last citadels of our opponents, and even in Illinois, where it is uncertain whether Douglas has won or lost, there has been an emphatic protest against the Administration of Buchanan. If the Republican party is wise enough in its politics to hold the ground we have gained, we are sure of the Presidential election in the year 1860 and the political supremacy of the slave-power will be impossible.
If I mention to you the fact that my name has penetrated beyond the borders of Wisconsin and the Western States during the last fight, and that I have won a national reputation, I do not speak of this fact boastfully, but because I know that it will give you pleasure. A speech which I made in Chicago has been read from Maine to Minnesota; one million copies have been printed and distributed and the newspapers have given it boundless praise.[1] I am sending you a copy of it and also a copy of an academic address which I delivered last summer at Beloit College, one of the best institutions of this State and of the entire West.
There is soon to be a great change in our domestic life. We intend to settle in Milwaukee, but we shall not entirely break up our household here. Margarethe and the children will have a hired house in Milwaukee during the winter and will pass the summer here, in our pretty country home. The railway connections will make it possible for me to be here at least once a week, probably oftener, and so the interruption of our family life will not be too trying. I have assurances that promise me a good law practice, and my political reputation will naturally be a great help. I shall then dispose of my property here at the first favorable opportunity. At present, the prospects are not especially brilliant, as financial conditions in the West are only slowly recovering from the recent crisis. It
- ↑ “The Irrepressible Conflict,” delivered in Chicago, Sept. 28, 1858. Speeches (1865), 9-37.
