They built their home on the banks of the great river where the tide sweeps in graceful curve, all but completing the circle of an enchanted isle.
From the little flower-veiled porch through festoons of lacing boughs gleamed the waters of the huge curved mirror held by Nature's hand. The music from the decks of the steamers floated up on the soft air until music and perfume of flowers seemed one.
In the cool of the morning, on swift, high-bred horses, they rode side by side along the river's towering bluff and laughed in sheer joy at their foolish happiness. In the waning afternoon, hand in hand, they walked the sunlit fields and paused at dusk to hear the songs of slaves. The happiness of lovers is contagious. It sets the hearts of slaves to singing.
In the white solemn splendor of the Southern moon they strolled through enchanted paths of scented roses. On the rustic seat beneath a magnolia in full second bloom they listened to the song of a mocking-bird whose mate had built her nest in the rose trellis beside their door. They could count the beat of his bird heart night after night as he sang the glory of his love and the beauty of his coming brood of young.
"You are happy, dearest?" the lover sighed.
"In heaven,—I am with you."
"And it shall be forever."
"Forever!"
"The old life of blood and strife—it seems an ugly dream."
"Except for the sweet days when you were near."
"This only is life, my own, to hold your hand, and walk the way together, to build, not to destroy, to make flowers bloom, birds and slaves sing, to create, not kill—production is communion with God. We live now in His peace that passeth understanding!"
A long silence followed. An owl in a distant tree top gave a shrill plaintive cry. The bride nestled closer and he felt her shiver.
"You are chill, dearest?" he murmured.
"Just a little."
"We're forgetting the late August night winds—"
"No—no—it's nothing—I'm just a wee bit afraid of an owl, that's all."
A dark figure slowly approached and stood with uncovered head.
"What is it, James?" the master asked.
"It's too late, sir, for you and the mistis to be out in dis air—it's chill an' fever time—"
"Thank you, James—we'll go in at once."
When the faithful footfall had died away, the lover lifted his bride in his arms and carried her in, while she softly laughed and clung to his strong young shoulders.
It came with swift, sure tread, the silent white figure of the Pestilence that walks in Tropic Splendor.
The lover laughed the doctor's fears to scorn and the old man was brave and cheerful in the presence of youth and happiness.
James Pemberton followed him to the gate and held his horse's bridle with a tremor in his black hand.
"You don't think, doctor—" he paused, afraid to say the thing—"you don't think my young mistis gwine ter die?"
"She's very ill, Jim—it's an even fight for life."
"Ef she do—hit'll kill my young marster—"
"Soldiers can't die that way—no—"
"Yassah—but dey ain't been married but three months, sah, an' he des worship de very groun' her little foot walks on—she des can't die—she too young an' putty, sah—hit des natchally can't be—"
The doctor's gray head slowly moved as if in remembrance of tragic scenes.
"Death loves a shining mark sometimes!"
He turned to the slave in tones of warning:
"Watch your master closely—"
"Mymarster—sah!"
"He'll go down next—"
"Yassah—yassah!"
Two days later, the strong man collapsed with a crash that took even the experienced old doctor by surprise. An iron will had bent over the bedside of his bride and fought with grim defiance the battle with unseen foe until the last ounce of strength had gone.
In his delirium they moved him to another room and he awoke to find himself in a prison cell on a desert island a thousand miles from the mate he adored.
He watched his jailers and at last his hour came. The tired guard beside his prison pallet slept. With fevered stealth he rose and with the strength of a giant, bent the bars of his cage and crawled and fought his way over hill and valley, rocks and mountains, back to the bedside of his beloved.
He paused in rapture at the door. She was sitting up in bed, the pillows propped behind her back, singing their favorite song—"Fairy Bells." How soft and weirdly sweet her voice—its notes so far away and plaintive—never had she sung so divinely!
He held his breath lest a word or quiver of its melody should be lost. And then he slipped his strong arms about her and looked into her eyes shining with unearthly beauty.
"You have come at last, my own!" she sighed. "I knew the Bells would call you—"
"Yes—dearest—and I'll never leave you again—they took me away a wounded prisoner of war—but I broke the bars and came when I heard you call—"
"Look," she whispered, pointing with the slender blue-veined finger, "there she is, in the doorway again with her baby in her arms, waving at sunset to her lover on the hill?—what does it matter, a cabin or a palace!"
The shining eyes grew dim, the figure drooped, and a wild piteous cry came from the lover's fevered lips:
"Lord God of Love and Pity—she's dying!—Help—Help—Help!"
His faithful servant, worn with watching day and night, heard the cry, rushed to his side and caught his fainting form, as the light of the world faded.
They nursed him slowly back into life again, the loving heart of the older brother guiding the arm of his faithful slave.
He refused to live at first.
"It's no use, Joe," he cried with bitter despair. "Life isn't worth the struggle any more. I'm tired, I just want to rest—by her side—that's all."
"I know, Boy, how you feel. But you must live. Duty calls. Great events are stirring the world. You've a man's part to play—"
"I won't play it. I'm done with ambition. I'm done with strife. The game's not worth the candle. I've lived the only life worth living, and it's finished."
Little by little, each day, the brother slowly rebuilt in the stricken soul the will to live. Before he was able to walk, he lifted the frail form in his arms, carried him into his big library, and seated him in an arm-chair before a fire of glowing logs.
