Old America was
passing. The West was asking for the highest recognition. Douglas was
thirty-nine and seemed to be the man for President.
I did not pretend to be a politician, but only an observer and Douglas'
friend. I read everything that was written about the questions of the
day, the newspapers, the _Congressional Record_. It was clear to me that
the Democrats had been split in 1848 by their attitude toward the Wilmot
Proviso, which was intended to keep slavery from the Texan territory.
Then came the Compromises under a Whig administration. The Compromises
were hated by the South and cursed by the Abolitionists in the North.
The Democrats were united by an acquiescence in the Compromises. And now
the Whigs were divided because of them. They had played foxy in '48 by a
no-platform. They were unable to have one, because they had no united
voice. The Free Soil party had collapsed in Illinois. Altogether hopes
ran high for the Democrats. But who should be the candidate?
Douglas! He seemed to me the ideal man, as Webster seemed the ideal man
to admiring Whigs. But Douglas, like Webster, was doomed to fail, at
least in this convention. The prize was captured by Franklin Pierce,
whom no one knew, but it was not until the forty-ninth ballot. On the
forty-eighth ballot Douglas had thirty-three votes to Pierce's
fifty-five.
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