He was a mind who saw
men in large aggregations bound to each other by policies and interests.
He knew how to handle them as material in empire building.
On that ride back to Springfield he talked to me of many things that
gave me an insight into the workings of his mind. For the dreamer, the
visionary, he had no patience; he felt contempt for the agitator and the
radical. In a theory preoccupying the human mind he saw something akin
to madness. Mormonism, abolitionism, all the various forms of propaganda
which made American life so clamorous, found a common classification in
his tabulation of men. What was really before the country? Truly, the
conquest of the wilderness, the production of wealth, the development of
national power; but always the rule of the people too. "There are two
things in my life," he said to me. "One is the fact that I got mad at my
uncle, and the other is the inspiration that I get out of these
prairies. Add to these what mind I have, and the sum is myself."
When we parted in Springfield, and I was about to return to my farm in
Jacksonville, he could not thank me enough for what I had done for him.
But I was his friend, and why not? I saw him later when a dinner was
given at Quincy in honor of the Democratic governor-elect whose success
Douglas had done so much to bring about.
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