"You argue it very well, Sir, as well as any one can. The only
trouble is that you are not convinced, and you do not convince.
You are trying to protect me, that's all. I have no answer—except
Lily! There are some things in the analysis from which you shrink.
Isn't it true?"
"Yes, altogether true. We always come back to the bitter and brutal part of slavery. But what are we going to do for remedy? Anarchy doesn't suggest remedy. For my own part, sometimes I think that Millard Fillmore's idea was right—that the government should buy these slaves and deport them. That would be, as you say, far cheaper than a war. It was the North that originally sold most of the slaves. If they, the South, as half the country, are willing to pay back their half of the purchase price, ought not the North to be satisfied with that? That's putting principles to the hardest test—that of the pocket."
In his excitement he rose and strode about the room, his face frowning, his slender figure erect, martial even in its civilian dress. Presently he turned; "But it is noble of you, magnificent, to think of doing what a government hesitates to do! And a woman!"
"Could it be done?" she demanded. "It would require much money.
But what a noble solution it would be!"
"Precisely. I rejoice to see that your mind is so singularly clear although your heart is so kind."
"You speak in the voice of New England."
"Yes, yes, I'm a New Englander. She's glorious in her principles, New England, but she carries her principles in her pocket! I admire your proposed solution, but that solution I fear you will never see. It is the fatal test, that of the pocket." But the idea had hold of him, and would not let him go. He walked up and down, excited, still arguing against it.
"The South, frankly, has always been juggled out of its rights, all along the line—through pocket politics—and I'm not sure how much more it can endure of the same sort of juggling. Why, John Quincy Adams himself, Northerner that he was, admitted that Missouri had the right to come in as a slave state, just as much as had Arkansas and Louisiana. Pocket-politics allowed Congress to trade all of the Louisiana Purchase south of thirty-six degrees, thirty minutes, excepting Arkansas, in exchange for the Floridas—and how much chance, how much lot and part had the Missourians in a country so far away as Florida? The South led us to war with Mexico in order to extend our territory, but what did the South get? The North gets all the great commercial and industrial rights. Just to be frank and fair about it, although I am a New Englander and don't believe in slavery, the truth is, the South has paid its share in blood and risk and money, but it didn't get its share when it came to the divide; and it never has."
"Precisely, my dear Captain. I delight to see you so broad-minded and fair. This plan of mine, to have any success, must be carried out on lines broad-minded and fair."
"But how adjust pocket interests on both sides? You'll see. You'll be left alone. It is easier to make a speech for liberty than it is to put the price of one slave in the hat passed for liberty. New England, all the North, will talk, will hold mass meetings, will pass resolutions commending resistance to the law—like this Christianville incident of which there's news this morning. You'll see the blacks commended for that. But you won't see much money raised to keep other blacks from being followed by their owners."