cited the retort. The
battle was on. We now had occasion to be proud of our friend. He stood
forth with such self-possession, such dignity. With great emphasis he
announced that he had no sympathy with abolitionism; but neither did he
look with favor upon the extreme view of the South. "We protest," said
Douglas, in his great musical voice, facing the southern Senators,
"against being made puppets in this slavery excitement, which can
operate only against your interests and the building up of those who
wish to put you down. In the North it is not expected that we should
take the position that slavery is a positive good, a positive blessing.
If we did assume such a position it would be a very pertinent inquiry,
why do you not adopt this institution? We have moulded our institutions
in the North as we have thought proper; and now we say to you of the
South, if slavery be a blessing, it is your blessing; if it be a curse,
it is your curse; enjoy it--on you rests all the responsibility. We are
prepared to aid you in the maintenance of all your constitutional
rights; and I apprehend that no man, South or North, has shown more
constantly than I a disposition to do so. But I claim the privilege of
pointing out to you how you give strength and encouragement to the
Abolitionists of the North."

Mother Clayton had been long schooled in the questions which vexed the
matter of slavery. She thought Douglas showed great courage in these
words, but she was not satisfied with them. She felt that the South had
not been protected in its rights and that Douglas owed it to the South
to stand with the southern Senators. His position was not definite
enough to suit her. He should say that slavery went into the territories
by law, or was kept out by law. Douglas' thesis might be judicial but it
laid him open to doubts.

This was our talk as we walked away from the Capitol. Dorothy was
fatigued by the experience. She was interested, but the debate exhausted
her. What she wished more than anything was peace for the whole country.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

I had had a delirium in the serious illness through which Zoe had nursed
me, in which a blue fly crawling up the windowpane, sliding down the
windowpane, buzzing in the corner of the frame where it could neither
climb nor get through nor think of returning into the room--in which
this fly took on the semblance of Napoleon. My imagination was then full
of Napoleon; and my father had suffere