion, and he was the
son of Jefferson in the principle of popular sovereignty.

The talk turned to Mr. Polk. As he was a resident of Nashville, Mrs.
Clayton, on that ground as well as for political agreement, was heartily
devoted to him. These two talked of Mr. Polk's record as a Congressman
from Tennessee and later as Governor of the state. "Well," said Douglas,
"he is sound on the bank, he is against the