With a sweep of his arm about the room toward the crowded shelves he began in earnest tones:
"You're going to live with me now, Boy. We love each other with the love of strong men. I need your help and companionship in my study. You had the advantage of a college career—I didn't. We'll master here these records of the world's life. We'll seek wisdom in the history and experience of man. What do you know of the treasures buried in those big volumes? Our young men go to school and plunge into life with a mere smattering. Do you know the history of your own country, how it was discovered, how its colonies grew, how its battles were fought against overwhelming and impossible odds? How its great Constitution grew in the hands of inspired leaders, who builded better than they knew a chart for the guidance of man. Do you know the history of the mind of man? Do you know the story of those ragged bleeding feet—of the great thinkers of the ages who have found the path of truth through blood and tears and then walked its way to the stake, to the block and the gallows? Come with me into the big world of the past—read, study, think, and gird yourself with power! We're just entering on the struggle that means life or death to our Republic. I believe as I believe in God, that we have set a beacon light on the shores of the world that will guide the human race to its mightiest achievements—unless we fail to keep its lantern trimmed and bright.
"The poison of indolence is in our blood—the tendency to centralized tyranny. We are but a few years removed from its curse. As we grow in years, the temptation to make Washington the gilded Capital of an Empire becomes more and more apparent. Unless we control this tendency to lapse into the past, we are lost and the story of our fallen Republic will be but one more added to the failures of history. Unless we can preserve the sovereignty of our States, the Union will become an Empire, not a Republic of republics. It's a difficult thing for men to govern themselves, though they can do it better than anyone else has ever done it for them. We are making this wonderful experiment here in the new world. The fate of unborn millions hangs on its success. You're done with self and self-seeking. Ambition is a dream that is passed. Good! Lay your life in unselfish sacrifice on the altar of your country. Only the man who has given up ambition is fit for great leadership. He alone dares to seek and know and speak the Truth!"
The tired spirit rose with a new view of human life, its aim and purpose. For eight years he buried himself in the library on his brother's estate. Through the long winter nights the two brilliant minds fought over in friendly contests the battles of the ages until the passion for Truth grew into the one purpose of a great soul.
When the first rumblings of the storm that was to shake a continent broke over the Republic, he stepped forth to take his place in the world of action—the best equipped, most thoroughly trained, most perfectly poised man who had ever entered the arena of American politics.
His rise was brilliant and unprecedented. In his first contest he met the foremost orator of the age, Sergeant Prentiss, and vanquished him on his own ground. In two years he took his seat in Congress, the favorite son of Mississippi.
He had scarcely begun his career, as a law-maker, when war was declared against Mexico. He resigned his high office, raised a regiment and once more found himself a soldier under the orders of stern old Zachary Taylor.
On his first battle field at the head of his Mississippi regiment, he planted the flag of the Republic on the Grand Plaza of Monterey. And in the supreme crisis of the battle of Buena Vista, with the blood streaming from his wounds, he led his men in a charge against overwhelming odds, turned the tide from defeat to victory and gave the Presidency to the man who had denied to him his daughter's hand.
He hobbled back on crutches to his brother's home in Mississippi amid the shouts and frenzied acclaim of a proud and grateful people. Within three years from the day he entered public life, he took his seat in the Senate Chamber of the United States beside Clay, Calhoun and Webster, the peer of any man within its walls, and with the conscious power of Knowledge and Truth, girded himself for the coming struggle of giants.
"For the Lord's sake, Jennie—"
Dick Welford paused at the bottom of a range of steps which wound up the capitol hill from Pennsylvania Avenue.
The girl standing at the top stamped her foot imperiously.
"Hurry—hurry!"
"I won't—"
"Then I'll leave you!"
The boy laughed.
"You don't dare. It's barely sunup—still dark in spots—the boogers'll get you—"
With a grin he deliberately sat down.
"Dick Welford, you're the laziest white man I ever saw in my life—We won't get a seat, I tell you—"
"We can stand up."
"We won't even get our noses in the door—"
"You don't think these old Senators get up at daylight, do you?"
"They didn't go to bed last night—"
"I'll bet they didn't!" Dick laughed.
"I know one that didn't anyhow—"
"Who?"
"Senator Davis."
"How do you know?"
"Spent the night there. Father stayed so late, Mrs. Davis put me to bed. Regular procession all night long! And among his visitors the Blackest Republican of them all—"
"Old Abe run over from Illinois to say good-by?"
"No, but his right hand man Seward did—"
"Sly old snuff-dipping hypocrite—"
"Anyhow, he's the brains of his party."
"And he called on Jeff Davis last night?"
"Not the first time either. Mrs. Davis told me that when the Senator was so ill with neuralgia and came near losing his sight, Seward came every day, sat in the darkened room and talked for hours to his enemy—"
"That's because he's a Black Republican. Their ways are dark. They like rooms with the shades pulled down—"
"Anyhow he likes Mr. Davis."
"Well, it's good-by to the old Union—how many Senators are going to-day?"
"Yulee and Mallory from Florida, Clay and Fitzpatrick from Alabama and Senator Davis—"
"All in a day?"
"Yes—"
"Jennie, they'll talk their heads off. It'll be three o'clock before the first one finishes. We'll die. Let's go to Mt. Vernon—"
"Dick Welford, I'm ashamed of you. You've no patriotism at all—"
"And I just proposed a pilgrimage to the home of George Washington!"
"You don't care what happens in the Senate Chamber to-day—"
"No—I don't."
The boy's lazy figure slowly rose, mounted the steps, paused and looked down into the tense eager young face.
"You really want to know," he began slowly, "why speaking tires me now?"
"Yes—why?"
"Because it's a waste of breath—we're going to fight!"
The girl flushed with excitement.
"Who told you? What have you heard? Who said so?"
A dreamy look in the boy's eyes deepened.
