The Man in Gray: A Romance of North and South Part 74

"Let us grant, Colonel Lee, that in law you are right. The States are sovereign. The Const.i.tution gives the General Government no power to coerce a State. Our fathers, as a matter of fact, never faced such a possibility. Grant all that in law. Even so, a mighty, united nation has grown through the years. It is now a living thing, immutable, indissoluble. It commands your obedience and mine."

Lee was silent and Mrs. Marshall cried:

"Surely this is true, Robert!"

"My dear Mr. Blair," Lee slowly began, "your claim is the beginning of the end of law--the beginning of anarchy. If under the law, Virginia is right, is it not my duty to defend her? Obedience to law is the cornerstone on which all nations are built if they endure. Reverence for law is to-day the force driving the South into revolution--"

"A revolution doomed to certain failure," Blair quickly interrupted.

"The border slave states of Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri, under Mr.

Lincoln's conservative leadership, will never secede. Without them the South must fail. You have served under the flag of the Union for thirty years. You know the North. You know the South. And you know that such a revolution based on a division of the Union without these border States is madness--"

"It is madness, Robert," Mrs. Marshall joined, "utter madness!"

"Right and duty, Mr. Blair, have nothing to do with success or failure,"

Lee responded. "I know the fearful odds against the South. I know the indomitable will, the energy, the fertile resources, the pride of opinion of the North, once set in motion. I know that the South has no money, no army, no organized government, no standing in the Court of Nations. She will have a white population of barely five millions against twenty-two millions--and her ports will be closed by our Navy--"

Blair interrupted and leaned close.

"And let me add, that as our leader _you_ will not only command the greatest army ever a.s.sembled under the American flag, backed by a great Navy--but that your victory will be but the beginning of a career. From your window you see the White House and the Capitol. The man who leads the Union armies will succeed Mr. Lincoln as President."

Lee's protest was emphatic.

"I aspire to no office, Mr. Blair. I'm fifty-four years of age. I am on the hilltop of life. The way leads down a gentle slope, I trust, to a valley of peace, love and happiness. Ambition does not lure me; I have lived. I have played my part as well as I know how. I am content. I love my Country, North and South, East and West. I am a trained soldier--I know nothing else."

"The highest honor of this Nation, Colonel Lee, is something no man born under our flag dares to decline. Few men in history have been so well equipped as you for such an honor, both by birth and culture. You must also remember that the President of the United States is Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy. You are proud of your profession. You would honor it in the highest office of the Republic. You are held in the highest esteem by every soldier in the army. The President calls you.

The Nation calls you. All eyes are upon you."

Blair studied the effect of his appeal. He saw that Lee was profoundly moved. Yet his courteous manner gave no hint of the trend of his emotions. He did not reply for a moment and then spoke with tenderness.

"My dear friend, you must not think that I am deaf to such calls. They move me to the depths. But no honor can reconcile me to this awful war.

It is madness. It is absolutely unnecessary. But for John Brown's insane act it could have been avoided. But it has come. Its glory does not tempt me. I wish peace on earth and good will to all men. I am a soldier, but a Christian soldier--"

His voice broke.

"I am one of the humblest followers of Jesus Christ. There is but a single question for me to decide--my duty--"

A horseman dashed under the portico, threw his reins to Sam and entered without announcement.

"Colonel Lee?" he asked.

"Yes."

He handed Lee a folded paper bearing the great seal of the State.

"A message, sir, from Richmond."

Lee's hand trembled as he broke the seal. He stared at its words as in a dream.

"You have important news?" Blair asked.

"Most important. I am summoned to Richmond by the Governor in obedience to a resolution of the Legislature."

Mrs. Marshall advanced on the dusty, young messenger, her eyes aflame with anger.

"How dare you enter this house unannounced, sir?"

The boy did not answer. He turned away with a smile. She repented her words immediately. They had sounded undignified, if not positively rude.

But she had been so sure that Blair could not fail. This call from Richmond, coming in the moment of crisis, drove her to desperation. She looked at Blair helplessly and he rallied to the attack with renewed determination.

"A Nation is calling you. The Union your fathers created is calling you, Colonel Lee!"

Lee's figure stiffened the least bit, though his words were uttered in the friendliest tones.

"Virginia is also calling me, Mr. Blair. Your own State of Maryland has not seceded. For that reason you cannot feel this tragedy as I feel it.

Put yourself in my place. I ask you the question, is not the command of a State that of a mother to a child? We are citizens of the State, not of the Union. There is no such thing as citizenship in the Union. We vote only as citizens of a State. We enlist as soldiers by States. I was sent to West Point as a cadet by the State of Virginia. Even President Lincoln's proclamation calling for volunteers to coerce a State, revolutionary as it is, is addressed, not to individual men, but to the States. He must call on each to furnish her quota of soldiers--"

"Yet the call is to every citizen of the Nation!"

Lee's hand was raised in a gesture of imperious affirmation.

"There is no such thing as citizenship of the Nation! We don't pay taxes to the Nation. We may yet become a Nation. We are as yet a Union of Sovereign States. Virginia has refused to furnish the troops called for by the President and has withdrawn from the Union. She reserved in her vote to enter, the right to withdraw. I am a Virginian. What is my duty?"

"To fight for the Union, Robert--always!" Mrs. Marshall answered.

"I love the Union, my dear sister, my heart aches at the thought of its division--"

He turned sharply to Blair.

"But is not the South to-day in taking her stand for the rights of the State a.s.serting a principle as vital as the Union itself? All the great minds of the North have recognized that these rights are fundamental to our life. Bancroft declares that the State is the guardian of the security and happiness of the individual. Hamilton declares that, if the States shall lose their powers, the people will be robbed of their liberties. George Clinton says that the States are our _only_ security for the liberties of the people against a centralized tyranny. These rights once surrendered, and I solemnly warn you, my friend, that your children and mine may live to see in Washington a centralized power that will dare to say what you shall eat, what you shall drink, and what you shall wear!"

Blair laughed incredulously.

"Surely it's a far cry to that, Colonel--"

"I'm not so sure, Mr. Blair. And the cry from Virginia rings through my heart. I see her in mortal peril. My father was three times Governor of the Commonwealth. Virginia gave America the immortal words of the Declaration of Independence. She gave us something greater. She gave us George Washington, a Southern slaveholder, whose iron will alone carried our despairing people through ten years of hopeless revolution and won at last our right to live. Madison wrote the Const.i.tution. John Marshall of Virginia, as Chief Judge of the Supreme Court, established its power on the foundations of Justice and Law. Jefferson doubled our area in the Louisiana Territory. Scott and Taylor extended it to the Pacific Ocean from Oregon to the Gulf of California. Virginia in the generosity of her great heart gave the Northwest to the Union and forbade the extension of slavery within it--"

Blair leaped to make a point.

"Surely these proud recollections, of her gifts to the Union should form bonds too strong to be broken!"

"So say I, sir! Surely they should place the people of all sections under obligations too deep to permit the invasion of her sacred soil!

Can I stand by as her loyal son and see this invasion begun? I regret that Virginia has withdrawn. But the deed is done. Her people through their Governor and their Legislature call me--command me to come to her defense. They may be wrong. They may be blinded by pa.s.sion. They are still my people, my neighbors, my friends, my children--and I cannot--"

He drew a deep breath and rose to his full height.

"_I will not draw my sword against them!_"

"Glory to G.o.d!" the messenger exulted.