“But what if he holds that his duty to the central government is paramount to his duty to his State?” asked Kenrick.
“That I regard as an error,” replied Onslow.
“Then by your own showing,” said Kenrick, “all that you can fairly say is, that your father has erred in judgment,—not that he has been guilty of a base act of treason.”
“No, I didn’t mean that, Charles,—your pardon,” said Onslow, holding out his hand.
Kenrick cordially accepted the proffered apology, and then asked: “May I speak frankly to you, Robert,—speak as I used to in the old times at William and Mary’s?”
“Certainly. Proceed.”
“Your father literally obeyed the Saviour’s injunction. He gave up all he had, to follow where truth led. Convinced that slavery was a wrong, he ruined his fortunes in the attempt to substitute free labor for that of slaves. Through the hostility of the slave interest the experiment failed.”
“I think,” said Onslow, “my father acted unwisely in sacrificing his fortunes to an abstraction.”
“An abstraction! The man who tries to undo a wrong is an abstractionist, is he? What a world this would be if all men would be guilty of similar abstractions. To such a one I would say, ‘Master, lead on, and I will follow thee, to the last gasp, with truth and loyalty!’ Strange! unaccountably strange, that his own son should have deserted him for the filthy flesh-pots of slavery!”
“May not good men differ as to slavery?” asked Onslow.