Six months between the
election and the installation of a President! When he has served a year
the election is nearly two years passed. Thus, as it seemed, the
election of 1856 was upon the country before we had time to appreciate
what Mr. Pierce had done. Had he had a fair chance in such a brief
period to do anything? I was at work attending to my business, trying to
etch too, but I could not keep my mind off the game of politics. Among
the tens of thousands of men in Illinois who were devoted to Douglas no
one was more loyal to his ambition than I, and perhaps no one was less
conspicuous. I followed the _New York Tribune_, the _Springfield
Republican_, the _North American Review_, the _Independent, Harper's
Weekly_, and the southern press, as well as the papers of Illinois. I
had made a large book of clippings, which expressed the journalistic
thought of the country. All these things put together kept me fully
occupied. Our son Reverdy was coming to an age when his schooling would
need attention. I wished to send him to England. But that was difficult
to do, because, while Dorothy was urging a trip abroad she wished to go
to Italy, on account of the climate.
In truth Dorothy was growing more distressed every day over American
affairs. She found harshness in Chicago. She did not find sympathy with
the ideas with which she had grown up.
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