Part 30 (2/2)

And he had come to break chains! These poor ignorant blacks kissed the hand that bound them and called him their best friend.

The man they called master actually moved among them, a minister of love and mercy. He advised the negroes about the care of their families in his long absence. He talked as a Hebrew Patriarch to his children. He urged the younger men and women to look after the old and helpless.

He was particularly solicitous about Bob, the oldest man on the place.

Over and over again he enumerated the comforts he thought he might need and made provision to supply them. He sent him enough cochineal flannel for his rheumatism to wrap him four-ply deep. For Rhinah, his wife, he ordered enough flannel blankets for two families.

”Is there anything else you can think of, Uncle Bob?” he asked kindly.

The old man scratched his gray head and hesitated, looked into his master's face, smiled and said:

”I _would_ like one er dem rockin' cheers outen de big house, Ma.r.s.e Jeff.--ya.s.sah!”

”Of course, you shall have it. Come right up, you and Rhinah, and pick out the two you like best.”

With suppressed laughter Socola watched the old negroes try each chair in the hallway and finally select the two best rockers in the house.

The Southern leader was obviously careworn and unhappy. Socola found his heart unconsciously going out to him in sympathy.

a.s.suming carefully his att.i.tude of foreign detached interest, the young man sought to draw him out.

”You have given up all hope of adjustment and reunion with the North?”

he asked.

”No,” was the thoughtful reply, ”not until the first blood is spilled.”

”Your people must see, Senator, that secession will imperil the existence of their three thousand millions of dollars invested in slaves?”

”Certainly they see it,” was the quick answer. ”Slavery can never survive the first shot of war, no matter which side wins. If the North wins, we must free them, or else maintain a standing army on our borders for all time. It would be unthinkable. Rivers are bad boundaries. We could have no others. Fools have said and will continue to say that we are fighting to establish a slave empire. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are seeking to find that peace and tranquillity outside the Union we have not been able to enjoy for the past forty years inside. If the Southern States enact a Const.i.tution of their own, they will merely reaffirm the Const.i.tution of their fathers with no essential change. The North is leading a revolution, not the South.

”Not one man in twenty down here owns a slave. The South would never fight to maintain Slavery. We know that it is doomed. We simply demand as the sons of the men who created this Republic, equal rights under its laws. If we fight, it will be for our independence as freemen that we may maintain those rights.”

”I must confess, sir,” Socola replied with carefully modulated voice, ”that I fail to see as a student from without, why, if Slavery is doomed and your leaders realize that fact, a compromise without bloodshed would not be possible?”

”If Slavery were the only issue, it would be possible--although as a proud and sensitive people we propose to be the judge of the time when we see fit to emanc.i.p.ate our slaves. Abolition fanatics, whose fathers sold their slaves to us, can't dictate to the South on such a _moral_ issue.”

”I see--your pride is involved.”

”Not merely pride--our self-respect. In 1831 before the Northern Abolitionists began their crusade of violence there were one hundred four abolition societies in America--ninety-eight of them in the South and only six in the entire North. But the South grew rich. At the bottom of our whole trouble lies the issue of sectional power. New England threatened to secede from the Union when we added the Territory of Louisiana to our domain, out of which we have carved seven great States.

Slavery at that time was not an issue. Sectional rivalry and sectional hatred antedates even our fight against England for our freedom.

Was.h.i.+ngton was compelled to warn his soldiers when they entered New England to avoid the appearance of offense. The Governor of Ma.s.sachusetts refused to call on George Was.h.i.+ngton, the first President of the Union, when he visited Boston.

”And mark you, back of the sectional issue looms a vastly bigger one--whether the Union is a Republic of republics or a Centralized Empire. The millions of foreigners who have poured into the North from Europe during the past thirty years, until their white population outnumbers ours four to one, know nothing and care nothing about the Const.i.tution of our fathers. They know nothing and care nothing for the principles on which the Federal Union was founded. They came from empires. They think as their fathers thought in Europe. And they are driving the sons of the old Revolution in the North into the acceptance of the ideas of centralized power. If this tendency continues the President of the United States will become the most autocratic ruler of the world. The South stands for the sovereignty of the States as the only bulwark against the growth of this irresponsible centralized despotism. The Democratic party of the North, thank G.o.d, yet stands with us on that issue. Our only possible hope of success in case of war lies in this fact--”

Socola suddenly started.

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