These required arguments to expound.  If labor conditions presaged slavery for white men were they freed by negro slavery?  Was not this roar outside of the house a part of the tumult in Germany and France?  Was not this America hailing Europe?  Had not this crowd caught up the Democratic platform which congratulated the republicans of France?  What would the German vote do, the Irish vote, all the foreign vote?  Had not the Whigs, marching through these streets of Chicago, captured all the effective thunder of the Democratic party?

As Douglas sat before us I saw him as a giant around whom great forces were gathering.  The light played a curious trick with his forehead, throwing part of it into fantastic shadows.  There was a moment’s silence in which the deep brilliancy of his eyes flashed upon me.  Then his great voice spoke again:  “It is easy to have a war—­among ourselves.”  Reverdy looked at Douglas in a sort of terror.  Just then Amos came to the door to call us to see a political parade which was passing the house.

We three arose, joining Mother Clayton, Dorothy, and Mrs. Douglas who were already watching it.  It was a demonstration of Free Soilers.  Douglas had voted against the prohibition of slavery in Texas.  This was the answer.  These banners, bearing the words “Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men,” were the challenge.  The men who bore them did not know how to apply their principles to anything but the negro.  Douglas knew this.  At the same time he knew that he had helped to create this demonstration, that he had been influential in initiating this new momentum.

I looked at Douglas to see what effect the shouts, the pushing, running, limp-stepped throng would have upon him.  A smile flitted across his face.  His eyes were intense and concentrated.  He made no comment.  The last men of the parade passed with shouts.  A drunken marcher fell.  The lights faded.  We turned into the room.  Douglas was laughing.

CHAPTER XLI

What was the result?  General Taylor had 1,360,099 votes and 163 electoral votes; Cass had 1,220,544 votes and 127 electoral votes.  The Abolitionists polled 300,000 votes in the country.  The Free Soilers had polled 291,263 votes in the country.  Illinois was lost to General Taylor.  The Free Soilers had swept the northeastern counties.  There had been great Democratic desertions.  Voltaire and Rousseau were still at work.  These fermentations of Europe had bubbled and exploded around Chicago.  The concrete thing known as negro slavery heard the rumble of the ground.  The tariff, the bank, imperial power in Congress unwittingly renewed their strength—­unwittingly on the part of the Free Soilers.

A slave owner had become President; a man of the fresh blood of the northwest of Michigan had been defeated.  A New Yorker, wedded to the tariff, had been put in place to be President by the death of General Taylor.  And Douglas found the forces that were to embattle him drawing up in line.