"Nobody's told me. I just know. It's in the air. A wild duck knows when to go north. A bluebird knows when to move south. It's in the air. That's the way I know—" his voice dropped. "Let's go to Mt. Vernon and spend the day, Jennie—"
The girl looked up sharply. The low persuasive tones were unmistakable.
The faintest flush mantled her cheeks.
"No—I wouldn't miss those speeches for anything. You promised to take me to the Senate gallery. Come on."
With a quick bound the boy scaled the next flight of steps and looked down at her laughing:
"All right, why don'tyoucome on!"
With a frown she sprang up the stone stairs and he caught her step with a sudden military salute. They walked in silence for a few minutes.
"What's the matter with you to-day, Dick Welford?"
"Why, Miss Jennie Barton?"
"I never saw you quite so foolish."
"Maybe it's because I never saw you quite so pretty—"
The little figure stiffened with dignity.
"That will do now, sir—"
"Yessum!"
She threw him a look of quiet scorn as they picked their way through the piles of building material for the unfinished dome of the Capitol and mounted the steps.
Barely half past seven o'clock and the crowds were pouring into the Senate Chamber, its cloak rooms and galleries. Within thirty minutes after they had found seats opposite the diplomatic gallery every inch of space in the great hall was jammed and packed.
Southern women and their escorts outnumbered the others five to one. The Southern wing of official Washington was out in force.
The tense electric atmosphere was oppressive.
The men and women whose eager anxious faces looked down on the circular rows of senatorial chairs and desks were painfully conscious that they were witnessing the final scene of a great historical era.
What the future might hold God alone could know. Their fathers had dreamed a beautiful dream—"E Pluribus Unum"—one out of many. The Union had yet to be realized as an historical fact. The discordant elements out of which our Constitution had been strangely wrought had fought their way at last into two irreconcilable hostile sections, the very structure of whose civilization rested on antagonistic conceptions of life and government.
The Northern Senators were in their seats with grave faces long before the last straggling Southerner picked his way into the Chamber bowing and smiling and apologizing to the ladies on whose richly embroidered dresses he must step or give up the journey.
For weeks the pretense of polite formalities between parties had been unconsciously dropped. Men no longer bowed and smirked and passed the time of day with shallow words.
With heads erect, they glanced at each other and passed on. And if they spoke, it was with taunt, insult and challenge.
Jennie's keen eyes rested on two vacant chairs on the floor of the Senate—every seat was crowded save these two.
She pressed Dick's arm.
"See—the vacant seats of South Carolina!"
"They're not vacant," the boy drawled.
"They are—look—"
"I see a white figure in each—"
"Nonsense!"
"We're going to have war, I tell you! Death sits in those chairs to-day, Jennie—"
"Sh—don't talk like that—"
The boy laughed.
"I'm not afraid, you know—just a sort of second sight—maybe it means I'll be killed—"
South Carolina had felt no forebodings on the day her Convention had recalled those Senators. Kiett the eloquent leader of the Convention sprang to his feet, his face flaming with passion that was half delirium as he shouted:
"This day is the culmination of long years of bitterness, of suffering and of struggle. We are performing a great deed, which holds in its magic not only the stirring present, it embraces the ages yet to come. I am content with what has been done to-day. I shall be content with it to-morrow. We have lowered the body of the old Union to its last resting place. We drop the flag over its grave."
When the vote was announced, without a single dissenting voice, the crowd rose to their feet with a shout of applause which shook the building to its foundations. It died away at last only to rise again with redoubled fury.
Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Florida had followed in rapid succession, Louisiana's Convention was to meet on the twenty-sixth, Texas on February first. On this the twenty-first day of January the Senators from Florida, Mississippi and Alabama had announced their farewelladdresses to the Old Union.
The girl's eyes swept the crowded tiers of the galleries packed with beautifully gowned Southern women. Every glove, fan, handkerchief, bonnet or dress—every dainty stocking and filmy piece of lingerie had been imported direct from the fashion centers of Europe. Gowns of priceless lace and velvets had been woven to order in the looms of Genoa, Venice and Brussels.
The South was rich.
And yet not one of her representatives held his office in Washington because of his money. Her ruling classes were without exception an aristocracy of brains—yet they were distinctly an aristocracy.
The election of Abraham Lincoln was more than a threat to confiscate three thousand millions of dollars which the South had invested in slaves. The homely rail splitter from the West was the prophecy of a new social order which threatened the foundations of the modern world. He himself was all unconscious of this fact. And yet this big reality was the secret of the electric tension which strangled men into silence and threw over the scene the sense of ominous foreboding.
The debates in Congress during the tempestuous session had been utterly insincere and without meaning. The real leaders knew that the time for discussion had passed. Two absolutely irreconcilable moral principles had clashed and the Republic was squarely and hopelessly broken into two vast sectional divisions on the issue.
Beyond the fierce and uncompromising hatred of Slavery which had grown into a consuming passion throughout the North and had resulted in the election of Lincoln as a purely sectional candidate—behind and underneath this apparent moral rage lay a bigger and far more elemental fact—the growing consciousness of the laboring man that the earth and the fullness thereof were his.
And bigger than the fear of the confiscation of their property and the destruction of the Constitution their fathers had created loomed before the Southern mind the Specter of a new democracy at the touch of whose fetid breath the soul of culture and refinement they believed must die. In the vulgar ranks of this democracy must march sooner or later four million negroes but yesterday from the jungles of Africa.
This greater issue was felt but dimly by the leaders on either side but it was realized with sufficient clearness to make compromise impossible.
In vain did the aged and the feeble plead once more for compromise. Real men no longer wished it.
The day of reckoning had come. The seeds of this tragedy were planted in the foundation structure of the Republic.
