The motley elements that Douglas had derided as
anti-Masonics, Know-nothings, Abolitionists, Spiritualists, where were
they? Sunk in silence, out shouted, out talked, outnumbered by office
seekers and monopolists. Tom Hyer was bawling, Garrison could not be
heard. The New England manufacturers were here. Whittier was singing
their songs and did not know it. I began to think of Rabelais, and of
life as gluttony, eating and drinking, digestion and evacuation. I had a
vision of all these hordes of men dead at last, their buttocks exposed
to driving rains, upturned to a dark sky which breathed futility and
contempt upon ended plots and hungers!
That night I started out again with Abigail and Aldington. There had not
been anything like the same amount of drinking at Charleston. Harlots
staggered through the streets, their arms interlocked with those of
howling men. Tom Hyer passed, leading his gang of toughs, the gayly
liveried band swelling the air with great horns and drums. Again the
rails and banners for "Honest Old Abe." Rumors caught us as we passed:
the Germans were for Lincoln; Greeley wanted Douglas elected President
and was scheming to defeat Seward for the nomination. We went to the
Richmond House. I wanted Abigail and Aldington to see the smoking,
drinking, gabbling delegates from New York.
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