It was to Noah and me he one day told this. Noah mentioned the vast silence of a voiceless conservatism which had fallen upon that movement of Secession, late so reboant and rampant.
“And yet,” said the General, “the story of the country will at last show me wrong.”
“Will you say how?” asked Noah. “Surely, you do not doubt the common need of a union between the States, and one strong enough to defy the caprice or the ambition of a clique?”
“My sentiment for the Union,” said the General, “has suffered no modification, and it is because I stand for union and would die for union, that I am not sure of the wisdom of that toast of mine. It would have been better to stand aloof, and let Secession go the length of treason. Had I held to such a course, perhaps as many as one hundred might have answered for the crime with their lives. But the question would have been settled; the dispute would have been made res adjudicata and the future forever freed of that struggle. Now the serpent is only bruised, not killed; in years to follow yours and mine it will revive in rebellion and may yet crush the country in its folds.”
“I can not think you are right,” said I, for I was having part in the conversation with the others; “I am no judge, or you have closed the door against this Nullification.”
“Ay!” responded the General, “closed but not locked the door. It should have been barred with a gibbet. Folk are not taught by threats but by example. Had I stayed myself until the leaders for Secession went so far they were hanged for it, that would have meant the end. Now the business is deferred; the country will yet be forced to fight a civil war and wade knee-deep in blood to save itself.”
“Is it,” asked Noah, curiously, “is it now you first hold these views?”
“They are not new,” returned the General; “I owned them from the beginning. But I lacked the hardihood to act on them. I grow old; I have been in my hour the instrument by which so much blood has been shed that in my grey age I shrink from more. That toast was devised to save myself from spilling further blood; I was thinking on myself when I framed it and not of those black ones who would do treason. Its great purpose was to save me from becoming their executioner.”
“Now your feeling is mine too,” observed Noah, shaking a thoughtful head. “The seed of the whole trouble is slavery; while that exists, the certain chance of civil war stands open.”
“And how would one be rid of it?” demanded the General, passionately. “Washington was against slavery, Jefferson was against it, Franklin was against it, every great one whose trowel employed itself in laying the foundations of our government was against it, and yet there to-day it lives. They could not cope with slavery; how, then, shall we?”