The Union of our fathers, for all the high sounding phrases of its Declaration of Independence was not a democracy. It was from the beginning an aristocratic republic founded squarely on African Slavery. And the degraded position assigned to the man who labored with his hands was recognized in our organic law.
The Constitution itself was the work of a rich and powerful group of leaders in each State, and its provisions were a compromise of conflicting sectional property interests.
The world had moved from 1789 to 1861.
The North was unconsciously lifting the banner of a mighty revolution. The South was clinging with the desperation of despair to the faith of its fathers.
The North was the world of steam and electricity, of new ideas, of progress. The South still believed in the divine inspiration of the men who founded the Republic. They must believe in it, for their racial life depended on it. Four million negroes could not be loosed among five millionSouthern white people and two such races live side by side under the principles of a pure democracy. Had this issue been put to them in the beginning not one Southern State would have entered the Union.
The Northern workingman, with steam and electricity bringing North and South into closer and closer touch, answered this cry of fear from the South with the ultimatum of democracy:
"This Nation can not endure half slave and half free!"
Back of all the mouthings of demagogues and the billingsgate of sectionalists lay this elemental fact—a democracy against a republic.
Nor could the sword of the Sections settle such an issue. The sectional sword could only settle an issue which grew out of it—whether a group of States holding a common interest in this conflict of principles could combine for their own peace and safety, leave the old Union, form a new one and settle it in their own way.
The North said no—the South said yes. This conviction bigger than party platforms was the brooding terror which brought the sense of tragedy to young and old, the learned and the unlearned—that made young men see visions and maids dream of mighty deeds.
The Southern boy's eyes had again rested on the vacant chairs of the Senators from South Carolina with a set look in their depths.
The crowd turned with sudden stir to the door of the Senate Chamber.
"Look," Jennie cried, "that's Mrs. Clem Clay of Alabama—how pale and beautiful she is! The Senator's going to make the speech of his life to-day. She's scared—Ah, that dress, that dress—isn't it a dream? Did you ever seesuch a piece of velvet—and—do look at that dear little gold hand holding the skirt up just high enough to see the exquisite lace on her petticoat—"
"Where's the golden hand—I don't see it?" Dick broke in skeptically.
"Don't you see the chain hanging from her waist?"
"Yes, I see that."
"Follow it with your eye and you'll see the hand. The Bayard sisters introduced them from Paris, you know."
The boy had ceased to listen to Jennie's chatter. His eye had suddenly rested on a group of three men seated in the diplomatic gallery—one evidently of high official position by the deference paid him. The man on the left of the official was young, handsome, slender, and pulled the corners of his mustache with a slow lazy touch of his graceful hand. His eyes were fixed on Jennie with a steady gaze. The Minister from Sardinia, of the Court of Victor Emmanuel, sat on the right, bowing and gesticulating with an enthusiasm out of all proportion to the importance of the conversation.
Behind this group sat a fourth man who leaned forward occasionally and whispered to the official. His face was in shadow and the only thing Dick could see was the thick dark brown beard which covered his regular features and a pair of piercing black eyes.
"For heaven's sake, Jennie," the boy cried at last, "who is that villain in the Diplomatic gallery?"
"Where?"
"In the corner there on the right."
"Oh, that's the Sardinian Minister—King Victor Emmanuel's new drummer of trade for Genoa. He's getting ahead of the French, too."
"No—no, I don't mean that little rat. I mean the big fellow with the heavy jaw and a face like a rattlesnake. He's trying to charm you too."
Jennie laughed.
"Silly! That's the new Secretary of War, Joseph Holt."
"A scoundrel, if God ever made one—"
"Because he looks at me?"
"No—that shows his good taste. It's the way he looks at you and moves his crooked mouth and the way he bends his big flat head forward."
"Rubbish—he's a loyal Southerner—and if we have to fight he'll be with us."
"Yes—he—will!"
"Of course, he will. He's careful now. He's in old Buck's cabinet. Wait and see. He called on Mr. Davis last night."
"That's nothing—so did old Seward—"
"Different—Seward's a Black Republican from New York—Holt's a Southern Democrat from Mississippi."
"And who's the young knight by his side with the dear little mustache to which he seems so attached?"
Jennie looked in silence for a moment.
"I never saw him before. He's handsome, isn't he?"
"Looks to me like a young black snake just shed his skin waiting for that old adder to show him how to strike."
"Dick—"
"God save the Queen! They're coming here—they're coming for you—"
The Secretary of War had nodded in recognition of Jennie, risen suddenly, and moved toward the gallery exit with his slender companion.
"Nonsense, Dick—he only bowed because he saw me staring—"
"He's bringing that mustache to meet you—"
The boy turned with a scowl toward the door of their gallery and saw the Secretary of War slowly making his way through the crowd to their seats.
"I told you so—"
Jennie blushed and smiled in friendly response to the Secretary's awkward effort at Southern politeness.
"Miss Barton, may I ask a little favor of you?"
"Certainly, Mr. Holt. Allow me to introduce my friend, Mr. Welford of Virginia."
The Secretary bowed stiffly and Dick nodded his head with indifference.
"The Italian Minister with whom I've just been talking wishes the honor of an introduction for his Secretary. Miss Jennie, will you meet him?"
"Certainly—"
"He's looking forward to the possible new Empire of the South," Holt whispered, "and proposes at an early day to forestall the French—"
Dick threw him a look of scorn as he returned to the door and rose with a scowl.
"I'll go out and get fresh air."
"Don't go—"
"I can't breathe in here. Two's company and three's a crowd."
She seized his arm:
"Please sit down, Dick."
