was abroad when Douglas was
gummed with the poisonous sweet of Kansas and Nebraska. He thought
slavery was wrong; therefore, you Abolitionists, here's the man for you.
He held that territorial extension of slavery need not be feared; let
the people rule. As a Congressman he had voted to exclude abolition
literature from the mails; come forward Calhoun-ites and vote for
Buchanan. They did. Fremont did not get a vote in North Carolina, South
Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas,
Missouri, Tennessee; and only 281 in Maryland, 291 in Virginia, and 364
in Kentucky. But Millard Fillmore, running on a platform of America for
Americans, almost divided the vote with Buchanan in those states. He
carried Maryland against Buchanan; but of the whole popular vote he was
nearly a million behind Buchanan. Fremont had 1,341,264 votes and
Buchanan had 1,838,169 votes. The electoral college gave Buchanan 174
votes, Fremont 114, and Fillmore 8. Why could Douglas not have been
nominated?

We got the news by telegraph in Chicago. As I studied the bulletins, I
was wondering whether the result was symptomatic of transient causes or
whether it betokened great changes. Had the Declaration of Independence
been approved at the polls? How was Douglas taking it? I did not see
him. I wrote to him, but he did not reply. Did he get my letter, or was
he consoling himself in convivial ways?

I now prepared to go abroad. I was leaving a country that had changed in
almost every way since I had come to it. I was leaving a city that was
nothing but a hamlet when I first saw it. I had seen New Orleans and
Chicago connected by rail, and the state grow from a few hundred
thousand to a million population. I had seen Arkansas, Florida,
Michigan, Iowa, Texas, Wisconsin, California, added to the Union. Coal
and iron had become barons and were doing the bidding of steam, which
was king. The oil that had floated on the surface of the salt wells of
Kentucky was soon to be more powerful than cotton. Everything had
changed--but man. Was he rising to a purer height, had a glory begun to
dawn on America? Should slavery, polygamy, rum, be driven from the land?
Then should we be free and happy, and just and noble? France had got
schools and the ballot by the Revolution, but now she had a throne
again. We had the ballot but did we have freedom? No law could have made
a mob hiss Douglas at the North Market. Freedom in their hearts would
have gi