The Whigs met the same month in Baltimore.  Webster, soon to die, was again a candidate.  The platform was made and submitted to him.  He approved of it.  It indorsed the Compromises.  But again there was an old soldier in the field, in the person of General Scott.  He had fought the British in 1812.  He had made treaties with the Sauk, Fox, Winnebago, and Sioux tribes after the Black Hawk War.  Yes, he had made a brilliant record in the Mexican War.  In mental stature he was up to the knees of Webster, and no more.  But Webster had no imaginative appeal.  He could only pull twenty-nine votes on the first ballot, as against Scott’s one hundred and thirty-one votes.  Webster never had more than thirty-two votes.  On the fifty-third ballot Scott was nominated.  And in a few months Webster died, and left the tangles of statecraft to other hands.

Who was Franklin Pierce?  Pretty soon Hawthorne, whose romances I had enjoyed so much, put forth a life of his long-time friend.  “When a friend dear to him almost from boyhood days stands up before his country, misrepresented by indiscriminate abuse on the one hand, and by aimless praise on the other, it is quite proper that he should be sketched by one who has had opportunities of knowing him well and who is certainly inclined to tell the truth.”  These were Hawthorne’s words.  Pierce was a gentleman of truth and honor, devoted to his family and to his country, accomplished, of fine appearance, and always Democratic.  But how could this man win against an old soldier?  Webster and Douglas had lost the nomination, how could a gentleman win the election?

I returned to Chicago and to my business.  But Douglas’ term for Senator was about to expire, and he necessarily entered the campaign with vigor.  He traveled from Virginia to Arkansas, from New York to Illinois and all over his own state.  He mocked Scott’s letter of acceptance, attributing its composition to Seward.  His physical endurance seemed exhaustless.  All the while he was living and confraternizing and drinking.  Pierce was elected.  Douglas won the legislature for another Senatorial term.  In the midst of these excitements Mrs. Douglas died.

She had been to our house but recently.  If I had prophesied between her and Dorothy I should have believed the end would come to Dorothy first.  Dorothy was so frail, so incapable of effort.  Already I was beginning to think of a milder climate for her for the winter.

Douglas now seemed to lose heart.  His temper became bitter.  His dress was slovenly, his manners familiar, his associations indifferent.  He was drinking too much.  In his public utterances he was more emphatic, more caustic of tongue.  If the loss of the nomination had disappointed him, the death of Mrs. Douglas had overwhelmed him.  He was not interested in his Illinois Central.  He was doing nothing with his large tract of land three miles south of Madison Street.  He was very well off.  But he had no heart to enjoy his prosperity.  He was doing nothing about founding his university.  He was a giant sorely smitten, ready to rouse from irritability into fury against his enemies.  He was in a poor way to master his own spirit and future.