"I'll be back directly—"
In spite of her protest he bounded up the steps of the gallery, turned sharply to the right, avoided the intruders and disappeared in the crowd.
The Secretary of War bowed again:
"Miss Barton, permit me to introduce to you Signor Henrico Socola, Secretary to His Excellency, the Minister of Sardinia."
The slender figure bent low with an easy grace.
"Pleased to meet you, Signor Socola," Jennie responded, lifting the heavy lashes from her lustrous brown eyes withthe slightest challenge to his.
"The pleasure is all mine, Mad'moiselle," he gravely replied.
"You'll excuse me now if I hurry on?" the Secretary said, again bowing and disappearing in the crowd.
"Mr. Holt tells me, Miss Barton, that you know every Senator on the floor."
"Yes. My father has been in Congress and the Senate for twenty years."
"You'll explain the drama to me to-day when the curtain rises?"
"If I can."
"I'll be so much obliged—" he paused and the even white teeth smiled pleasantly. "I'm pretty well up on American history but confess a little puzzled to-day. Your Southern Senators are really going to surrender their power here without a struggle?"
"What do you mean?" the girl asked with a slight frown.
"That your Democratic party has still a majority in both the House and the Senate. If the Southern members simply sit still in their places, the incoming administration of Abraham Lincoln will be absolutely powerless. The new President can not even call a cabinet to his side without their consent."
"The North has elected their President," Jennie answered with decision. "The South scorns to stoop to the dishonor of cheating them out of it. They've won the election. They can have it. The South will go and build a government of her own—as we built this one—"
"And fight twenty-three million people of the North?"
"If forced to—yes!"
"With the certainty of an uprising of your slaves at home?"
Jennie laughed.
"Our slaves would fight for us if we'd let them—"
A curious smile twitched the lips of the Italian.
"You speak with great confidence, Miss Barton!"
"Yes. I know what I'm talking about."
The keen eyes watched her from the shadows of the straight thick brows.
"And your Senators who took a solemn oath in entering this Chamber to support the Constitution will leave their seats in violation of that oath?"
The Southern girl flushed, turned with quick purpose to answer, laughed and said with winning frankness:
"You don't mind if I give you my father's answer in his own words? I know them by heart—"
"By all means."
"An oath to support the Constitution of the United States doesnotbind the man who takes it to support an administration elected by a mob whose purpose is to subvert the Constitution!"
"Oh,—I see," was the quiet response.
"You speak English with perfection, Signor!" Jennie said with a smile.
"Yes, Mad'moiselle, I've spent my life in the Diplomatic service."
He bowed gravely, lifted his head and caught the smile on the lips of the Secretary of War standing in the shadows of the doorway of the Diplomatic gallery.
The stately figure of John C. Breckinridge, the Vice-President, suddenly mounted the dais and his piercing eyes swept the assembly. He rapped for order and the silence which followed was as the hush of death.
"The curtain rises on our drama, Mad'moiselle," the smooth even voice said.
"Sh!" the girl whispered.
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 passionate feeling of the masses 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 institutions. Not a decade has passed, 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 Constitution? Who are these hypocrites who claim the championship of freedom and the moral leadership 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 ship 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 ships whose trade the Southern people had forbidden by law; the men who have flooded Congress for two generations with petitions 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 pass 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 Constitution is an agreement with Death, a covenant with Hell.'
"These are the men who dare to call us traitors! These are the men who have deliberately passed laws in fourteen Northern States nullifying the provisions of the Constitution 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 God—the God 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 Constitution 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 denouncedusin your popular meetings, your religious and legislative assemblies as habitual violators of the laws of God 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.
"We have borne all this for long years and might have borne it many more under the assurance of our Northern friends that such fanaticism does not represent the true heart of the Northern people. But the fallacy of these promises and the folly of our hopes have been too clearly proven in the late election. The platform of the political party on which you have swept every Northern State and elected a sectional President is a foul libel upon our character and a declaration of open war on the lives and property of the Southern people.
"In defiance of the Constitution which protects our rights your mob has decreed the confiscation of three thousand million dollars' worth of our property. If we claim the protection of our common law, your mob solemnly burns the Constitution in your public squares and denounces it as 'an agreement with Death and covenant with Hell.' We appeal to the Supreme Court of the Republic and when its Judges unanimously sustain our position on every point, your mob cries:
"'Down with the Supreme Court of the United States!'
"You have not only insulted us as unchristian and heathen, you have proclaimed that four million ignorant negroes but yesterday taken from the savagery of cannibal Africa are our equals and entitled to share in the solemn rights of American citizenship. Your declaration is an open summons that they rise in insurrection with the knife in one hand and the torch in the other.
"Your mob has declared the South outlawed, branded with ignominy, consigned to execration and ultimate destruction. Your mob has decreed the death of Slavery and sends the new President to execute their decree.
"All right—kill Slavery and then what? Kill Slavery and what will you do with its corpse? Who shall deliver us from the body of this death? We are not leaving this Hall to fight for the Institution of African Slavery. The grim specter of a degraded and mongrel citizenship which lies back of your mob's programme of confiscation is the force that is driving the Southern people out of the Union to find peace and safety. Whatever may be the sins of Slavery in the South they are as nothing when compared to the degradation of your life which must follow their violent emancipation. The Southern white man is slowly lifting the African out of barbarism into the light of Christian civilization. In our own good time we will emancipate him and start him on a new life beyond the boundaries of our Republic. Whatever may be the differences of opinion in the South on the institution of slavery—there is no difference and there has never been on one point—it was true yesterday—it is true to-day—it will be true to-morrow—Slavery is the only modus viviendi by which two such races as the Negro and the Aryan can live side by side in a free democracy with equality the law of its life—"
Again a burst of tumultuous applause swept the gallery.
