Our readers will look in on the scene, in a small retired back room of Frank's office, where his bachelor establishment as yet was kept. Clayton had been giving him an earnest account of his plans and designs.
"The only safe way of gradual emancipation," said Clayton, "is the reforming of law; and the beginning of all legal reform must of course be giving the slave legal personality. It's of no use to enact laws for his protection in his family state, or in any other condition, till we open to him an avenue through which, if they are violated, his grievances can be heard, and can be proved. A thousand laws for his comfort, without this, are only a dead letter."
"I know it," said Frank Russel; "there never was anything under heaven so atrocious as our slave-code. It's a bottomless pit of oppression. Nobody knows it so well as we lawyers. But, then, Clayton, it's quite another thing what's to be done about it."
"Why, I think it's very plain what's to be done," said Clayton. "Go right forward and enlighten the community. Get the law reformed. That's what I have taken for my work; and, Frank, you must help me."
"Hum!" said Frank. "Now, the fact is, Clayton, if I wore a stiff white neckcloth, and had a D. D. to my name, I should tell you that the interests of Zion stood in the way, and that it was my duty to preserve my influence, for the sake of being able to take care of the Lord's affairs. But, as I am not so fortunate, I must just say, without further preface, that it won't do for me to compromise Frank Russel's interests. Clayton, I can't afford it—that's just it. It won't do. You see, our party can't take up that kind of thing. It would be just setting up a fort from which our enemies could fire on us at their leisure. If I go in to the legislature, I have to go in by my party. I have to represent my party, and, of course, I can't afford to do anything that will compromise them."
"Well, now, Frank," said Clayton, seriously and soberly, "are you going to put your neck into such a noose as this, to be led about all your life long—the bond-slave of a party?"
"Not I, by a good deal!" said Russel. "The noose will change ends, one of these days, and I'll drag the party. But we must all stoop to conquer, at first."
"And do you really propose nothing more to yourself than how to rise in the world?" said Clayton. "Isn't there any great and good work that has beauty for you! Isn't there anything in heroism and self-sacrifice?"
"Well," said Russel, after a short pause, "may be there is; but, after all, Clayton, is there? The world looks to me like a confounded humbug, a great hoax, and everybody is going in for grub; and, I say, hang it all, why shouldn't I have some of the grub, as well as the rest?"
"Man shall not live by bread alone!" said Clayton.
"Bread's a pretty good thing, though, after all," said Frank shrugging his shoulders.
"But," said Clayton, "Frank, I am in earnest, and you've got to be. I want you to go with me down to the depths of your soul, where the water is still, and talk to me on honor. This kind of half-joking way that you have isn't a good sign, Frank; it's too old for you. A man that makes a joke of everything at your age, what will he do before he is fifty? Now, Frank, you do know that this system of slavery, if we don't reform it, will eat out this country like a cancer."
"I know it," said Frank. "For that matter, it has eaten into us pretty well."
"Now," said Clayton, "if for nothing else, if we had no feeling of humanity for the slave, we must do something for the sake of the whites, for this is carrying us back into barbarism, as fast as we can go. Virginia has been ruined by it—run all down. North Carolina, I believe, has the unenviable notoriety of being the most ignorant and poorest state in the Union. I don't believe there's any country in old, despotic Europe where the poor are more miserable, vicious, and degraded, than they are in our slave states. And it's depopulating us; our men of ability, in the lower classes, who want to be respectable, won't stand it. They will go off to some state where things move on. Hundreds and hundreds move out of North Carolina, every year, to the Western States. And it's all this unnatural organization of society that does it. We have got to contemplate some mode of abolishing this evil. We have got to take the first step towards progress, some time, or we ourselves are all undone."
"Clayton," said Frank, in a tone now quite as serious as his own, "I tell you, as a solemn fact, that we can't do it. Those among us who have got the power in their hands are determined to keep it, and they are wide awake. They don't mean to let the first step be taken, because they don't mean to lay down their power. The three fifths vote that they get by it is a thing they won't part with. They'll die first. Why, just look at it! There is at least twenty-four millions of property held in this way. What do you suppose these men care about the poor whites, and the ruin of the state, and all that? The poor whites may go to the devil, for all them; and as for the ruin of the state, it won't come in their day; and 'after us the deluge,' you know. That's the talk! These men are our masters; they are yours; they are mine; they are masters of everybody in these United States. They can crack their whips over the head of any statesman or clergyman, from Maine to New Orleans, that disputes their will. They govern the country. Army, navy, treasury, church, state, everything is theirs, and whoever is going to get up must go up on their ladder. There isn't any other ladder. There isn't an interest, not a body of men, in these whole United States, that they can't control; and I tell you, Clayton, you might as well throw ashes into the teeth of the north wind, as undertake to fight their influence. Now, if there was any hope of doing any good by this, if there was the least prospect of succeeding, why, I'd join in with you; but there isn't. The thing is a fixed fact, and why shouldn't I climb up on it, as well as everybody else?"
