He was young and full of
power. He might be President. The sanctimonious quoted Scripture against
him. "Where a man's treasure is, there will be his heart also," said an
enemy in the Senate, referring to the fact that Douglas had married a
woman who was a slave owner. Douglas had replied in these manly and
tender words: "God forbid that I should be understood by any one as
being willing to cast from me any responsibility that now does or has
ever attached to any member of-my family. So long as life shall last and
I shall cherish with religious veneration the memories and virtues of
the sainted mother of my children--so long as my heart shall be filled
with paternal solicitude for the happiness of those motherless
infants, I implore my enemies who so ruthlessly invade the domestic
sanctuary to do me the favor to believe that I have no wish, no
aspiration to be considered purer or better than she, who was, or they
who are slaveholders."
It was while I was in New Orleans that Douglas wrote me a letter
regarding the Presidency. "I do not wish to occupy that position," he
said. "I think that such a state of things will exist that I shall not
desire the nomination. Yet I do not intend to do any act which will
deprive me of the control of my own action. Our first duty is to the
cause--the fate of individual politicians is of minor consequence.
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