"Absurd? Indeed, sir, it is not. I have seen some of the handcuffs. There are several pairs of them in this city. They were brought directly from the field by some of our citizens who went on as soon as they heard of the fight. I have several trophies of the fight which our men picked up."
No doubt the young lady was sincere. It was universally believed throughout the South that McDowell had thousands of pairs of handcuffs in his train, which were to be clapped upon the wrists of the Southern soldiers.
"We have some terrible uncompromising Union men in this State," said the eldest, "who would rather see every negro swept into the Gulf of Mexico, and the whole country sunk, than give up the Union. We have more Abolitionists here in this city than they have in Boston."
It was spoken bitterly. She did not mean that the Union men of the State were committed to immediate emancipation, but that they would accept emancipation rather than have the Secessionists succeed.
A gentleman came in, sat down by the fire, warmed his hands, and joined in the conversation. Said he: "I am a Southerner. I have lived all my life among slaves. I own one slave, but I hate the system. There are counties in this State where there are but few slaves, and in all such counties you will find a great many Abolitionists. It is the brutalizing influence of slavery that makes me hate it,—brutalizing to whites and blacks alike. I hate this keeping niggers to raise human stock,—to sell, just as you do horses and sheep."
In all places the theme of conversation was the war and the negroes. The ultra pro-slavery element was thoroughly secession, and the Unionists were beginning to understand that slavery was at the bottom of the rebellion. As in the dim light of the morning we already behold the approach of the full day, so they saw that these which seemed the events of an hour might broaden into that which would overthrow the entire slave system.
Anthony Trollope, an English traveller and novelist, was stopping at the hotel at the time,—a pleasant gentleman, thoroughly English in his personal appearance, with a plump face, indicative of good living and good cheer. In his work entitled "North America" he mentions the teamsters in the hall, and draws a contrast between English and American society. He says:—
"While I was at supper the seventy-five teamsters were summoned into the common eating-room by a loud gong, and sat down to their meal at the public table. They were very dirty; I doubt whether I ever saw dirtier men; but they were orderly and well-behaved, and but for their extreme dirt might have passed as the ordinary occupants of a well-filled hotel in the West. Such men in the States are less clumsy with their knives and forks, less astray in an unused position, more intelligent in adapting themselves to a new life, than are Englishmen of the same rank. It is always the same story. With us there is no level of society. Men stand on a long staircase, but the crowd congregates near the bottom, and the lower steps are very broad. In America, men stand on a common platform, but the platform is raised above the ground, though it does not approach in height the top of our staircase. If we take the average altitude in the two countries, we shall find that the American heads are the more elevated of the two. I conceived rather an affection for those dirty teamsters; they answered me civilly when I spoke to them, and sat in quietness smoking their pipes, with a dull and dirty but orderly demeanor."[4]
If Mr. Trollope, who has a very just appreciation of the character of those quiet and orderly teamsters, will but wait a century or two, perhaps he will find that democracy can build a staircase as high and complete as that reared by the aristocracy of England. We have had but two centuries for the construction of our elevated common platform, while England has had a thousand years. There the base of the staircase, where the multitude stand, is either stationary or sinking; but here the platform is always rising, and bearing the multitude to a higher plane.
A short distance north of the city of the living is the city of the dead. It is a pleasant suburb,—one which is adding week by week to its population. It is laid out in beautiful avenues, grass bordered, and shaded by grand old forest-trees. It is the resting-place of the dust of Henry Clay. The monument to his memory is not yet finished. It is a tall, round column upon a broad base, with a capital, such as the Greeks never saw or dreamed of, surmounted by a figure intended to represent the great statesman as he stood when enchaining vast audiences by his matchless oratory. Within the chamber, exposed to view through the iron-latticed door, star-embellished and bronzed, lies the sarcophagus of purest marble. It is chaste in design, ornamented with gathered rods and bonds emblematic of union, and wreathed with cypress around its sides. The pure white marble drapery is thrown partly back, exposing above the breast of the sleeper a wreath, and