I wrote to him, but he did not reply. Did he get my letter, or was
he consoling himself in convivial ways?
I now prepared to go abroad. I was leaving a country that had changed in
almost every way since I had come to it. I was leaving a city that was
nothing but a hamlet when I first saw it. I had seen New Orleans and
Chicago connected by rail, and the state grow from a few hundred
thousand to a million population. I had seen Arkansas, Florida,
Michigan, Iowa, Texas, Wisconsin, California, added to the Union. Coal
and iron had become barons and were doing the bidding of steam, which
was king. The oil that had floated on the surface of the salt wells of
Kentucky was soon to be more powerful than cotton. Everything had
changed--but man. Was he rising to a purer height, had a glory begun to
dawn on America? Should slavery, polygamy, rum, be driven from the land?
Then should we be free and happy, and just and noble? France had got
schools and the ballot by the Revolution, but now she had a throne
again. We had the ballot but did we have freedom? No law could have made
a mob hiss Douglas at the North Market. Freedom in their hearts would
have given him an audience.
Was I free? Was I happy? I was not free. I was not happy. My life seemed
cribbed. Dorothy was an invalid. I went to her from watching the
election bulletins.
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