"It looks," he added slowly, a moment later, "just as Thomas Jefferson said long ago, as though this country had the wolf by the ear, and could neither hold it nor let it go. For myself—and setting aside this personal matter, which is at worst only the loss of a worthless girl—I admit I fear that this slavery wolf is going to mean trouble—big trouble—both for the South and the North, before long."
"Douglas, over there in Illinois, hasn't brought up anything in Congress yet that's stuck," broke in the ever-ready Jones. "Old Caroliny and Mississip'—them's the ones! Their conventions show where we're goin' to stand at. We'll let the wolf go, and take holt in a brand new place, that's exactly what we'll do!"
Dunwody remained silent for a time. Doctor Jamieson took snuff, and looked quietly from one to the other. "You can count me in, gentlemen," said he.
Silence fell as he went on. "If they mean fight, let them have fight. If we let in one army of abolitionists out here, to run off our property, another will follow. As soon as the railroad gets as far west as the Missouri River, they'll come out in swarms; and they will take that new country away from us. That's what they want.
"The South has been swindled all along the line," he exclaimed, rising and smiting a fist into a palm. "We got Texas, yes, but it had to be by war. We've been juggled out of California, which ought to have been a southern state. We don't want these deserts of Utah and New Mexico, for they won't raise cotton. When we try to get into Cuba, the North and all the rest of the world protests. We are cut off from growth to the south by Mexico. On the west we have these Indians located. The whole upper West is air-tight abolitionist by national law. Now, where shall we go? These abolitionists are even wedging in west of us. This damned compromise line ought to be cut off the map. We ought to have a chance to grow!"
Strange enough such speech sounds to-day,—speech demanding growth for a part of a country, denying it for the whole, speech ignoring the nationalist tendency so soon to overwhelm all bounds, all creeds in the making of a mighty America that should be a home for all the nations. But as the gray-headed old doctor went on he only voiced what was the earnest conviction of many of the ablest men of his time, both of the South and the North.
"The South has been robbed. We paid our share of the cost of this last war, in blood and in money! We paid for our share in the new territory won for the Union! And now they deny us any share of it! A little band of ranters, of fanatics, undertake to tell a great country what it shall do, what it shall think,—no matter even if that is against our own interests and against our traditions! Gentlemen, it's invasion, that's what it is, and that's my answer, so far as my honest conscience and all my wisdom go. It's war! What's the next thing to do? Judge, we can take back your girl—the legal right to do that is clean. But we all know that that may be only a beginning."
"To me, sir," ventured Judge Clayton, "the legal side of this is very clear, leaving aside our right to recover my property. They are trying to shove their fanatical beliefs down our throats with rifle barrels. We never used to stand that sort of thing down here. I don't think we will begin it now!"
The Honorable William Jones helped himself to whisky, altogether forgetting his principle of taking but one drink a day. "If them damned abolitionists would only stay at home, we could afford to sit quiet an' let 'em howl; but when they come into our dooryard an' begin to howl, it's time somethin' ought to be did. I 'low we'll have to fight."
"We will fight," said Dunwody slowly and gravely. A faint picture of the possible future was passing before his mind.