But in the meantime a marked change came over the Virginian mind with respect to slavery. Many who had always regarded the institution as an inherited evil to be got rid of as soon as that might be safely accomplished, modified or reversed their view when called upon to stand always upon the defensive against what they deemed an unjust judgment of themselves.
Arthur Brent did not share this change of view, but he shared in the feelings of resentment which had given it birth. In common with other Virginians he felt that this was a matter belonging exclusively to the individual states, and still more strongly he felt that the existing political situation and the methods of it gravely menaced the Union in ways which were exceedingly difficult for Southern men who loved the Union to meet. He saw with regret the great change that was coming over public and private sentiment in Virginia—sentiment which had been so strongly favorable to the peaceable extinction of slavery, that John Letcher—a lifelong advocate of emancipation as Virginia’s true policy—had been elected Governor the year before upon that as the only issue of a state campaign.
But Arthur was still bent upon carrying out his purpose of emancipating himself and, incidentally his slaves. And the threatening aspect of political affairs strengthened his determination at any rate to rid both his own estate and Dorothy’s of debt.
“When that is done, we shall be safe, no matter what happens,” he told himself.
To that end he had already done much. In spite of his preöccupation with the fever epidemic he had found time during the autumn to institute many economies in the management of both plantations. He had shipped and sold the large surplus crops of apples and sweet potatoes—a thing wholly unprecedented in that part of Virginia, where no products of the soil except tobacco and wheat were ever turned to money account. He was laughed at for what his neighbors characterized as “Yankee farming,” but both his conscience and his bank account were comforted by the results. In the same way, having a large surplus of corn that year, he had fattened nearly double the usual number of hogs, and was now preparing to sell so much of the bacon as he did not need for plantation uses. In these and other ways he managed to diminish the Wyanoke debt by more than a third and that of Pocahontas by nearly one-half, during his first year as a planter.
“If they don’t quit laughing at me,” he said to Archer Bannister one day, “I’ll sell milk and butter and even eggs next summer. I may conclude to do that anyhow. Those are undignified crops, perhaps, but I’m not sure that they could not be made more profitable than wheat and tobacco.”
“Be careful, Arthur,” answered his friend. “It isn’t safe to make planting too profitable. It is apt to lead to unkindly remark.”
“How so? Isn’t planting a business, like any other?”
“A business, yes, but not like any other. It has a certain dignity to maintain. But I wasn’t thinking of that. I was thinking of Robert Copeland.”
“I wish you’d tell me about him, Archer. What has he done? I observe that everybody seems to shun him—or at least nobody seems quite willing to recognize him as a man in our class, though they tell me his family is fairly good, and personally he seems agreeable. Nobody says anything to his discredit, and yet I observe a general shoulder shrugging whenever his name is mentioned.”