"The issue is clear cut and terrible in its simplicity—the South stands on the faith of our fathers who created this Republic. The South stands for Constitutional freedom under the forms of established law. The North haslifted the red flag of revolution and proclaims the irresponsible despotism of an enthroned mob!
"For a generation your school mistresses have been training your boys to hate us and arming them to fight us. Make no mistake about this movement to-day. We who go are but the servants of those who sent us. They now recall their ambassadors, and we obey their sovereign will. Make no mistake about it. They are not a brave and rash people, deluded by bad men, who are attempting in an illegal way to wreck the Union. They seek peace and safety outside driven by the Rebellion against Law and Order within.
"Are we more or less than men? Can we love our enemies and bless them that curse and revile us? Are we devoid of the sensibilities, the sentiments, the passions, the reason, and the instincts of mankind? Have we no pride, no honor, no sense of shame, no reverence for our ancestors, no care for posterity, no love for home, or family or friends? Must we quail before the onion breath of an enthroned mob, confess our baseness, discredit the fame of our sires, degrade our children, abandon our homes, flee from our country and dishonor ourselves—all for the sake of a Union whose Constitution you have publicly burned and whose Supreme Court you have spit upon?
"Shall we consent to live under an administration controlled by those who not only deny us justice and equality and brand us as infamous, but boldly proclaim their purpose to rob us of our property and destroy our civilization?
"The freemen of Alabama have proclaimed to the world they will not. In their sovereign power they have recalled me. As their servant I go!"
With a wave of his hand in an imperious gesture of defiance to the silent Senators of the North, amid a scene of unparalleled passion, the speaker turned to his seat, gathered his books and papers and strode with quick firm step down the aisle.
Jennie had leaped to her feet and stood clapping her hands in a frenzy of excitement, unconscious of the existence of the strangely quiet young man by her side.
He rose and stood smiling into her flushed face as she gasped:
"A wonderful speech—wasn't it?"
"They say the South has never lacked audacity, Miss Barton. I'm wondering if they are really going to make good such words with deeds."
He spoke with a cold detachment that chilled and angered the impulsive girl. A hot answer was on her lips when she remembered suddenly that he was a foreigner.
"Of course, Signor, you can not understand our feelings!"
"On the other hand, I assure you, I do—I'm just wondering in a cold intellectual way whether the oratorical temperament—the temperament of passion, of righteous wrath of the explosive type which we have just witnessed, will win in the trial by fire which war will bring—"
"You doubt our courage?" she interrupted, with a slight curve of the proud little lips.
"Far from it—I assure you! I'm only wondering if it has the sullen, dogged, staying qualities these stolid Northern men down there have exhibited while they listened—"
The girl threw him a quick surprised look and he stopped. His voice had unconsciously taken the tones of a soliloquy.
"I beg your pardon, Miss Barton," he said, with sudden swing to the polite tones of society. "I'm annoying you with my foreign speculations—"
A sudden murmur swept the galleries and all eyes were turned on the tall slender figure of Jefferson Davis as he slowly entered the Senate Chamber.
"Who is it?" Socola asked.
"Senator Davis—you don't know him?"
"I have never seen him before. He has been quite ill I hear."
"Yes. He's been in bed for the past week suffering agonies from neuralgia. He lost the sight of one of his eyes from chronic pain caused by exposure in the service of his country in the northwest."
"Really—I didn't know that."
"He was compelled to remain in a darkened room for months the past year to save the sight of his remaining eye."
"That accounts for my not having seen him before."
Socola followed the straight military figure with painful interest as he slowly moved toward his seat greeting with evident weakness his colleagues as he passed. He was astonished beyond measure at the personality of the famous leader of the "Southern Conspirators" of whom he had heard so much. He was the last man in all the crowd he would have singled out for such a rôle. The face was too refined, too spiritual, too purely intellectual for the man of revolution. His high forehead, straight nose, thin compressed lips and pointed chin belonged to the poet and dreamer rather than the man of action. The hollow cheek bones and deeply furrowed mouth told of suffering so acute the sympathy of every observer was instantly won.
In spite of evident suffering his carriage was erect, dignified, and graceful. The one trait which fastened the attention from the first and held it was the remarkable intensity of expression which clothed his thin muscular face.
"You like him?" Jennie ventured at last.
"I can't say, Miss Barton," was the slowly measured answer. "He is a remarkably interesting man. I'm surprised and puzzled—"
"Surprised and puzzled at what?"
"Well, you see I know his history. The diplomatist makes it his business to know the facts in the lives of the leaders of a nation to whose Government he is accredited. Mr. Davis spent four years at West Point. He gave seven years of his life to the service of the army in the West. He carried your flag to victory in Mexico and hobbled home on crutches. He was one of your greatest Secretaries of War. He sent George B. McClellan and Robert E. Lee to the Crimea to master European warfare, organized and developed your army, changed the model of your arms, introduced the rifled musket and the minie ball. He explored your Western Empire and surveyed the lines of the great continental railways you are going to build to the Pacific Ocean. He planned and built your system of waterworks in the city of Washington and superintends now the extension of the Capitol building which will make it the most imposing public structure in the world. He has never stooped to play the part of a demagogue. He has never sought an office higher than the rôle of Senator which fits his character and temperament. His mind has always been busy dreaming of the imperial future of your widening Republic. His eye has seen the vision of its extension to the Arctic on the north and the jungles of Panama on the south. Why should such a man deliberately come into this chamber to-day before this assembled crowd and commit hari-kari?"
