on to the fact of Zoe. I
had loved Isabel and lost her. Douglas had loved the North and the Great
West. Was he to lose them?

Thus Douglas and I seemed to have arrived at the same place in life. He
was broken in fortune and without a party. I was burdened with what more
and more seemed to me a tainted fortune. And I was as isolated as he
was. I could not help but think of him constantly, of his long years of
labor, his great struggles, his heroic fight, his undaunted courage.
Could anything lift him out of his complication to honor and freedom?
He was the most talked of man for the Presidency. If he could only win
that now and stand as a master man for nationalism, union, progress,
peace, popular sovereignty, all the great liberties for which he had
battled. He had already failed twice to be nominated. If now he could
not win the prize, what would be his future as against the growing power
of the Republican party?

As my heart was set upon Douglas' ambition I set off for Charleston,
South Carolina, in April. Anything to alleviate my regret over Isabel.

When I arrived there I sought Douglas and found him deep in consultation
with his advisers. He was unmistakably confronted with the severest
contest of his life. He was delighted to see me and got me admission to
the convention hall. I had tried to come as a delegate; but Illinois had
split in a fight over her own son, and there were two delegations, one
for and one against Douglas. And I could be on neither.

Douglas' birthday, April the 23d, saw the opening of the fateful
deliberations. He was destined to have no peace and no rest. Others
might find shelter from the storm. He was compelled after his great
labors in the years before to walk through the lightning and have it
gather about his head. His doctrines on slavery had alienated the whole
South from him. But he had the West, save California and Oregon, which
acted with the South. Yet he was their son too. He had strength all
through the North, because of the West. That West which he had done so
much to create, which he had prophesied would stand as a balance between
the North and the South, was for its son and its prophet--save
California and Oregon.

But of the whole thirty-three states, seventeen were against him. The
West fought the South and fought for Douglas. The South made a common
cause of opposition to the North and the West. But the new Giant put
through the Douglas principles in the platform.

Th