"Nothing is fixed," said Clayton, "that isn't fixed in right. God and nature fight against evil."
"They do, I suppose; but it's a long campaign," said Frank, "and I must be on the side that will win while I'm alive. Now, Clayton, to you I always speak the truth; I won't humbug you. I worship success. I am of Frederick the Great's creed, 'that Providence goes with the strongest battalions.'
"I wasn't made for defeat. I must have power. The preservation of this system, whole and entire, is to be the policy of the leaders of this generation. The fact is, they stand where it must be their policy. They must spread it over the whole territory. They must get the balance of power in the country, to build themselves up against the public opinion of mankind.
"Why, Clayton, moral sentiment, as you call it, is a humbug! The whole world acquiesces in what goes—they always have. There is a great outcry about slavery now, but let it succeed, and there won't be. When they can outvote the Northern States, they'll put them down. They have kept them subservient by intrigue so far, and by and by they'll have the strength to put them down by force. England makes a fuss now; but let them only succeed, and she'll be civil as a sheep. Of course, men always make a fuss about injustice, when they have nothing to gain by holding their tongues; but England's mouth will be stopped with cotton—you'll see it. They love trade, and hate war. And so the fuss of anti-slavery will die out in the world. Now, when you see what a poor hoax human nature is, what's the use of bothering? The whole race together aren't worth a button, Clayton, and self-sacrifice for such fools is a humbug. That's my programme!"
"Well, Frank, you have made a clean breast; so will I. The human race, as you say, may be a humbug, but it's every man's duty to know for himself that he isn't one. I am not. I do not worship success, and will not. And if a cause is a right and honorable one, I will labor in it till I die, whether there is any chance of succeeding or not."
"Well, now," said Frank Russel, "I dare say it's so. I respect your sort of folks; you form an agreeable heroic poem, with which one can amuse the tediousness of life. I suppose it won't do you any good to tell you that you are getting immensely unpopular, with what you are doing."
"No," said Clayton, "it won't."
"I am really afraid," said Russel, "that they'll mob you, some of these bright days."
"Very well," said Clayton.
"Oh, of course. I knew it would be very well; but say, Clayton, what do you want to get up a petition on that point for? Why don't you get up one to prevent the separation of families? There's been such a muss made about that in Europe, and all round the world, that it's rather the fashion to move about that a little. Politicians like to appear to intend to begin to do something about it. It has a pleasing effect, and gives the northern editors and ministers something to say, as an apology for our sins. Besides, there are a good many simple-hearted folks, who don't see very deep into things, that really think it possible to do something effective on this subject. If you get up a petition for that, you might take the tide with you; and I'd do something about it, myself."
"You know very well, Frank, for I told you, that it's no use to pass laws for that, without giving the slaves power to sue or give evidence, in case of violation. The improvement I propose touches the root of the matter."
"That's the fact—it surely does!" said Russel. "And, for that very reason, you'll never carry it. Now, Clayton, I just want to ask you one question. Can you fight? Will you fight? Will you wear a bowie-knife and pistol, and shoot every fellow down that comes at you?"
"Why, no, of course, Frank. You know that I never was a fighting man. Such brute ways are not to my taste."
"Then, my dear sir, you shouldn't set up for a reformer in Southern States. Now, I'll tell you one thing, Clayton, that I've heard. You made some remarks at a public meeting, up at E., that have staked a mad-dog cry, which I suppose came from Tom Gordon. See here; have you noticed this article in the Trumpet of Liberty?" said he, looking over a confused stack of papers on his table. "Where's the article? Oh, here it is."
At the same time he handed Clayton a sheet bearing the motto "Liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable," and pointed to an article headed
"Covert Abolitionism! Citizens, Beware!
"We were present, a few evenings ago, at the closing speech delivered before the Washington Agricultural Society, in the course of which the speaker, Mr. Edward Clayton, gratuitously wandered away from his subject to make inflammatory and seditious comments on the state of the laws which regulate our negro population. It is time for the friends of our institutions to be awake. Such remarks dropped in the ear of a restless and ignorant population will be a fruitful source of sedition and insurrection. This young man is supposed to be infected with the virus of northern abolitionists. We cannot too narrowly watch the course of such individuals; for the only price at which we can maintain liberty is eternal vigilance. Mr. Clayton belongs to one of our oldest and most respected families, which makes his conduct the more inexcusable."
Clayton perused this with a quiet smile, which was usual with him.
"The hand of Joab is in that thing," said Frank Russel.
"I'm sure I said very little," said Clayton. "I was only showing the advantage to our agriculture of a higher tone of moral feeling among our laborers, which, of course, led me to speak of the state of the law regulating them. I said nothing but what everybody knows."
