The Victim: A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis Part 18

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 a.s.signed to the man who labored with his hands was recognized in our organic law.

The Const.i.tution 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 million Southern 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 see such 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?" d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k 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 G.o.d 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."

"d.i.c.k--"

"G.o.d 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, d.i.c.k--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--"