Yet he was a--I falter in
writing it--a drunkard. At times he drank deeply and madly. When half
intoxicated he was almost as brilliant as Hamlet, and as rollicking as
Falstaff. It was said that even when fully drunk his splendid intellect
never entirely gave way.
"McDougall commands as much attention in the Senate when drunk as any
other Senator does when sober," said a Congressman in Washington in
1866. It is said that his great speech on the question of
"confiscation," at the beginning of the war, was delivered when he was
in a state of semi-intoxication. Be that as it may, it exhausted the
whole question, and settled the policy of the Government.
"No one will watch your senatorial career with more friendly interest
than myself; and if you will abstain wholly from all strong drink, we
shall all, be proud of you, I know."
"Not a drop will I touch, my friend; and I'll make you proud of me."
He spoke feelingly, and I think there was a moisture about his eye as he
pressed my hand and walked away.
I never saw him again. For the first few months he wrote to me often,
and then his letters came at longer intervals, and then they ceased. And
then the newspapers disclosed the shameful secret California's brilliant
Senator was a drunkard.
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