[Footnote 293: _Ibid._, pp. 635-637; p. 693.] BOOK II THE DOCTRINE OF POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY CHAPTER VIII SENATOR AND CONSTITUENCY When Douglas took his seat in Congress for the first time, an unknown man in unfamiliar surroundings, he found as his near neighbor, one David S. Reid, a young lawyer from North Carolina, who was of his own age, of his own party, and like him, serving a first term. An acquaintance sprang up between these young Democrats, which, in spite of their widely different antecedents, deepened into intimacy. It was a friendship that would have meant much to Douglas, even if it had not led to an interesting romance. Intercourse with this able young Southerner[294] opened the eyes of this Western Yankee to the finer aspects of Southern social life, and taught him the quality of that Southern aristocracy, which, when all has been said, was the truest aristocracy that America has seen. And when Reid entertained his friends and relatives in Washington, Douglas learned also to know the charm of Southern women. Among the most attractive of these visitors was Reid's cousin, Miss Martha Denny Martin, daughter of Colonel Robert Martin of Rockingham County, North Carolina. Rumor has it that Douglas speedily fell captive to the graces of this young woman. She was not only charming in manner and fair of face, but keen-witted and intelligent. In spite of the gay badinage with which she treated this young Westerner, she revealed a depth and positiveness of character, to which indeed her fine, broad forehead bore witness on first acquaintance. In the give and take of small talk she more than held her own, and occasionally discomfited her admirer by sallies which were tipped with wit and reached their mark unerringly.[295] Did she know that just such treatment--strange paradox--won, while it at times wounded, the heart of the unromantic Westerner? Colonel Robert Martin was a typical, western North Carolina planter. He belonged to that stalwart line of Martins whose most famous representative was Alexander, of Revolutionary days, six times Governor of the State. On the banks of the upper Dan, Colonel Martin possessed a goodly plantation of about eight hundred acres, upon which negro slaves cultivated cotton and such of the cereals as were needed for home consumption.[296] Like other planters, he had felt the competition of the virgin lands opened up to cotton culture in the gulf plains of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana; and like his fellow planters, he had invested in these Western lands, on the Pearl River in Mississippi. This Pearl River plantation was worked by about one hundred and fifty negroes and was devoted to the raising of cotton.