The Purchase Price by Emerson Hough (ebook reader screen .txt) 📕

For my own part, sometimes I think that Millard Fillmore's idea was right—that the government should buy these slaves and deport them. That would be, as you say, far cheaper than a war. It was the North that originally sold most of the slaves. If they, the South, as half the country, are willing to pay back their half of the purchase price, ought not the North to be satisfied with that? That's putting principles to the hardest test—that of the pocket."

In his excitement he rose and strode about the room, his face frowning, his slender figure erect, martial even in its civilian dress. Presently he turned; "But it is noble of you, magnificent, to think of doing what a government hesitates to do! And a woman!"

"Could it be done?" she demanded. "It would require much money.
But what a noble solution it would be!"

"Precisely. I rejoice to see that your mind is so singularly clear although your heart is so kind."

"You speak in the voice of New England."

"Yes, yes, I'm a New Englander. She's glorious in her principles, New England, but she carries her principles in her pocket! I admire your proposed solution, but that solution I fear you will never see. It is the fatal test, that of the pocket." But the idea had hold of him, and would not let him go. He walked up and down, excited, still arguing against it.

"The South, frankly, has always been juggled out of its rights, all along the line—through pocket politics—and I'm not sure how much more it can endure of the same sort of juggling. Why, John Quincy Adams himself, Northerner that he was, admitted that Missouri had the right to come in as a slave state, just as much as had Arkansas and Louisiana. Pocket-politics allowed Congress to trade all of the Louisiana Purchase south of thirty-six degrees, thirty minutes, excepting Arkansas, in exchange for the Floridas—and how much chance, how much lot and part had the Missourians in a country so far away as Florida? The South led us to war with Mexico in order to extend our territory, but what did the South get? The North gets all the great commercial and industrial rights. Just to be frank and fair about it, although I am a New Englander and don't believe in slavery, the truth is, the South has paid its share in blood and risk and money, but it didn't get its share when it came to the divide; and it never has."

"Precisely, my dear Captain. I delight to see you so broad-minded and fair. This plan of mine, to have any success, must be carried out on lines broad-minded and fair."

"But how adjust pocket interests on both sides? You'll see. You'll be left alone. It is easier to make a speech for liberty than it is to put the price of one slave in the hat passed for liberty. New England, all the North, will talk, will hold mass meetings, will pass resolutions commending resistance to the law—like this Christianville incident of which there's news this morning. You'll see the blacks commended for that. But you won't see much money raised to keep other blacks from being followed by their owners."

"Then leave it for those who see duty in more concrete form. Leave the cost to me. My only answer is—Lily."

And again and again her only answer to them both was—Lily. She told them her story, produced the girl herself and made her confirm it, offered her as concrete example to be presented in a platform campaign which might not end in talk alone—pleaded, argued, and won.

"Madam, I, too, kiss your hands," said Carlisle at last; and did so.

An hour after that, she had laid out a campaign for her two agents, and had arranged for the expenditure of an initial hundred thousand dollars.

CHAPTER XXV THE ARTFUL GENTLEMAN PROM KENTUCKY

It was dusk. Heavy shadows lay over the trees which lined the curving walks leading across a little park to the stately white house beyond. From that direction now appeared several gentlemen, advancing in scattering groups. They might almost have been made up of conspirators, so intent they seemed, so apprehensive lest even their thoughts might be read. Two of them drew apart,—one of these a slender bony man, the other a tall and dark man. The latter spoke almost moodily.

"I doubt your ability, my dear sir, to influence so shrewd a man in any such way as you suggest. Besides, he is not of our party."

"That's all the better. A man of our party might, could, would and should keep his mouth shut about such a ticklish matter; but outside our party, any who begins it has got to keep his mouth shut!"

"There is no other way," he added, smiling. "It must be done. The Countess St. Auban is here again! This band of Gipsy heathens from Hungary is also here. The country is wild over Kossuth. We'll have to accept this invitation to invite him! But Austria remains bitter against the countess. What we must do is to have her go back home with these commissioners from Hungary. There's ugly talk about the way she's been used. That fellow Carlisle—good riddance of him from the army—even confessed he engaged in a game of cards—" their heads bent together—"in short, the devil is to pay with the administration if this gets out. We can't banish her again. But how can we with dignity even it with her, so she will make no talk? If she likes, she can ruin us, because Carlisle can't be kept silent, now he's out of the army. And he's crazy over her, anyhow."

"So? I do not blame him."

"Yes. Therefore, since all of us have lacked wisdom in our own camp, we'd e'en do well to take wisdom where we can find it."

They parted, the last speaker presently to hail the nearest carriage. The driver a few moments later drew up at the front of a spacious and dignified brick building, whose reserved look might have pronounced it a private hotel or a club for gentlemen. The visitor seemed known, the door swinging open for him.