"But, don't you know, Clayton," said Russel, "that if a fellow has an enemy—anybody bearing him the least ill-will—that he puts a tremendous power in his hands by making such remarks? Why, our common people are so ignorant that they are in the hands of anybody who wants to use them. They are just like a swarm of bees; you can manage them by beating on a tin pan. And Tom Gordon has got the tin pan now, I fancy. Tom intends to be a swell. He is a born bully, and he'll lead a rabble. And so you must take care. Your family is considerable for you; but, after all, it won't stand you in stead for everything. Who have you got to back you? Who have you talked with?"
"Well," said Clayton, "I have talked with some of the ministry"—
"And, of course," said Frank, "you found that the leadings of Providence didn't indicate that they are to be martyrs! You have their prayers in secret, I presume; and if you ever get the cause on the upper hill-side, they'll come out and preach a sermon for you. Now, Clayton, I'll tell you what I'll do. If Tom Gordon attacks you, I'll pick a quarrel with him, and shoot him right off the reel. My stomach isn't nice about those matters, and that sort of thing won't compromise me with my party."
"Thank you," said Clayton, "I shall not trouble you."
"My dear fellow," said Russel, "you philosophers are very much mistaken about the use of carnal weapons. As long as you wrestle with flesh and blood, you had better use fleshly means. At any rate, a gentlemanly brace of pistols won't hurt you; and, in fact, Clayton, I am serious. You must wear pistols,—there are no two ways about it. Because, if these fellows know that a man wears pistols and will use them, it keeps them off. They have an objection to being shot, as this is all the world they are likely to have. And I think, Clayton, you can fire off a pistol in as edifying and dignified a manner, as you can say a grace on proper occasions. The fact is, before long, there will be a row kicked up. I'm pretty sure of it. Tom Gordon is a deeper fellow than you'd think, and he has booked himself for Congress; and he means to go in on the thunder-and-blazes principle, which will give him the vote of all the rabble. He'll go into Congress to do the fighting and slashing. There always must be a bully or two there, you know, to knock down fellows that you can't settle any other way. And nothing would suit him better, to get his name up, than heading a crusade against an abolitionist."
"Well," said Clayton, "if it's come to that, that we can't speak and discuss freely in our own state, where are we?"
"Where are we, my dear fellow? Why, I know where we are; and if you don't, it's time you did. Discuss freely? Certainly we can, on one side of the question; or on both sides of any other question than this. But this you can't discuss freely, and they can't afford to let you, as long as they mean to keep their power. Do you suppose they are going to let these poor devils, whites, get their bandages off their eyes, that make them so easy to lead now? There would be a pretty bill to pay, if they did! Just now, these fellows are in as safe and comfortable a condition for use as a party could desire; because they have got votes, and we have the guiding of them. And they rage, and swear, and tear, for our institutions, because they are fools, and don't know what hurts them. Then, there's the niggers. Those fellows are deep. They have as long ears as little pitchers, and they are such a sort of fussy set, that whatever is going on in the community is always in their mouths, and so comes up that old fear of insurrection. That's the awful word, Clayton! That lies at the bottom of a good many things in our state, more than we choose to let on. These negroes are a black well; you never know what's at the bottom."
"Well," said Clayton, "the only way, the only safeguard to prevent this is reform. They are a patient set, and will bear a great while; and if they only see that anything is being done, it will be an effectual prevention. If you want insurrection, the only way is to shut down the escape-valve; for, will ye nill ye, the steam must rise. You see, in this day, minds will grow. They are growing. There's no help for it, and there's no force like the force of growth. I have seen a rock split in two by the growing of an elm-tree that wanted light and air, and would make its way up through it. Look at all the aristocracies of Europe. They have gone down under this force. Only one has stood—that of England. And how came that to stand? Because it knew when to yield; because it never confined discussion: because it gave way gracefully before the growing force of the people. That's the reason it stands to-day, while the aristocracy of France has been blown to atoms."
"My dear fellow," said Russel, "this is all very true and convincing, no doubt; but you won't make our aristocracy believe it. They have mounted the lightning, and they are going to ride it whip and spur. They are going to annex Cuba and the Sandwich Islands, and the Lord knows what, and have a great and splendid slave-holding empire. And the north is going to be what Greece was to Rome. We shall govern it, and it will attend to the arts of life for us. The south understands governing. We are trained to rule from the cradle. We have leisure to rule. We have nothing else to do. The free states have their factories, and their warehouses, and their schools, and their internal improvements, to take up their minds; and, if we are careful, and don't tell them too plain where we are taking them, they'll never know it till they get there."
"Well," said Clayton, "there's one element of force that you've left out in your calculation."
"And what's that?" said Russel.
"God," said Clayton.
"I don't know anything about him," said Russel.
"You may have occasion to learn, one of these days," said Clayton. "I believe he is alive yet."