The dinner at night was informal. Colonel Lee had invited three personalfriends from Washington. He hoped in the touch of the minds of theseleaders to find some relief from the uneasiness with which the readingof Mrs. Stowe\'s book had shadowed his imagination.
The man about whom he was curious was Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois,the most brilliant figure in the Senate. In the best sense herepresented the national ideal. A Northern man, he had always viewed theopinions and principles of the South with broad sympathy.
The new Senator from Georgia, on the other hand, had made a sensation inthe house as the radical leader of the South. Lee wondered if he were asdangerous a man as the conservative members of the Whig party thought.
Toombs had voted the Whig ticket, but his speeches on the rights of theSouth on the Slavery issues had set him in a class by himself.
Mr. and Mrs. Pryor had spent the night of the dance at Arlington and hadconsented to stay for dinner.
Douglas had captured the young Virginia congressman. And Mrs. Douglashad become an intimate friend of Mrs. Pryor.
When Douglas entered the library and pressed Lee\'s hand, the masterof Arlington studied him with keen interest. He was easily the mostimpressive figure in American politics. The death of Calhoun and Clayand the sudden passing of Webster had left but one giant on the floor ofthe Senate. They called him the "Little Giant." He was still a giant.
He had sensed the approaching storm of crowd madness and had sought theage-old method of compromise as the safety valve of the nation.
He had not read history in vain. He knew that all statesmanship is therecord of compromise--that compromise is another name for reason. TheDeclaration of Independence was a compromise between the radicalism ofThomas Jefferson and the conservatism of the colonies. In the originaldraft of the Declaration, Jefferson had written a paragraph arraigningslavery which had been omitted:
"He (the King of Great Britain) has waged cruel war against human natureitself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in thepersons of a distant people who never offended him; capturing andcarrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserabledeath in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, theopprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the _Christian_ Kingof Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where men shouldbe bought and sold, he prostituted his negative for suppressing everylegislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. Andthat this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished dye,he is now exciting these very people to rise in arms among us, and topurchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering thepeople on whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimescommitted against the liberties of one people with crimes which he urgesthem to commit against the lives of another."This indictment of Slavery and the Slave trade was stricken from theDeclaration of Independence in deference to the opposition of bothNorthern and Southern slave owners who held that the struggling youngcolonies must have labor at all hazards.
Lee knew that the Constitution also was a compromise of conflictinginterests. But for the spirit of compromise--of reason--this instrumentof human progress could never have been created. The word "Slave" or"Slavery" does not occur within it, and yet three of its most importantprovisions established the institution of chattel slavery as the basisof industrial life. The statesmen who wrote the Constitution did notwish these clauses embodied in it. Yet the union could not have beenestablished without them. Our leaders reasoned, and reasoned wisely,that Slavery must perish in the progress of human society, and,therefore, they accepted the compromise.
There has never been a statesman in the history of the world who hasnot used this method of constructive progress. There will never be astatesman who succeeds who can use any other method in dealing withmasses of his fellow men.
Douglas was the coming constructive statesman of the republic and alleyes were being focused on him. His life at the moment was the feveredcenter of the nation\'s thought. That his ambitions were boundless noone who knew the man doubted. That his patriotism was as genuine and asgreat all knew at last.
Lee studied every feature of his fine face. No eye could miss him inan assemblage of people, no matter how great the numbers. His compactfigure was erect, aggressive, dominant. A personage, whose sense ofpower came from within, not without. He was master of himself and ofothers. He looked the lion and he was one. The lines of his face werehandsome in the big sense, strong, regular, masculine. He drew youngmen as a magnet. His vitality inspired them. His stature was small inheight, measured by inches, but of such dignity, power and magnetismthat he suggested Napoleon.
He smiled into Colonel Lee\'s face and his smile lighted the room. Everyman and woman present was warmed by it.
Douglas had scarcely greeted Mrs. Lee and passed into an earnestconversation with the young Congressman when Robert Toombs of Georgiaentered.
Toombs had become within two years the successor of John C. Calhoun. Hehad the genius of Calhoun, eloquence as passionate, as resistless;and he had all of Calhoun\'s weaknesses. He called a spade a spade.
He loathed compromise. Three years before he had swept the floor andgalleries of the House with a burst of impassioned eloquence that hadmade him a national figure.