[Illustration: They parted, the last speaker hailing a carriage.]

"Louis," said he to the attendant, "is Mr. —— in?" He mentioned a name which even then was well known in Washington.

"I think you will find him in the reading-room, Sir," was the answer.

The inquirer passed to the right, entering a wide room with tables, books, heavy chairs, discreetly shaded lamps. At one table, drawn close to the light and poring over a printed page, sat a gentleman whose personality was not without distinction. The gray hair brushed back from a heightening forehead might have proclaimed him even beyond middle age, and his stature, of about medium height, acknowledged easy living in its generous habit. The stock and cravat of an earlier day gave a certain austerity to the shrewd face, lighted by a pair of keen gray eyes, which now turned to greet the new-comer. He rose, and both bowed formally before they advanced to take each other by the hand. They were acquaintances, if not intimate friends. Evidently this particular club no more enlisted its members from this or that political party than did either of the leading parties call upon any certain section for their membership.

"I am fortunate to find you here in Washington, my dear Sir," began the gentleman from Kentucky. "It is something of a surprise."

The wrinkles about the other's eyes deepened in an affable smile. "True," said he, "in the last twelve years I have three times sought to get back into Washington! Perhaps it would have been more seemly for me to remain in the decreed dignified retirement."

They joined in a laugh at this, as they both drew up chairs at the table side.

"You see," resumed the last speaker, "I am not indeed intruding
here in national affairs, but only choose Washington for to-night.
I have been thinking of a pleasure journey into the West, down the
Ohio River—"

"Will you have snuff?" began his companion. "This is no import, I assure you, but is made by one of my old darkeys, on my plantation in Kentucky. He declares he puts nothing into it but straight leaf."

"My soul!" exclaimed the other, sneezing violently. "I suspect the veracity of your darkey. It is red pepper that he uses!"

"All the better, then, to clear our minds, my dear Sir. But let me first send for another product of my state, to assuage these pains." He beckoned to a servant, who presently, returned with tray and glasses.

"And now," he resumed, "what you say of your journey interests me immensely. No doubt you propose going down the river as far as Missouri? The interest of the entire country is focused there to-day. Ah, yonder is the crux of all our compromise! Safe within the fold herself, that is to say above the fatal line of thirty-six degrees, thirty minutes, her case is simply irresistible in interest to-day, both for those who argue for and those who talk against the extension of slavery into our other territories."

"Yet your administration, to-day, my dear Sir, calls this 'finality.' Believe me, it is no more than a compromise with truth and justice! The entire North demands that slavery shall halt."

"The entire South refuses it!"

"Then let the South beware!"

"The North also may beware, my dear Sir!"

"We are aware, and we are prepared. Not another inch for slavery!"

"Hush!" said the other, raising a hand. "Not even you and I dare go into this. The old quarrel is lulled for a time. At last we have worked these measures through both the House and Senate. In the House the administration can put through at any time the Wilmot proviso prohibiting slavery, and although the Senate always has and always can defeat such a measure, both branches, and the executive as well, have agreed to put this dog to sleep when possible, and when found sleeping, to let him lie. My dear friend, it is not a question of principle, but of policy, to-day."

"Principles should rule policies!" exclaimed the other virtuously.

"Agreed! Agreed! We are perfectly at one as to that. But you know that Webster himself reiterates again and again that no man should set up his conscience above the law of his country. Your Free Soil party means not law, but anarchy,—and worse than that—it means disunion! Clay, Cass, Webster, Benton, even the hottest of the men from Mississippi and South Carolina, are agreed on that. My dear Sir, I say it with solemn conviction, the formation of a new party of discontent to-day, when everything is already strained to breaking, will split this country and plunge the divided sections into a bloody war!"

The other sat gravely for a time before he made reply. "Our people feel too sternly to be reconciled. We need some new party—"

Again the other raised a warning hand. "Do not say that word! Others have principles as much as you and I. Let us not speak with recklessness of consequences. But, privately, and without hot argument, my dear friend, the singular thing to me is that you, an old leader of the people, with a wide following in the North and South, should now be entertaining precisely the same principles— though not expressing them with the same reckless fervor—which are advanced by the latest and most dangerous abolitionist of the time."

"You do not mean Mr. Garrison? Any of my New York or Boston friends?"

"No, I mean a woman, here in Washington. You could perhaps guess her name."

The other drew his chair closer. "I presume you mean the lady reputed to have been connected with President Taylor's commission, of inquiry into affairs in Hungary—"

"Yes,—the 'most beautiful woman in Washington to-day.' So she is called by some—'the most dangerous,' by others."

"Has Kentucky forgotten its gallantry so fully as that? Rumor has reported the young woman to me as a charming young widow, of beauty, wealth and breeding."

"Yes, manners, and convictions, and courage—abolitionist tendencies and fighting proclivities.