"He's a true son of the South!" Jennie Barton proudly answered.
"Even so, how can he do the astounding thing he proposes to carry out to-day? His record shows that passionate devotion to the Union has been the very breath of his life.I've memorized one of his outbursts as a model of your English language—"
Jennie laughed.
"I never heard of his Union speeches, I'm sure!"
"Strange that your people have forgotten them. Listen: 'From sire to son has descended the love of the Union in our hearts, as in our history are mingled the names of Concord and Camden, of Yorktown and Saratoga, of New Orleans and Bunker Hill. Together they form a monument to the common glory of our common country. Where is the Southern man who would wish that monument less by one Northern name that constitutes the mass? Who, standing on the ground made sacred by the blood of Warren, could allow sectional feeling to curb his enthusiasm as he looks upon that obelisk which rises a monument to freedom's and his country's triumph, and stands a type of the time, the men and the event it commemorates; built of material that mocks the waves of time, without niche or molding for parasite or creeping thing to rest upon, pointing like a finger to the sky to raise man's thoughts to high and noble deeds!'"
Socola paused and turned his dark eyes on Jennie's upturned face.
"How can the man who made that speech in Boston do this mad deed to-day?"
"Senator Clay has given the answer," was the girl's quick reply.
"For Senator Clay, yes—the fiery, impulsive, passionate child of emotion. But this thin hollow-cheeked student, thinker and philosopher, who spoke the thrilling words I quote—he should belong to the order of the Prophet and the Seer—the greatest leaders and teachers of history."
"We believe he does, Signor!" was the quick answer. "Look—he's going to speak—you'll hear him now."
Jennie leaned forward, her thoughtful little chin in both hands, as a silence so intense it was pain fell suddenly on the hushed assembly.
The face of the Southern leader was chalk white in its pallor. His first sentences were weak and scarcely reached beyond the circle of his immediate hearers. His physician had forbidden him to leave his room. The iron will had risen to perform a solemn duty. The Senators leaned forward in their arm-chairs fearful of losing a word.
He paused as if for breath and gazed a moment on the upturned faces with the look of lingering tenderness which the dying cast on those upon whom they gaze for the last time.
His figure suddenly rose to its full height, as if the soul within had thrust the feeble body aside to speak its message. His words, full, clear and musical rang to the furthest listener craning his neck through the jammed doorways of the galleries. Never was the music of the human voice more profoundly appealing. Unshed tears were in its throbbing tones.
There was no straining for effect—no outburst of emotion. The impression which reached the audience was the sense of restraint and the consciousness of his unlimited reserve power. Back of the simple clean-cut words which fell in musical cadence from his white lips was the certainty that he was only speaking a small part of what he felt, saw and knew. He neither stormed nor raved and yet he filled the hearts of his hearers with unspeakable passion.
He turned suddenly and bent his piercing single eye on the Northern Senators:
"I hope none who hear me will confound my position with the advocacy of the right of a State to remain in the Union and disregard its Constitutional obligations by thenullification of the law—"
A sudden cheer swept the tense galleries. The sergeant-at-arms called for order. The cheer rose again. The Vice-President rapped for silence and threatened to close the galleries. The speaker lifted his hand and commanded silence.
"It was because of his deep attachment to the Union—his determination to find some remedy for existing ills short of a severance of the ties which bound South Carolina to the other States—that John C. Calhoun advocated the doctrine of nullification which he proclaimed to be peaceful and within the limits of State power.
"Secession belongs to a different class of remedies. It is to be justified upon the basis that the States are sovereign. There was a time when none denied it. The phrase 'to execute the laws' General Jackson applied to a State refusing to obey the law while yet a member of the Union. You may make war on a foreign state. If it be the purpose of gentlemen—"
He paused and again his eagle eye swept the tiers of Northern Senators.
"You may make war against a State which has withdrawn from the Union; but there are no laws of the United States to be executed within the limits of a seceded State—"
Seward leaned forward in his seat and shook his head in grave dissent. The speaker bent his gaze directly upon his great antagonist and spoke with strange regretful tenderness.
"A State finding herself in a condition in which Mississippi has judged she is—in which her safety requires that she should provide for the maintenance of her rights out of the Union—surrenders all the benefits (and they are known to be many), deprives herself of all the advantages (and they are known to be great), seversall the ties of affections (and they are close and enduring) which have bound her to the Union; and thus divesting herself of every benefit—taking upon herself every burden—she claims to be exempt from any power to execute the laws of the United States within her limits.
"When Massachusetts was arraigned before the bar of the Senate for her refusal to permit the execution of the laws of the United States within her borders, my opinion was the same then as now. Her State is sovereign. She never delegated to the Federal Government the power to drive her by force. And when she chooses to take the last step which separates her from the Union, it is her right to go!—"
Another electric wave swept the crowd that burst into applause. The speaker lifted his long arm with an impatient gesture.
"And I would not vote one dollar nor one man to coerce her back into unwilling submission. I would say to her—'God speed in the memory of the kind associations which once existed between her and her sister States.'
"It has been a conviction of pressing necessity—a belief that we are to be deprived in the Union of the rights which our fathers bequeathed us—which has brought Mississippi to her present decision.
"You have invoked the sacred Declaration of Independence as the basis of an attack upon her social order. The Declaration of Independence is to be construed by the circumstances and purposes for which it was made. It was written by a Southern planter and slave owner. The Colonies were declaring their independence from foreign tyranny—were asserting in the language of Jefferson, 'that no man was born booted and spurred to ride over the rest of mankind; that men were created equal'—meaning the men of their American political community; that there was no divine right to rule; that no man could inherit the right to govern; that there were no classes by which power and place descended from father to son; but that all stations were equally within the grasp of each member of the body politic. These were the principles they announced.
