Part 15 (1/2)
”In a newspaper interview?”
”Yes, sir.”
”Nonsense.”
”It's your character that will count.”
”Such an answer would be a straw pitched against a hurricane. I am told that this book has already reached a circulation of half a million copies and it has only begun. That means already three million readers.
To answer this book my pen should be better trained than my sword--”
”It is, sir, if you'll only use it.”
”The South has only trained swords. And not so many of them as we think.
We have no writers. We have no literature. We have no champions in the forum of the world's thought. We are being arraigned at the judgment bar of mankind and we are dumb. It's appalling.”
”That's why you must speak for us. Speak in our defense. Speak with a tongue of flame--”
”I am not trained for speech, Ruffin. And the pen is mightier than the sword. I've never realized it before. The South will soon have the civilized world arraigned against her. The North with a thousand pens is stirring the faiths, the prejudices and the sentiments of the millions.
This appeal is made in the face of History, Reason and Law. But its force will be as the gravitation of the earth, beyond the power of resistance, unless we can check it in time.”
”When it comes to resistance,” Ruffin snapped, ”that's another question.
The Yankees are a race of d.a.m.ned cowards and poltroons, sir. They won't fight.”
Lee shook his head gravely.
”I've been in the service more than a quarter of a century, my friend.
I've seen a lot of Yankees under fire. I've seen a lot of them die. And I know better. Your idea of a Yankee is about as correct as the Northern notion of Southern fighters. A notion they're beginning to exploit in cartoons which show an effeminate lady killer with an umbrella stuck in the end of his musket and a negro mixing mint juleps for him.”
”We've got to denounce those slanders. I'm a man of cool judgment and I never lose my temper--”
He leaped to his feet purple with rage.
”But, by G.o.d, sir, we can't sit quietly under the a.s.sault of these narrow-minded bigots. You must give the lie to this infamous book!”
”How can I, my friend?”
”Doesn't she make heroes of law breakers?”
”Surely.”
”Is there no reverence for law left in this country?”
”In Courts of Justice, yes. But not in the courts of pa.s.sion, prejudice, beliefs, sentiment. The writers of sentiment sing the praises of law breakers--”
”But there can be no question of the right or wrong of this book. It is an infamous slander. I deny and impeach it!”
”I'm afraid that's all we can do, Ruffin--deny and impeach it. When we come down to bra.s.s tacks we can't answer it. From their standpoint the North is right. From our standpoint we are right, because our rights are clear under the Const.i.tution. Slavery is not a Southern inst.i.tution; it is a national inheritance. It is a national calamity. It was written into the Const.i.tution by all the States, North and South. And if the North is ignorant of our rights under the laws of our fathers, we have failed to enlighten them--”
”We won't be dictated to, sir, by a lot of fanatics and hypocrites.”
”Exactly, we stand on our dignity. We deny and we are ready to fight.