CHAPTER XIV

THE PERSONAL EQUATION

Vast changes had passed over Illinois since Douglas set foot on its soil, a penniless boy with his fortune to make. The frontier had been pushed back far beyond the northern boundary of the State; the Indians had disappeared; and the great military tract had been occupied by a thrifty, enterprising people of the same stock from which Douglas sprang. In 1833, the center of political gravity lay far south of the geographical center of the State; by 1856, the northern counties had already established a political equipoise. The great city on Lake Michigan, a lusty young giant, was yearly becoming more conscious of its commercial and political possibilities. Douglas had natural affinities with Chicago. It was thoroughly American, thoroughly typical of that restless, aggressive spirit which had sent him, and many another New Englander, into the great interior basin of the continent. There was no other city which appealed so strongly to his native instincts. From the first he had been impressed by its commercial potentialities. He had staked his own fortunes upon its invincible prosperity by investing in real estate, and within a few years he had reaped the reward of his faith in unseen values. His holdings both in the city and in Cook County advanced in value by leaps and bounds, so that in the year 1856, he sold approximately one hundred acres for $90,000. With his wonted prodigality, born of superb confidence in

future gains, he also deeded ten acres of his valuable "Grove Property" to the trustees of Chicago University.1 Yet with a far keener sense of honor than many of his contemporaries exhibited, he refused to speculate in land in the new States and Territories, with whose political beginnings he would be associated as chairman of the Committee on Territories. He was resolved early in his career "to avoid public suspicion of private interest in his political conduct.""

The gift to Chicago University was no doubt inspired in part at least by local pride; yet it was not the first nor the only instance of the donor's interest in educational matters. No one had taken greater interest in the bequest of James Smithson to the United States. At first, no doubt, Douglas labored under a common misapprehension regarding this foundation, fancying that it would contribute directly to the advancement and diffusion of the applied sciences; but his support was not less hearty when he grasped the policy formulated by the first secretary of the institution. He was the author of that provision in the act establishing the Smithsonian Institution, which called for the presentation of one copy of every copyrighted book, map, and musical composition, to the Institution and to the Congressional Library. He became a member of the board of regents and retained the office until his death.

3

With his New England training Douglas believed profoundly in the dignity of labor; not even his Southern associations lessened his genuine admiration for

1 Sheahan, Douglas, pp. 442-443; Iglehart, History of the Douglas Estate in Chicago.

2 Letter in Chicago Times, August 30, 1857.

8 Globe, 29 Cong., 1 Sess., pp. 749-750.

the magnificent industrial achievements of the Northern mechanic and craftsman. He shared, too, the conviction of his Northern constituents, that the inventiveness, resourcefulness, and bold initiative of the American workman was the outcome of free institutions, which permitted and encouraged free and bold thinking. The American laborer was not brought up to believe it "a crime to think in opposition to the consecrated errors of olden times." It was impossible for a man so thinking to look with favor upon the slavelabor system of the South. He might tolerate the presence of slavery in the South; but in his heart of hearts he could not desire its indefinite extension.

Douglas belonged to his section, too, in his attitude toward the disposition of the public domain. He was one of the first to advocate free grants of the public lands to homesteaders. His bill to grant one hundred and sixty acres to actual settlers who should cultivate them for four years, was the first of many similar projects in the early fifties.2 Southern statesmen thought this the best "bid" yet made for votes: it was further evidence of Northern demagogism. The South, indeed, had little direct interest in the peopling of the Western prairies by independent yeomen, native or foreign. Just here Douglas parted company with his Southern associates. He believed that the future of the great West depended upon this wise and beneficial use of the national domain. Neither could he agree with Eastern statesmen who deplored the gratuitous distribution of lands, which by sale would yield large revenues. His often-repeated reply was the quintes1 Globe, 32 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 870.

tage of the constitutional provision which permits a State to lay tonnage duties by the consent of Congress. If Congress would pass a law permitting the imposition of tonnage duties according to a uniform rule, then each town and city might be authorized to undertake the improvement of its own harbor, and to tax its own commerce for the prosecution of the work. Under such a system the dangers of misuse and improper diversion of funds would be reduced to a minimum. The system would be self-regulative. Negligence, or extravagance, with the necessary imposition of higher duties, would punish a port by driving shipping elsewhere.

But for the interposition of the slavery issue, which no one would have more gladly banished from Congress, Douglas would have unquestionably pushed some such reform into the foreground. His heart was bound up in the material progress of the country. He could never understand why men should allow an issue like slavery to stand in the way of prudential and provident legislation for the expansion of the Republic. He laid claim to no expert knowledge in other matters: he frankly confessed his ignorance of the mysteries of tariff schedules. "I have learned enough about the tariff," said he with a sly thrust at his colleagues, who prided themselves on their wisdom, "to know that I know scarcely anything about it at all; and a man makes considerable progress on a question of this kind when he ascertains that fact." Still, he grasped an elementary principle that had escaped many a protectionist, that "a tariff involves two conflicting principles which are eternally at war with each other. 1 Globe, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 953.

1

Every tariff involves the principles of protection and of oppression, the principles of benefits and of burdens.... The great difficulty is, so to adjust these conflicting principles of benefits and burdens as to make one compensate for the other in the end, and give equal benefits and equal burdens to every class of the community.""

Douglas was wiser, too, than the children of light, when he insisted that works of art should be admitted free of duty. "I wish we could get a model of every work of art, a cast of every piece of ancient statuary, a copy of every valuable painting and rare book, so that our artists might pursue their studies and exercise their skill at home, and that our literary men might not be exiled in the pursuits which bless mankind."2

Still, the prime interests of this hardy son of the West were political. How could they have been otherwise in his environment? There is no evidence of literary refinement in his public utterances; no trace of the culture which comes from intimate association with the classics; no suggestion of inspiration quaffed in communion with imaginative and poetic souls. An amusing recognition of these limitations is vouched for by a friend, who erased a line of poetry from a manuscript copy of a public address by Douglas. Taken to task for his presumption, he defended himself by the indisputable assertion, that Douglas was never known to have quoted a line of poetry in his life. Yet the unimaginative Douglas anticipated the era of aërial navigation now just dawning. On one occasion, he

1 Globe, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 953. 'Chicago Times, January 27, 1858.

Ibid., p. 1050.