pride in me for what I had done, approved the spirit I had shown towards Zoe. She was a great admirer of Wilberforce; and as she disliked America for its separation from the Crown she wished the institution of slavery no good on these shores. But she was disturbed about the conditions in England and Europe. The old order seemed to her to be crumbling. Revolution might break forth. The middle classes in England, having secured their rights, as she expressed it, the laborers were now striving for the franchise. Chartism was rampant. What would it all come to? Was England safe against such innovation? But how about America, if the colored people were given freedom, not of the franchise merely, but in civil rights of property and free activity? But contemporaneous with this letter, two events came into my life of profound influence. One was my meeting with Russell Lamborn, the son of one of Jacksonville's numerous lawyers. And the other was an extraordinary debate between a Whig politician named John J. Wyatt and young Douglas. It was at the debate that I met Lamborn.
Douglas had finished his school teaching. He had been licensed to practice law, though not yet twenty-one years of age. He had opened an office in the courthouse at Jacksonville. His sharp wit, pugnacity, self-reliance, had already excited rivalry and envy. He had suddenly leaped into the political arena, carrying a defiant banner.
Affairs in America were no more tranquil than they were in England. President Jackson had stirred the country profoundly by his imperious attitude toward the banking interests on the one hand, and the matter of South Carolina's nullification of the tariff law on the other hand. This had weakened the Democratic party in Illinois. And as there was to be an election in the fall of state officials, it was necessary to success to satisfy the electorate that President Jackson had not betrayed his leadership.
Bantering words went around to the effect that Douglas was seizing the opportunity of this debate to make himself known, to get a start as a lawyer, and a lift in politics. When a chance to make a hit fits the orator's opportunity and convictions, it would be difficult for a man of Douglas' enterprise and audacity to resist it.
For Douglas had, in spite of everything, captured the town. His name was on every one's tongue. He had lauded President Jackson and his policies with as much fervor as he had with virulence and vehemence denounced the humbugging Whigs, as he had characterized them. The village paper, a Whig publication, had sat upon him. It had dubbed him a turkey gobbler, a little giant, a Yankee fire-eater. But Douglas gave no quarter to any one. He returned blow for blow. He had become a terror. He must be subdued.
John J. Wyatt, a man of ready speech, in the full maturity of his powers, a debater and campaigner, a soldier in the War of 1812, and a respected character, was to lay the adventurer, the interloper, low! He was elected to the task. Was Douglas a youth? No. He was a monstrosity. He had always been a man. He had never grown up. He had simply appeared in this part of the world, a creature of mature powers. Yet Wyatt would subdue him.
We were all in anticipation of the contest. It was to take place in the courthouse. What was the subject? Anything. Everything. Chiefly Whiggery and Democracy. I came into town bringing Zoe and leaving her with Sarah. Reverdy and I went together. Here I met Russell Lamborn. He sat on one side of me and Reverdy on the other.
I shall never forget this night. Wyatt opened the debate, and he closed it. The question was: Are the Whig policies best for the country? Douglas had the negative and, therefore, but one speech. Was it fair? Had not the young man given away too much? No, for Douglas proved a match for two or three such minds as Wyatt's. He humiliated to the last degree the older, and at first confident, antagonist.
It was the most extraordinary exhibition of youth and dash and confidence and ready wit, and knowledge and dialectic handling of difficult matter. It furnished the groundwork of my education in the history of American politics up to that time. It led into almost every possible matter of constitutional law and party policy.
Wyatt talked for an hour. He jeered at Douglas. He referred to his diminutive stature. He spoke ironically of his work as a cabinet maker, and advised Douglas to stick to it and leave the profession of the law alone. He characterized him as a strolling fellow who was trying to break into the favor of the community with an impudence as effective as burglar's tools. What did Douglas know of law? Who would trust his interests to a lawyer so inexperienced? When had Douglas had time to master its simplest principles? Who could not see through Douglas' thin scheme to attach his fortunes to the chariot of the great but misguided Jackson? Why had Douglas leaped to the defense of Jackson in this community, like a fice coming to the aid of a mastiff? Why, if not to get a bone for his own hungry stomach? Everything in the way of a taunt, a slur, a degrading image, a mockery of youth's ambition, an attack upon obscurity trying to rise, were thrown by Wyatt at Douglas. All the while Douglas sat imperturbed, his head at a slight angle, which gave him the appearance of attentive listening; and with a genial smile on his face that was lighted a little with ironic confidence. Then Wyatt sat down amid great cheering.
Reverdy thought that Wyatt had overdone himself, had forfeited to a degree the sympathy of the audience. There was no call for such rough handling of a young man. The feelings of the crowd reacted. And as Douglas arose he was given a loud reception. For there were Democrats enough in the room. But though Douglas looked like a man while seated, he seemed a boy when he stood up. His stature told against him. But as soon as he spoke the first word the silence was profound. The voice was the voice of a man, and a strong man. It rolled over our heads with orotund volume. The clearly syllabized words fell upon delighted ears. He caught the crowd at once.
Who would dare accuse him of subserviency to Jackson or to any man, for bread or for position? He differed from Jackson about the tariff, and all Jacksonville could know it. He agreed with Jackson about the bank, and the whole country would come to approve Jackson's course. Was nullification right? Perhaps Jefferson knew as much about that as Mr. Wyatt. Let the laws of the Constitution be obeyed and nullification would never be provoked. What had created nullification? The vile policies of the humbug Whig party, the old monarchist harlot masquerading in the robes of liberalism. How did these people dare to use the name of Whig, how dare to resort to such false pretenses, when it was common knowledge that the personnel of that party, having been put down as Federalists for gross usurpation and monarchist practices had, being forced to change their skin, adopted the title of the liberal party of England, remaining more Tory than the party that tried to destroy American liberty during the Revolution? And now this Whig party like a masked thief was abroad in the land to pick up what spoils it could, and to take from trusting hearts sustenance for its misbegotten existence. It was already beginning to coquette with the slavery question, hoping to deceive the people with humanitarian and moral professions. Very well! If it was the Good Samaritan it pretended to be let it give up its bank and its tariff, which took enough money out of the mouths of the poor to feed all the niggers in the world. Let the whiner about wrongs quit his own wrongs. Let the accusing sinner repent his own sin. Let the people of New England pluck the pine logs from their own eyes before talking of hickory splinters in the eyes of the South.
And then Douglas took up the history of the formation of the Union. What went into the Union? Sovereign states. Who concluded a treaty of peace with Great Britain after the Revolution? The thirteen sovereign states that had waged the war. Who formed themselves into the Confederate States, each retaining its sovereignty? The same states. Who left that union and formed the present Union? The same states. What did they do? They retained all the sovereign powers that they did not expressly grant. They never parted with their sovereignty, but only with sovereign powers. Where does sovereignty reside under our system? With the people of the states. What follows from all of this? Why, that each state is left to decide for itself all questions save those which have been expressly given over to Washington to decide. Who is trying to nullify these inestimable principles and safeguards? That is the real nullification. The humbug Whigs, who would like to centralize all authority at Washington … "and Mr. Wyatt here in this new country, among people of plain speech and industrious lives, is the spokesman of these encroaching despotisms, which he has vainly attempted to defend to-night. He dares to assail the great name of Andrew Jackson. He would
