"No, your Highness."
"Was it only a longing for Germany that induced you to return to the Old World, or was it also your finding the condition of affairs in the vaunted Republic unbearable?"
"The latter, your Highness, although the former had something to do with it. I see trouble brewing in the United States, which—I say this only to your Highness—cannot be settled except by the establishment of a monarchy in the New World."
"Good, you must explain the matter to me more fully some other time. I am glad to learn—very glad. It is our duty to receive instruction from those who understand a particular subject thoroughly. What do you think of slavery in general?"
"That is a very extensive subject, your Highness; I have put my views upon it in writing; I shall have the honor-—-"
"No, just tell me concisely the kernel, the principle of the thing."
"Your Highness, the niggers are an inferior race, that is an established physiological fact; it is idle dreaming—though honestly maintained by many—which leads directly to the ruin of the nigger himself, to set him down as entitled to the same rights with other men."
"And would you—" asked the Prince, "No, I will put another question to you. How do you regard a man who traffics in beings of this inferior race?"
Sonnenkamp started up immediately from his chair, but he sat down again quickly, and said:—
"Creatures, your Highness, who cannot help themselves, and who never will be able to, are protected as they would not otherwise be by being considered as property; that so called generosity, without profit, without material regard either for property or for honor, is like a soul without a body; one can conceive it, but it does not exist, at least in the world we see before us."