"They had no reference to a slave. The same document denounced George III for the crime of attempting to stir their slaves to insurrection, as John Brown attempted at Harper's Ferry. If their Declaration of Independence announced that negroes were free and the equals of English citizens how could the Prince be arraigned for daring to raise servile insurrection among them? And how should this be named among the high crimes of George III which caused the Colonies to sever their connection with the Mother country?
"If slaves were declared our equals how did it happen that in the organic law of the Union they were given a lower caste and their population allowed (and that only through the dominant race) a basis of three-fifths representation in Congress? So stands the compact of Union which binds us together.
"We stand upon the principles on which our Government was founded!—"
The sentence rang clear and thrilling as the peal of a trumpet. The effect was electric. The galleries leaped to their feet, and cheered.
Jennie turned to the silent diplomat.
"Isn't he glorious!"
"He stirs the hearts of men"—was the even answer.
Around them were unmistakable evidences. Women were weeping hysterically and men embracing one another in silence and tears.
Again the Senator's hand was lifted high in command for silence and again he faced Seward and his Northern colleagues with figure tense, erect.
"When you repudiate these principles, and when you deny to us the right to withdraw from a Government which, thus perverted, threatens to destroy our rights, we but tread the path of our fathers when we proclaim our independence and take the hazard!"
Again a cheer and shout which the Vice-President's gavel could not quell. When the murmur at last died away the speaker's voice had dropped to low appealing tenderness.
"We do this, Senators, not in hostility to others, not to injure any section of our common country, not for our own pecuniary benefit, but from the high and solemn motive of defending and protecting the rights we inherited, which we will transmit unshorn to our children. We seek outside the Union that peace, with dignity and honor, which we can no longer find within.
"I trust I find myself a type of the general feeling of my constituents towards yours. I am sure I feel no hostility toward you, Senators from the North—"
He paused and swept the Northern tiers with a look of tender appeal.
"I am sure there is not one of you, whatever sharp discussion there may have been between us, to whom I can not now say in the presence of my God, I wish you well!"
Seward turned his head from the speaker, his eyes dimmed—the scheming diplomat and unscrupulous politician lost in the heart of the man for the moment.
"Such I am sure is the feeling of the people whom I represent toward those whom you represent. I but express their desire when I say I hope and they hope for peaceful relations with you, though we must part—"
He paused as if to suppress emotions too deep for words while a silence, intense and suffocating, held the crowd in a spell. The speaker's voice dropped to still lower and softer notes of persuasive tenderness as each rounded word of the next sentence fell slowly from the thin lips.
"If war must come, we can only invoke the God of our fathers, who delivered us from the power of the lion, to protect us from the ravages of the bear, and putting our trust in Him and in our firm hearts and strong arms we will vindicate the right as best we may—"
No cheer greeted this solemn utterance. In the pause which followed, the speaker deliberately gazed over the familiar faces of his Northern opponents and continued with a suppressed intensity of feeling that gripped his bitterest foe.
"In the course of my service here, associated at different times with a great variety of Senators, I see now around me some with whom I have served long. There have been points of collision, but, whatever offense there has been to me, I leave here. I carry with me no hostile remembrance. For whatever offense I may have given which has not been redressed, or for which satisfaction has not been demanded, I have, Senators, in this solemn hour of our parting to offer you my apology—"
The low musical voice died softly away in the silence of tears.
A woman sobbed aloud.
Socola bent toward his trembling companion and whispered:
"Who is she?"
Jennie brushed the tears from her brown eyes before replying:
"The Senator's wife. She's heart-broken over it all—didn't sleep a wink all night. I've been looking for her to faintevery minute."
The leader closed his portfolio. His hollow cheeks, thin lips and white drawn face were clothed with an expression of sorrow beyond words as he slowly turned and left the scene of his life's triumphs.
The spell of his eloquence at last thrown off the crowd once more dissolved into hostile lowering groups.
Stern old Zack Chandler of Michigan collided with Jennie's father in the cloak room, his eyes red with wrath.
"Well, Barton," he growled, "after the damned insolence of that scene if the North don't fight, I'll be much mistaken—"
"You generally are, sir," Barton retorted.
"If they don't fight, by the living God, I'll leave this country and join another nation—the Comanche Indians preferred to this Government."
Barton glanced at his opponent and his heavy jaw closed with a snap.
"I trust, Senator," he said with deliberate venom, "you will not carry out that resolution—the Comanche Indians have already suffered too much from contact with the whites!"
Dick Welford heard the shot and gripped the fierce old Southerner's hand as Chandler turned on his heel and disappeared with an oath.
"You got him that time, Senator!"
Barton laughed with boyish glee.
"I did, didn't I? Sometimes we can only think of our best things when it's too late. But by Gimminy I got the old rascal this time, didn't I?"
"You certainly plugged him—what did you think of the speeches?"
"Clay said something! Davis is too slow. He's got no blood in his veins. I don't like him. He'll pull us back intothe Union yet if we don't watch him. He's a reconstructionist at heart. The State of Mississippi is dragging him out of Washington by the heels. He makes me tired. The time for talk has passed. To your tents now, O Israel!"
Dick hurried to the gallery and watched Socola talking in his graceful Italian way with Jennie. He had hated this elegant foreigner the moment he had laid eyes on him. He made up his mind to declare himself before another sun set.
He ignored the Italian's existence.
"You are ready, Miss Jennie?"
She took Dick's proffered arm in silence and bowed to Socola who watched them go with a peculiar smile playing about his handsome mouth.