THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
with his arm around the neck of his friend, who seemed to be painfully embarrassed, but could or would not shake him off. It might be said in extenuation, however, that then the general tone of the Senate was not so sober and decorous as it is now. After he had married his second wife, a lady of beauty and culture, who not only presided over his household but also accompanied him on his electioneering journeys, he became more tidy and trim in his appearance, and more careful in his habits, although even then there were rumors of occasional excesses. The bullying notes in his speeches remained the same until after the election of 1860.
I must confess that when I first saw him and heard him speak, I conceived a very strong personal dislike for Senator Douglas. I could not understand how a man who represented in the Senate a Free State, and was not bound to the cause of slavery either by interest or tradition, but must, on the contrary, be presumed to be instinctively opposed to slavery and to wish for its ultimate extinction—how such a man could attempt to break down all legal barriers to the expansion of slavery by setting aside a solemn compromise—without any overruling necessity, and then be credited with pure and patriotic motives. And that, even in his own opinion, there was no such necessity appeared from the fact that only shortly before he had professedly recognized the validity and binding force of the Missouri Compromise as a matter of course; indeed he himself had offered a bill to organize the Territory of Nebraska under the Missouri Compromise excluding slavery, and, since that time, nothing had happened to change the situation. Although by no means inclined to attribute sinister motives to anyone differing from me in opinion or sentiment, I saw no way of escape from the conclusion that, when Senator Douglas was charged with seeking to wipe out the legal bar-
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