Lifting his magnificent head he had cried:
"I do not hesitate to avow before this House and the Country, and inthe presence of the living God, that if by your legislation you seek todrive us from the Territory of California and New Mexico, purchasedby the blood of Southern white people, and to abolish Slavery in theDistrict of Columbia, thereby attempting to fix a national degradationupon half the States of this Confederacy, _I am for disunion_. TheTerritories are the common property of the United States. You are theircommon agents; it is your duty while they are in the Territorial stateto remove all impediments to their free enjoyment by both sections--theslave holder and the non-slave holder!"He was the man of iron will, of passionate convictions. He might lead arevolution. He could not compromise.
His rapidly growing power was an ominous thing in the history of theSouth. Lee studied his face with increasing fascination.
In this gathering no man or woman thought of wealth as the source ofpower or end of life. No one spoke of it. Office, rank, position,talent, beauty, charm, personality--these things alone could count.
These men and women _lived_. They did not merely exist. They were makingthe history of the world and yet they refused to rush through life.
Their souls demanded hours of repose, of thought, of joy and they tookthem.
Toombs\' pocket was stuffed with a paper-backed edition of a French play.
It was his habit to read them in the original with keen enjoyment inmoments of leisure. The hum of social life filled the room and strifewas forgotten. Douglas and Toombs were boys again and Lee was theircompanion.
Mary Lee managed to avoid Stuart and took her seat beside PhilSheridan--not to tease her admirer but to give to her Western guestthe warmest welcome of the old South. She knew the dinner would be arevelation to Phil and she would enjoy his appreciation.
The long table groaned under the luxuries of the season. Coursesucceeded course, cooked with a delicate skill unknown to the world ofto-day. The oysters, fresh, fat, luscious, were followed by diamond-backterrapin stew as a soup.
Phil tasted it and whispered to his fair young hostess.
"Miss Mary, what is this I\'m eating?""Don\'t you like it?""I never expected to taste it on earth. I\'ve only dreamed about it onhigh.""It\'s only terrapin stew. We serve it as a soup.""The angels made it.""No, Aunt Hannah.""I won\'t take it back. Angels only could brew this soup."The terrapin was followed by old Virginia ham and turnip greens. Andthen came the turkey with chestnut stuffing and jellies. The long table,flashing with old china and silver, held the staples of ham and turkeyas ornaments as well as dainties for the palate. The real delicacieswere served later, the ducks which Doyle had sent the Colonel, and plateafter plate of little, brown, juicy birds called sora, so tender andtoothsome they could be eaten bones and all.
When Phil wound up with cakes and custards, apples, pears and nuts fromthe orchard and fields, his mind was swimming in a dream of luxury. Andover it all the spirit of true hospitality brooded. A sense of home andreality as intimate, as genuine as if he sat beside his mother\'s chairin the little cottage in Ohio.
"Lord save me," he breathed. "If I stay here long I\'ll have but onehope, to own a plantation and a home like this--"Toombs sat on Lee\'s right and Douglas on his left. Mr. and Mrs. Pryoroccupied the places of honor beside Mrs. Lee.
The Colonel\'s keen eye studied Douglas with untiring patience. To hisrising star, the man who loved the union, was drawn as by a magnet.
Toombs, the Whig, belonged to his own Party, the aristocracy of brainsand the inheritors of the right to leadership. He was studying Toombswith growing misgivings. He dreaded the radicalism within the heart ofthe Southern Whig.
His eye rested on Sam, serving the food as assistant butler in Ben\'sabsence. In the kink of his hair, the bulge of his smiling lips, thespread of his nostrils, the whites of his rolling eyes, he sawthe Slave. He saw the mystery, the brooding horror, the bafflinguncertainty, the insoluble problem of such a man within a democracy ofself-governing freemen. He stood bowing and smiling over his guests, inshape a man. And yet in racial development a million years behind thewit and intelligence of the two leaders at his side.
Over this dusky figure, from the dawn of American history our fathershad wrangled and compromised. More than once he had threatened to divideor destroy the union. Reason and the compromises of great minds hadsaved us. In Sam he saw this grinning skeleton at his feast.
He could depend on the genius of Douglas when the supreme crisis came.
He felt the quality of his mind tonight. But could Douglas control themob impulse of the North where such appeals as _Uncle Tom\'s Cabin_ hadgripped the souls of millions and reason no longer ruled life?
There was the rub.
There was no question of the genius of Douglas. The question was couldany leadership count if the mob, not the man, became our real ruler? Thetask of Douglas was to hold the fanatic of the North while he soothedthe passions of the radical of the South. Henry Clay had succeeded. But_Uncle Tom\'s Cabin_ had not been written in his day.
Toombs was becoming a firebrand. His eloquence was doing in the Southwhat Mrs. Stowe\'s novel was doing in the North--preparing the soil forrevolution--planting gunpowder under the foundations of society.
Could these forces yet be controlled or were they already beyondcontrol?