tales.[641] Senator Fitch warned him solemnly that the Democratic
party was the only political link in the chain which now bound the
States together. "None ... will hold that man guiltless, who abandons
it upon a question having in it so little of practical importance ...
and by seeking its destruction, thereby admits his not unwillingness
that a similar fate should be visited on the Union, perhaps, to
subserve his selfish purpose."[642] These attacks roused Douglas to
vehement defiance. More emphatically than ever, he declared the
Lecompton constitution "a trick, a fraud upon the rights of the
people."

If Douglas misjudged the temper of his colleagues, he at least gauged
correctly the drift of public sentiment in Illinois and the Northwest.
Of fifty-six Democratic newspapers in Illinois, but one ventured to
condone the Lecompton fraud.[643] Mass meetings in various cities of
the Northwest expressed confidence in the course of Senator Douglas.

He now occupied a unique position at the capital. Visitors were quite
as eager to see the man who had headed the revolt as to greet the
chief executive.[644] His residence, where Mrs. Douglas dispensed a
gracious hospitality, was fairly besieged with callers.[645]
Washington society was never gayer than during this memorable
winter.[646] None entertained more lavishly than Senator and Mrs.
Douglas. Whatever unpopularity he incurred at the Capitol, she more
than offset by her charming and gracious personality. Acknowledged as
the reigning queen of the circle in which she moved, Mrs. Douglas
displayed a social initiative that seconded admirably the independent,
self-reliant attitude of her husband. When Adèle Cutts Douglas chose
to close the shutters of her house at noon, and hold a reception by
artificial light every Saturday afternoon, society followed her lead.