THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
so that he no longer could make any noise with it. But then, when I brought out a point which particularly stirred him, or a cheer went up whose contagion he could not resist, the old gentleman would fling up the wrecked umbrella and wave it over his head like a victorious banner, much to the amusement of the multitude. Owing to the many interruptions my speech occupied more than three hours, but Governor Morgan no longer found fault with its length. An immense number of pamphlet copies of this speech were circulated, and I was told that it cost Mr. Douglas many votes. I have to confess that of my printed speeches this has remained one of my favorites, that in later years I have now and then taken up the volume containing it to re-read certain of its liveliest passages and then to call up once more the youthful days when my combative temperament enjoyed to the full the “gaudium certaminis”; when the poetic imagination ran riot, and when the music of language seemed to tinkle all around in the air.
The campaign-committees kept me very hard at work in several States until the day of the election. I was too tired to take any part in the Republican jubilations after Abraham Lincoln's victory. But rest at my quiet Wisconsin home was soon cut short by my necessities. I found myself compelled, a week or two after the election, to set out on lecturing tours for the purpose of replenishing somewhat my drained exchequer. On my journeys East and West I met with strange experiences. The news of the success of the Republican party had hardly gone through the land when political demonstrations took place in some of the Southern States which made it appear that the threats of secession, to which of late years we had become accustomed, were, after all, something more than mere bluster and gasconade. The danger of a disunion movement, with consequences difficult to foresee, loomed up in portentous
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