Part 20 (1/2)

”s.h.!.+” the girl whispered.

CHAPTER II

THE PARTING

The breathless galleries leaned forward to catch the slightest sound from the arena below.

One by one the Senators from the seceding Southern States rose and renounced their allegiance to the United States in obedience to the voice of their people.

With each solemn exit the women of the galleries grew hysterical, waved their perfumed handkerchiefs and shouted their approval with cries of sympathy and admiration.

David Yulee, Stephen K. Mallory and Benjamin Fitzpatrick had each closed his portfolio and with slow measured tread marched down the crowded aisle and out of the Chamber never again to enter its doors.

All eyes were focused now on the brilliant young Senator from Alabama, Clement C. Clay, Jr. It was understood that he had prepared an eloquent defense of his action and would voice the pa.s.sionate feeling of the ma.s.ses of the Southern people in this his last utterance in the crumbling temple of the old Republic.

He rose in his place, lifted his strong head with its leonine locks and broad, high forehead, paused a moment and began his speech in the clear steady tones of the trained orator, master of himself, his theme and his audience. The Northern Senators met his gaze with scorn and he answered with a look of bold defiance.

The formal announcement of the secession of his State he made in brief sharp sentences and plunged at once into the reasons for their solemn act.

”Forty-two years ago, Alabama was admitted into the Union,” he declared in ringing tones. ”She entered it as she goes out, with the Republic convulsed by the hostility of the North to her domestic inst.i.tutions.

Not a decade has pa.s.sed, not a year has elapsed since her birth as a State that has not been marked by the steady and insolent growth of the mob violence of the North which has demanded the confiscation of her property and the destruction of the foundations of her civilization.

”Who are the leaders of these mobs who seek thus to overthrow the Const.i.tution? Who are these hypocrites who claim the champions.h.i.+p of freedom and the moral leaders.h.i.+p of the world?

”The men who sold their own slaves to us because they could not use them with profit in a northern climate; the men who built and manned every American slave s.h.i.+p that ever sailed the seas; the sons of old Peter Faneuil of Boston who built Faneuil Hall, their cradle of liberty, out of the profits of slave s.h.i.+ps whose trade the Southern people had forbidden by law; the men who have flooded Congress for two generations with pet.i.tions to dissolve the Union; the men who threatened to secede with the addition of every foot of territory we have added to our Republic!

”These are the men who have denied to the manhood of the South Christian Communion because they could not endure what they have been pleased to style the moral leprosy of Slavery! These are the men who refuse us permission to sojourn or even pa.s.s through the sacred precincts of a Northern State and dare to carry our servants with us. These are the men who deny to the South equal rights in the lands of the West bought by Southern blood and brains and added to our inheritance against their furious protests. These are the men who burn the sacred charters of American Liberty in their public squares, and inscribe on their banners the foul motto:

”'The Const.i.tution is an agreement with Death, a covenant with h.e.l.l.'

”These are the men who dare to call us traitors! These are the men who have deliberately pa.s.sed laws in fourteen Northern States nullifying the provisions of the Const.i.tution of the Union which they have sworn to defend and enforce--”

The speaker paused and lifted high above his head a little morocco bound volume.

”Here in the presence of Almighty G.o.d--the G.o.d of our fathers, and these witnesses, I read its solemn provisions which the laws of fourteen Northern States have brazenly and openly defied!”

He opened the little book and slowly read:

”'Article 4, Section 2.

”'_No person held to service of labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor--but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due._'”

He turned suddenly to the Northern Senators:

”Your States have not only repudiated the Const.i.tution you have sworn to uphold, but your emissaries have invaded the peaceful South and sought to lay it waste with fire and sword and servile insurrection. You have murdered Southern men who have dared demand their rights on Northern soil. You have invaded the borders of Southern States, burned their dwellings and murdered their people. You have proclaimed John Brown, the criminal maniac who sought to murder innocent and helpless men, women and children in Virginia, a hero and martyr and then denounced _us_ in your popular meetings, your religious and legislative a.s.semblies as habitual violators of the laws of G.o.d and the rights of humanity! You have exerted all the moral and physical agencies that human ingenuity can devise or a devil's malice employ to heap odium and infamy upon us and make the very name of the South a by-word of hissing and of scorn throughout the civilized world--”

He paused overcome with emotion and lifted his hand to stay the burst of applause from the galleries.