“I deny that a State has any right to secede from the Union! Set up that doctrine, and see where it would end!—in the utter dissolution and death of our country; for if a State has a right to secede from the Union, a country has the same right to secede from a State; and a township to secede from a county; and a farm from a township; and the barn from the farm; and the husband from the wife, and the child from the father!—and there you have disintegration and anarchy! Bosh! preach State’s Rights not to me!”
“Elfie!” answered the Secessionist, hotly, “I am willing to admit your capacity for understanding the construction of a dress or a dinner; but I doubt your ability for comprehending the Constitution of the United States.”
“Gammon! The Constitution of the United States is written in just about the plainest English that I have ever read, and I claim to understand my mother tongue!”
“Elfie, you cannot mean to turn traitor to your native State!” exclaimed Albert Goldsborough.
“No! I do not mean to turn traitor to my native State, or native country, or native farm! or to my pap or to my two unks. In being true to the whole Union, I am true to every part of the Union, and to every citizen thereof.”
“But Virginia is only nominally in the Union. In a very few weeks she will be out of it, by the unanimous voice of her people, heard through their representatives in the Assembly.”
“Fiddle! Virginia go out of the Union by the unanimous voice of her people, indeed! I am one of her people! and I would die before I would utter one syllable in favor of secession! My pap and two unks and a host of our friends are loyal Virginians who would shed the last drop of their blood in defense of this glorious Union of States that makes us one of the mightiest powers among the nations of the earth! And if Virginia is ever voted out of the Union, it will never be by the unanimous voice of her people, or even by the will of the majority of her people!”
“I tell you you are mistaken! Virginia and Maryland, too, will follow the glorious example of their chivalric sister, South Carolina, who——”
“Albert Goldsborough, I am not going to stand here all day long, listening to you; I warn you that Dr. Rosenthal is loyal to his heart’s core; so loyal that he does not suspect and could not understand disloyalty in any man! He is as innocent now as I was an hour ago of the plots going on under his own roof. If he knew of them he would denounce them instantly!”
“What! is not Dr. Rosenthal a Secessionist?” demanded Albert, in consternation.